Below is my essay for Topic A for applytexas, I feel as though I loose the focus of the essay somewhere in the middle so please let me know your take on that issue. I appreciate any comments or criticism.
Topic A
Prompt: What was the environment you were raised in? Describe your family, home, neighborhood, or community, and explain how it has shaped you as a person. (650)
Denial psychologically is defined as a defense mechanism used to avoid and ignore the existence or a problem to reality. Personally, I think denial is genetic and definitely runs in my family. Since 2011 when my father was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder and paranoia, he was in denial that he was society deemed mentally ill or insane. Similarly, my mother was in the denial that the man she married had become a drastically different person from the man she loved. My father's mental illness is what tore our family apart and most importantly it tore me apart in the most gruesomest ways.
Part of my father's denial about his mental health led him to refuse medication and treatment. My father's refusal towards treatment placed a burden on my family, my homelife had quickly began to resemble a minefield, his volatile temperament paired with his mental illnesses were even more unpredictable than before. The smallest actions could trigger a volcanic eruption, thus my the need to be overly cautious and silent became ever so significant.
About a year or so after my father's diagnoses my mother had pulled me to the side after dinner and laid the rule of the house: "what happens at home stays at home". This is the mentality that I live with till today, from age of eleven till now I mastered the art of hiding my father's unusual behavior from family and friends. My mother and I even had codes to use when my father's illness would spiral out of control in public. For example, the word "duck" was our own version of "code red" it stood for something along the lines of "we need to hightail back home".
Amongst the turmoil and atrocities that occurred behind closed doors of my home, I found solace in my younger brother, by six years, his innocence and obviousnesses to the cruelties of my home amazed me. Spending time with my only sibling helped to make my father more tolerable. Growing up throughout middle and high school I wasn't aloud to have any friends at home due to my father's mental volatility. Homework was done under a flashlight in closets
It was around the summer of 2014 when my father's paranoia and bipolar mood had reached an all time high; this was partially due to the fact that my brother and I had visibly shifted towards my mother for support and comfort. This in turn incited a deep seated fear my father had that his children had slowly begun to hate him; as a result, every family dinner resulted in broken plates and vulgar words thrown at my mother and I. My mother in the span of three years had gone from the loving caring wife to a child stealer, my father was convinced we would leave him, and my mother would file for divorce. It was around this time I had been completely cut off from the outside world: no friends, and no outings except from school. My neighbors had begun to be suspicious and concerned my father's yelling was soon being heard around the neighborhood, my mother was gossiped about at dinner parties. This is part of the reason for our move to Texas, in retrospect we needed a fresh start, in reality our dirty laundry had been aired to all of our neighborhood in New Jersey. When the moving first began my parents decided it was best for me to move with my father before the start of the school year, so that i did not have to move in the middle of the school year. My father and I thus had to live in a small apartment by ourselves for the first four months in Texas. My ability to adapt lead me to quickly take on the adult role in the apartment. When my father's moods reached an all time low I would have to call in sick for work for him, it was jobs like these that have made me who I am today.
While, I suffered from a low self esteem and mild depression as a result, my father's mental illness has a played a significant role in my own character shaping. I've matured at an early age, and I've developed a thick skin, I've become an open minded individual; who can navigate through adversities by adapting to hardships. Although, I don't agree with the decisions my mother made, concerning my father's mental health, it has aided in shaping my ability to interact with individuals of all backgrounds. My years of isolation has fueled my ever growing curiosity for the outside world. College is my escape from home, one that I'm looking forward to every day.
Holt Educational Consultant - / 14,835 
4783 Aisha, the reason why you got lost in the middle part of the essay is because you tried to explain too many aspects of your background at once. In writing any effective statement, it is always best that you choose the most important topic for you to concentrate on discussing. This means choosing the 2 most closely related parts of your background to portray in the essay. So in this case, it would have to be your father's disorder and how it affected your family. Leave the community out of it.
Try to focus on the direct relation of the incidents to your development as a person. You can revise the introduction to start with the fact that you had to move homes because of his disorder. You don't really need to define the disorder for the reader. The real center of the story is how you had to move homes because of the bipolar problem. Your story is interesting and engaging to tell. Work on tightening it and making sure that the focus does not move from you as the center of the story. Be sure that you present how this experience helped shape the person you have become by explaining the lessons you learned from the experience. That is what the reader would like to learn more about towards the end of the story.
