Q: If you were to write the story of your life until now, what would you title it? Why? (400-600 words).
Once The 'Me' Fought Its Way Out
Let's go back to the worst of it: the window, the clouds outside, the locked door, my mother knocking while my tears fell, searing against the radiator in the dead of winter. Therapy? What was it good for? Sedatives and antidepressants: what did they do? They numbed the pain. Would I gain anything from the pills: pill after pill after pill? But how much longer could I live thinking with such unrest? When would I just scream? Now, I was crying, but suicide soon? Maybe. The rain didn't help either. Nor did living in suburban New Jersey. But this has become commonplace in neighborhoods such as mine, no? Privileged adolescents grasping at the air for help, even-you can picture the prescription bottles being knocked over, spilling drugs to the floor, clickedy-clack go Xanax and Zoloft capsules. Again, it was that grim. I was pondering a life without this anguish; I was pondering ending it.
Not only did I seek a remedy to cope with this psychological distress, but also did I thirst for the what, why and how of it. I didn't want to relieve the pain any more than I wanted to understand the pain's inner-makings and complexities. What I felt? "It" (which I will continue to refer to my "case" as) will forever go without a diagnosis. Tell me, if institutionally-trained physicians and psychoanalysts galore appear dumbfounded after describing to them furious trains of clashing ideology roaming in chaos in my burning head as reoccurring sensations, then would YOU grasp my experience? Probably not, but would I stop pursuing an explanation for myself? No. I didn't stop.
With that refusal, came an epic dig. I began digging from the outside-in. I dug for some perspective. I dug for my identity trapped within. The apprehension and trepidation that leached to my mental grief and hindered my self-expression began shedding itself the more I exposed my vulnerability and weakness. True to its derivation, once you strip yourself of everything-once you've given into your fears totally-you learn the most about yourself. The "me" was finally in the reach. With an ultimate vulnerability, came my ultimate self-realization. What did I have to hide anymore from a judgmental and discerning audience?
The person (the A.J. that hand-shaking strangers meet and interact with initially) in which the 'me' had been carried in-an obsessively worried, paranoid and confused persona that attempted to fit into modern society-had finally been vanquished allowing the real "ME" to emerge. The me was burying "ME, "and I lived with it, until I started suffocating in the anxiety and paranoia that consumed my day-to-day existence. The "me" struggled to surface, but eventually the "me" emerged in I, and in whom I flourish today.
Yes, quite a transformation it was. But oh how this transformation took years of my life: dedicated and determined years. The transformation took the energy and informed opinion of countless doctor's, my mother's unwillingness to allow her son this discomfort and my willingness to be embarrassed; to be analyzed and critiqued; to be put down and to be mentally drained and drugged and flip it into a building process: to build a confidence in this person I just recently met for this first time.
And this person walked away from adversity appreciative of the experience: thanking a higher power that "it" happened because without it's harsh timeliness when would have the "me" broken through. The experience has made me all too content in my own skin. This "over-complacency" has me hailing words of criticism and concern onto anything I see or hear as objectionable. I have been called "brutally honest and hurtful" in my writing for a blog. But there is an underlying beauty in this, being that my outspokenness is testament to my new profound self-understanding and self-assurance. So once the "me" fought its way out, I am loud and real and unyielding in expressing my creative ideas. This is my life, now: loud, real, inspired and artful.
-Any criticism would be helpful. Thanks.
The transformation you describe reminds me of something Eckhart Tolle wrote in the intro to the Power of Now -- something about a similar transformation that maybe will resonate with you if you read it.
I think the title is good but that you might come up with something even better if you look at it again later -- the Me had to more than fight it's way out.
The descriptions are excellent; the particular kind of anguish you write about it something that maybe involves parents preoccupied with their careers? Your descriptions are great, and this accomplish something a lot of admission essays don't, which is to actually be good, high-quality writing that is enjoyable for the average person to read. But in what other ways can you be impressive as you try to present yourself well? Can you add a new dimension to this by incorporating discussion of the career that you envision now that the Me has emerged? It is impressive to have a clear vision for the future.
:-)
