<p>Okay, this is my first essay out of three. It is 727 words and it is for TAMU. I am really stressing about these. </p>
<p>The topic is: Describe a setting in which you have collaborated or interacted with people whose experiences and/or beliefs differ from yours. Address your initial feelings, and how those feelings were or were not changed by this experience</p>
<p>And here is what I have so far, I know there is some editing still needed, but is it too long? </p>
<p>I would not say that I lived in a broken home were everybody hates one another, but rather that I lived in a house of ignorance. Growing up, my brother had struggled with sobriety causing my mother was always upset, and my father to feel out of control. The oldest son was no longer at home and I was the youngest. I witnessed my house being the center stage for drama. It was normal for a domestic dispute to erupt at least once a week, and every now and then it would require police intervention.
The first few explosive arguments involved me sitting on the stairs and witnessing my mother red faced and crying as my brother swung at my father. The shock of the situation left me in a daze, I was in elementary school, and could not even comprehend the events taking place in front of me. All that I did know was that my parents had never hit us, nor were they abusive ever, it was the loss of control of my 16-year-old brother that brought out the violence.
Andy had classic middle child syndrome, and he was never successful. He failed at nearly everything, not because he wasnt brilliant, but because he always had to ruin himself. He suffered from clinical depression and self medicated himself with whatever he could get his hands on. If he got a hold of some pot he would smoke it and he wouldnt bother to hide the evidence. He would take mushrooms, and tabs. He would even steal my parents prescriptions. He was sick. He was and addict.
As a member of our family we would try to help him, but he would find a way to feed his demons somehow. As time went of, his problem escalated and home drama increased. The nights would end with me upset and my family. When I was younger I had no way of understanding what was going on. All I knew was they was yelling, a few things would go flying, causing mom to cry, then I would be told to call 911. I think now about how horrible it all was. Me being 11, being ordered to get her brother arrested. Something about that just seems wrong.
We would go through these cycles of kicking the boy out for a few days, but he would get hungry and come back home. Stuff would go missing and he would be blazed out of his mind. We would get him to go to rehab, and he would get kicked out. He would come home and cause pure Hell. I would always argue against him returning to out home, but my mother wanted to fix him. In my eyes he was unfixable, he was a shattered human and nothing would ever change, and she was to naive to see that. This cycle was never ending; it was our way of life.
As the years went on I would just go to my room to avoid the conflict. I knew things were never going to change. I guess I just decided this was no longer worth my time. I had better things to do than to revolve my life around the same old drama. A few times I would brake out of my domicile to try and mediate the disputes with logic and reasoning, but with me being the younger sibling, my opinions would be discarded. My voice didnt matter among the screaming.
I finally stopped trying to fix the situation. He refused for anyone to help him, so why would I waste my time and my energy just to cause myself heartache. Even if he was my brother, I was no longer going to allow him to ruin my life. I had more important things to focus all my time and energy on. I would walk away for the fights my brother and parents would engage in and retreat to my room where I put my focus into my education and into art. I refrain from being angry at my family for all the disrupted moments. Soon I learned to not to care about certain things and to not waste my time and energy on something that has no hope of changing. Perhaps one day my parents will do the same and free themselves from the cycle of the addict.</p>