The college essay wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they’ve faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding. The college essay, dear reader, should be banned and banished and burned to the ground.
This is the heart of it. I don’t know what else you’re going on about, but but yes - this is the problem
You can be both. You can go through abusive experiences and decide they’re normal - and vice versa. You can be both a victim and a predator… To insist otherwise is fucking brain dead