One of the college application essay prompts was “what is the biggest obstacle in your life and how did you overcome it?”

I decided to write about anxiety. It seemed only appropriate. It is my biggest obstacle, the mother of almost every other obstacle. 

My academic advisor I think inadvertedly triggered me when she said that the essay topic was “not appropriate”. First off, she obviously hadn’t even read it because she kept saying “you shouldn’t talk about topics like depression....” “depression is too direct...” and then she was criticizing how I’d said it started it 5th grade. What? Is the truth of how my problem progressed too much?

No, I know she had valid reasons and critiques. But all I could feel was invalidation and this horrid asian mindset setting in. Mental disease is weakness. And I was angry. 

She suggested I write about something else like my workload. Which would be a blatant lie because the only reason it’s so bad is because of my anxiety. I’m not playing into those college people’s hands like that. I’m not tailoring myself to what THEY want. 

No no no, I’m mad. 

Okay, but let’s present the other side, because I don’t want to present a biased view of what happened. After she saw I was very serious about the topic she amended herself and said we could go with it. Just that I should present it differently and write about how I’d overcome the problem and not the problem itself- how it’s made me into a better person. Which I grudgingly admit I can do, though it still has that slight smell of self-tailoring and deceit. It’s not all flowers and rainbows and “positive presentation”, as she says it. She does only want the best for me. Just... nasty Asian mindset. My mom even apologized for my anger when it happened, apologized that I have “very strong views”, then they kind of just talked over what was happening, roiling feelings in my head. I’m not apologizing. 

I don’t want to lie because the college admissions office might think I’m somehow worse for their school because of my anxiety. My grades prove otherwise. My extracurriculars prove otherwise. My scores prove otherwise. My life proves otherwise. I’m strong despite this. I refuse to let it pull me down. I’m not a sufferer of anxiety. I’m someone great who happens to have anxiety. It’s fucking bullshit she wants me to pull it out. Am I weak like that? She thinks one essay like that can undermine the rest of me? 

I’m writing about her initial critiques though. She did change them and say I could write about anxiety but present it differently. In summary I’m mad about something that’s not really relevant anymore. Still, it’s annoying. But it would be better now to let it go.

Well, I’m also annoyed about how guilty I felt about being angry, how the atmosphere changed when I did. It’s as if the worst possible thing to do in an Asian household/environment is to lose your cool and make yourself look bad. So you have to grin and bear it and make everything seem pleasant and cheery. I was supposed to apologize, but I didn’t. Suck on that, Asian culture. 

We’ll see how I feel about this in a couple days. Sigh...