I can still remember, maybe when I was five or six years old, the bickering scene of my parents. At the time I was too young to really know what was going on. As I grew older I generally accepted it as the everyday custom of my home, and downplayed it again and again. You’re now probably wondering why it stays in my memory, or perhaps what it’s doing in my college essay. I eventually came to the conclusion that a sob story would be the best way into the heart of a college admissions counselor.

It all came crashing down in high school. I suppose you could say this is where I’ve learned to struggle and grow; the time when going home everyday meant a fight with my father. The first time he hit me was when I was five. It never ceased from there no matter how many therapists or doctors I went to for the pain; knowing that a diagnosis of depression was coming after the first few weeks of talking, had dismembered any rational thought of who I was. I carried out with my own drugs, my own sense of leisure by abusing myself and body. The loss of appetite that now humbled me to an extreme of nearly 120 pounds left me limp and frail.

My mother saw this and together we traveled to where she was born to escape my father. I spent the next month in Chile while my parents worked their problems out. The country was kind o me but it left me feeling out of place and lonely. We would return shortly thereafter.

Life went on for years like this and even when I felt as though it was time for me to switch paths, I was sacrificed for the greater good of the family. Hushed away to keep the Duff name gleaming and twinkling beneath the sun. I recall looking in the bathroom mirror every morning, with the same gaunt and stressed face I’d seen for months on end reflected back at me. It was time to sit down and call to mind who I really was.

I found a nitch in school with politics or student council, whatever you’d like to call it. Slowly I began transitioning myself for a run in the government of the school. After two burdening campaigns, I rode the trail of broken memories to become the president of over 2500 students. I’ve now learned to carry my battle scars on my back, where they belong behind me. I looked forward, let the sun shine upon my face and gave thanks to the power above me. My life was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to drudge through.