Personal Essay

<p>Hey Guys, I would like feedback for this personal essay.
Please and thank you!</p>

<pre><code>“Just look at the bullet, everything will be fine. It’s almost over”. I tried to stop my hand from shaking as I watched the bullet enter the chamber of the gun. The click of the magazine entering its final stages of loading was over. All there was left was me, a barrel, and a foot of air separating me and the ultimate end. “I wonder what mom and dad will think when they see my brains all over the wall? Will they be sad to see me gone?” I closed my eyes to imagine what the bathroom would look like in a minute. I felt the cold metal trigger press against my finger, tempting me to finish pulling it. A final thought went through my head. “How did it ever get to this point?”

“Stop moving Justin. Damn it, I said stand till!” my father yelled as he brandished his newly discover bark stick that he has found in the street. “Do what your father says” my mother said as she held my body over a couch and pulled down my pants to expose my 7 year old bottom. It would quickly turn red and swollen as my father would turn a simple bark stick into a torturers tool. I cried out in pain as the thorns on the bark cut deeper and deeper into my body but no amount of tears flowing from my puffy face would make him stop. I turn to see my mother’s sad face as she helplessly watch my father have his way with me. But this case was different. My mind began shutting down and I felt myself suddenly pulled away. When a child is being abused, his or her mind will revert back behind a mental barrier where the pain being inflicted upon them is minimized. A sense of escaping reality would ensue and the child feels left alone in their own personalized world. This was the first time my mind reverted back to behind this mental barrier. In my case, it was a cold, dimly lit room. The walls were plain white and peppered with bumps. It was quiet room in which I couldn’t move nor did I want to. Inside this room I felt like nothing could reach me. I was alone, I was safe.

  As soon as it started, the hitting stopped. “Let that be a lesson never to leave the toilet seat up again” my father said sternly. I nodded to him and then pulled up my pants before I dashed for the stairs and into my bedroom. I ran in and crashed on the bed. My young mind could not understand what has just happened. This was the first time I had with-drawled into this cold and empty room. My head was spinning and nothing made sense. “Am I going crazy?” My focus quickly changed to pain caused by the cuts from the thorns. I tried to mute the sound of my crying by holding a pillow to my face. This story would repeat for years with each case escalading into another more violent and painful episode. But from this day on, the tables had turned. I now had a way to fight back.


  “Alright class, we are going to have a guest speaker with us. His name is Eric Sanders and he is going to be teaching us a very important lesson today” said Mrs. Camfield, my 6th grade teacher. “It’s going to start in about 10 minutes so let’s get ready to go!” I was shocked about this announcement; I didn’t know there was going to be a guest speaker today! The children of my 6th grade class were rushed from our outdoor classroom and into the tiny school auditorium. I remember a rush of tiny children flooding onto the floor. “It’s a good thing we remember our seats huh?” said Kyle, a friend I quickly bonded with when I first moved to Monta Vista Elementary School. Suddenly the lights dimmed and a tall slim man walked onto stage. “How is it going everybody? My name is Eric and I’m here to talk to you all about a very important issue regarding safety. Now how many of you care about your safety? I’m so happy to see all of you raised your hands! That’s very important because today we are going to talk about a very important issue called Child Abuse. See, Child Abuse is when someone hurts you, either emotionally or physically. This hurt isn’t like falling and getting a cut but when someone hurt you purposefully. Their goal is to make you feel bad and make them feel better”. 

My mind was trying to wrap around what I had just heard. I turned to my knees and sure enough they were still bruised from having to sit on them for an hour yesterday as a punishment for not cleaning my bed.  “What is this man saying? Is what my father doing wrong?” I asked myself. Suddenly time had stopped. “Can this be true? Am I the only one suffering?” I thought. As the stranger continued his lecture I felt my body fall through the floor. The plastic tiles could no long handle how heavy my heart had become. While falling, my mind began to rework the understanding of my situation. Before I naturally had assumed that everybody else’s parents were just like mine. I assumed their fathers were just as abusive and cruel to them as mine was to me. That always somehow gave me comfort in knowing that I wasn’t the only one going through all this. But it all now felt like a cruel joke, like someone telling a funny story and then turning to tell you that your sister just died. I had never felt so alone in my life.

Eric’s last words in the presentations were “If you are being abused, there is hope. We can help you. Please, you just need to call us”. As the assembly was ending, I received a card from Mrs. Camfield as she was handing a copy to everyone. I remembered thinking “Is this the key to saving me?” I glared over the card and kept thinking, “Do I call? If so, what will happen?” When I got home I sat at my desk and set the card and a phone next to each other in front of me. The possible repercussions of this call kept spinning through my head. Are they going to take dad away? Will mommy become depressed again? How are we going to support ourselves if daddy is taken away? Will we become homeless again? Was this worth it? My 6th grade mind came to the conclusion that it wasn’t. I remembered thinking “Nothing will ever change; nothing can ever change this situation for the better. Someone I care about will always suffer.” I ended my thoughts by tearing the card and putting the phone back. From that moment on I began experiencing as a 6th grader what most people will never experience in their lives. I began to seriously ask myself “Was this life worth living?”

I looked down at my cell phone to see that I had just received a text message. “I’ll be there in 5 minutes – Dad” I quickly shot off a speedy reply “ok - Justin”. I moved to sit down on a bench besides the parking terrace and looked upwards towards the sky. It was cloudless day and the branches with its tiny green leaves were shielded me from the glowing sun. I found myself smiling, sunny days were always the best. My father’s car quickly pulled up and parked in front of me. “Let me get that” he said as he got out of the car and opened the door for me. I hopped over to the car and handed him the crutches for him to put in the back. I eased my boot into the car and sat myself down. He shut the door and we began driving to the hospital. “So Justin, how’s college?” my father asked. “It’s going well actually. I finally get to take classes that actually matter to me. The people seem nice and the housing is pretty slick.” I replied “Oh and the ladies are fine!” I quickly added. Both of us quietly chuckled as the car moved towards the hospital. “So is the left ankle doing any better” He asked “It’s doing better, I can put some weight on it now but I’m still going to crutch for a while” I replied. The car pulled up to the orthopedic center and we both went inside to meet up with Dr. Lyons. As my father was talking to the receptionist I looked observed him in great detail. He was a skinny man with dark tan skin. Standing around 5 inches shorter than me, I remembered thinking I could quite easily attack and hurt him if I wanted to. “Was this the man who tortured the first 15 years of my life?”

  He turned to me to indicate he was done with paying the deductible so I noticed how tired and aged his face was. This was not the same man I remembered all those years ago.  We went over to a nearby couch to wait for the doctor to call for us. My father slumped in the couch and began to take a nap. I didn’t blame him for being tired, this was his 4th trip in a week in which I had to see the doctor thanks to my fractured ankle. I didn’t have a car to drive myself to the hospital so my father drove from over an hour away to pick me up and get me the medical attention I needed. It dawned on me how much has changed over the years between me and him. In that moment I felt the past letting go, it was one of the most calming feelings in my life. I turned to tell him, “I love you Dad, thanks”. He didn’t respond. Of course it wasn’t a surprise. My father doesn’t talk in his sleep.

I never held a gun in my hand at any time in my life. In fact my family has never owned a weapon. Rather the whole first paragraph was how I’ve always pictured my suicide during the lowest moment of those tumultuous 15 years. Depressions and sadness are such horrible emotions. They engulf your thoughts and actions. Words like “Joy” and “Happiness” are eliminated from your lexicon. During this time, when I saw happiness in others, I was just reminded how different I was. But, throughout this whole ordeal, I have always had a light at the back of every sad and suicidal thought. There is always the future, there is always tomorrow, and there will come a day when I can look back and reflect rather than cry. No matter how bad things seem, you have to keep on living. You have so much more to do. It is this view that has kept me moving forward for all these years and why I now find myself in college.

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<p>No matter what, there’s always a brighter future out there. You just have to keep on moving.</p>

<p>Hey just some words of advice, you might want to take down your essay and then ask people if they’ll read it. Not because this is a bad essay but because there are some out there who will or might take this essay and label it as their own. </p>

<p>Just some advice =)</p>

<p>great opening. but seriously shorten it…
i got bored halfway simply because it was too long
umm doesn’t reveal enough about you
too much negativity… how are u different now?</p>

<p>If I throw a ball up in the air and someone drops a ball from the same height is the final velocity before the ball hits the ground? The initial velocity is the same for both balls. Please solve in terms of variables only.</p>

<p>It was pretty good actually, but you need to reveal how you are now. What you have right now is like a pity story</p>

<p>Going along with what everyone else has said…</p>

<p>Although this is an interesting topic and I know it’s made a big difference in your life…it might not be the best for college…Not to say that they expect everyone to be upbeat and perky…but one of the biggest no-nos in an essay is showing any signs of depression or suicidal tendencies…</p>

<p>Even though you have changed and everything…it might scare the admission boards…</p>