<p>For my essay about bringing diversity to Rice, I plan to write about how as I child, I was abused and neglected then sexually assaulted which led to me being removed from my mother's home and then placed with my grandmother in a rural town. When I was 16 and junior, she had a stroke and died which then caused me to move from OH to GA with my father. I plan to write how I overcame ALL that and have used it to be an aid in my ministry and not let that stop me but propel me but I honestly dont know how to start.
I dont want it to be a tear jerker or cause them to "pity" me but I want to show them my strength, perseverance, and determination.</p>
<p>Any advice??</p>
<p>Seriously, I think you'd have to be a professional writer to write that story without inspiring any pity.</p>
<p>I really don't know how I should start. I was thinking something like
Imagine a boy
without hope
shrouded in fear
knowing darkness as his only friend
blah de blah de blah
I am that boy. When I was younger... (idk)</p>
<p>I mean, how can you just start out saying something like that you know?</p>
<p>Whether or not you elicit "pity" depends on whoevers reading it really. Reading your description, pity seems unavoidable but isn't a really bad thing, especially if it reveals who YOU are.</p>
<p>Its your tone that matters I believe. If you aren't intentionally searching out for pity, it will show in a mature, optimistic tone. You can start with a description of yourself in the present, after you persevered through the struggles, and then at the end of the first paragraph be like "I wish my grandmother can see me now, it was hard to imagine years earlier I had been raped, etc." Only an idea :)</p>