I've delayed the application by a few days now because I keep hesitating when I come to this section. I know I want to talk about my relationship with my mom, which has been the defining challenge of my life, but I don't know how. I don't know how personal to get. I'm afraid that you’ll be bored or made uncomfortable by how much I've written, even though it means a lot to me -- to write things I could never say in person.

So the bare facts: I was born in China. My mother remarried when I was six years old and brought us to Canada to be with my stepfather, Mike. Neither of them could find a job. As if on a timer, every year that passed meant moving into a smaller apartment, until we were living in a one-bedroom using my mother’s student loans. My mom and stepfather had divorced by then, but he came around daily to take care of me, because she wouldn't.

It took me a while to realize there was reason for it - a reason why we were getting poorer and dirtier, and why my mom didn't seem to love me anymore, or ever look at me. There was something wrong with her. She got hospitalized for public breakdowns. She spent over six hours everyday praying by the window. She heard voices and she wouldn’t shut up about about the government - classic paranoid schizophrenia.

I was afraid of her but I didn't hate her yet. Life was still functional because of Mike, who brought me chocolate bars, took me to Santa Claus parades, and helped me with my homework. I loved him so much because he was all I felt I had, and it hurt me most when my mother shouted at him about being a spy or a murderer. I would cry and beg for her to stop because I was afraid that, one day, he wouldn't be able to stand it anymore. And I was right. One day, he slammed his way out the door and never came back.

Things went drastically downhill after that, when it was just my mother and me. There was no buffer between us anymore. She got worse and I got old enough to resent instead of fear her. She would beat me while asking where they put her real daughter. She would lock me out. One night, she forced her fingers into me to try and see if my hymen was still intact. And yet all this I bore stoically because, in my mind, she’d already done her worst. She had made Mike leave. I called his cellphone every day for months, just sick with the hope of hearing his voice - when she got tired of that, she ripped the phone cord out of the wall and tried to smash the receiver. It was the one time I went into hysterics, thinking that might’ve been the moment he chose to finally call.

I’m going into these details to try and impress on you how absolutely and chokingly I felt I hated her. It came from a place of deep despair. Sixth grade was the year she decided it was not safe to go out into the public anymore, so she locked me inside the apartment from December to July, away from school and all human contact. She would shake me back and forth, trying to get me to understand how it was us versus the world, and I’d only tell her, “There is no us - you’re all alone. Do you understand that? I hate you - I HATE you. You’ve taken everything from me and I will always hate you.” I said the words slowly and clearly, trying to reach her past the crazy glaze of her eyes. I wanted her to feel as alone as I did.

So it’s no surprise that, when the York security guards broke down the door with CAS workers in tow, I left peacefully. I stood in the hallway waiting for the elevator down with two plastic bags of clothes and tried not to watch the guards wrestle with my screaming, struggling mother. She was screaming for me - reaching a hand out in my direction like all I had to do was grab on. I looked at the hand and was surprised that I wanted to cry.

As lonely as it first was, I knew from the beginning that Children’s Aid had rescued me. I’m grateful for the stability and opportunities I got to experience in foster care. I was thrilled every time I did something that made me feel normal. I studied my butt off in my high school’s I.B. program, volunteered as a math tutor and sailing instructor, went camping every summer, worked as piano teacher, and got my first boyfriend. I grew into someone defined by more than her trauma, and slowly, unwillingly, I began to forgive my mother.

We had visits every month. Though she still refused treatment, we could pull off relatively normal lunches by steering the conversation away from her paranoias. But that meant talking about other, normal things — something I realized we hadn’t done since I was seven. Literally. I didn’t remember ever asking her how her day went before, or what her opinion was on something. What her favourite colour was. It forced to me to see her as another human, instead of the horrible monster in the bedroom. And once I began to see her as a woman who used to have favourite colours and songs and hopes and dreams - I began to understand it was not her fault, for no human would choose to become such a wretched shadow of themselves. I was no longer suffering and it gave me the power to recognize that she still was. Her hair was whiter at forty than it had any right to be. She was schizophrenic, bankrupt, unemployed and alone, with her daughter torn away from her. A daughter she believed hated her.

It really upset me. It upset me when I saw how much she thought about me and cherished our visits. It hurt knowing the one person who loved me most in the world was also the sorriest, most unfortunate person I knew. I didn’t want to care about her - that would only lead to worry and grief when I couldn’t help her anymore than she could help herself.

High school passed and I moved away from Toronto. I had been accepted as an Ivey HBA into the University of Western’s business program. By the end of that first year, I knew I wanted to enter the animation industry instead. I transferred to Sheridan and began preparing my portfolio to enter Sheridan’s animation program for the following year. However, several things were happening in succession that to led to a choice.