yellow rose

Identity

Who am I? A question I have been asking myself for years and some days I feel like I know the answer and other days I feel like I am still trying to understand who I am. My identity from when I was young felt like it was told to me. As a child, people called me “Black” when in reality I am multiracial. Due to people only wanting to identity me as monoracial instead of multiracial, I felt like I had to act, speak, carry myself, and personally, had to be a stereotypically a black individual. I think about this and I feel sad that I allowed these people to have such an influence in my life.

Another part of my identity when I was younger was being a woman. I felt like the people around me wore old-fashioned clothing and believed that a woman should be married at a young age, cook, clean, and just please the man in her life. In this way, I remember at a young age just learning how to cook and clean and wondering why no young boys were being taught this and it was only the females learning this.

My identity at the time was consistent with what people around me believed it should be. I remember feeling so confident at the time because I thought that because I was what people told me to be that I was doing the right thing. But was I really? In reality I was just people pleasing. I was just doing what I was told to be.

Once I got older and started hanging out with other people and began to become more active on social media, I realized now that most of these people were racist and sexist. That I was my own person. I should be who I wanted to be. I didn’t have to please them just because I knew them. I got old enough and I cut these people out of my life. Yet in a unique way these people are still interested in my life. I don’t understand why I let these people have so much influence on my identity when I was younger.

Now, I am slowly undoing what I heard, believed, and perceived myself as from all those years of listening to these people. I have to forgive them and let them go. I think now, as I am learning who am I and what I want to be known as is somewhat like a journey I am on. I know that as I undo and learn who I am, I will start feeling more confident in myself and stop letting the whisper and voices of others enter my mind and have control of who I am. This is my identity, and I will choose who I identify as.

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Whatever life takes you, just enjoy your life. Think positive and be positive.

–Always look to the rising sky

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About the author

I hope you enjoy reading my blog and this journey through my headphonesthoughts each day.

Comments

  1. It is I think a common issue when growing up in a family that does not encourage you to have a strong personality or when parents are too judgemental with your actions and decisions to feel this way. I also spent years of my life trying to please others and forgetting about my needs and desires. To finaly find your true identity is a life goal. I am glad you found it and shared this post with us! Thank you!

  2. Thank you for sharing part of your story. I think it is great that you are learning to move to the beat of your own drum. The journey of answering who you are can take a lifetime, but let the answer be your truth.

  3. Life is always full of discoveries! Glad you are taking your own path and didnt follow the voice around you.

  4. Such a good point about how boys aren’t taught the same things growing up as girls – girls play house and boys are discouraged from doing so because that makes them “feminine.”

  5. Because of the racist abuse I endured growing up, I had an identity crisis. I spent most my childhood wishing I was white so I’d be accepted and the bulling would stop. As a result of this, I was emotionally messed up and suicidal until my twenties when I was finally ok with being black

  6. I found this really insightful. Its great that you’ve thought about what you want and what kind of life you want and are making changes to achieve that.

  7. Hello, I really enjoyed this piece. I always find your work so eye opening. Life is all about discovering who we are and filtering the negative people out and it sounds like you’re doing a great job of that. Alicia

  8. I’m so glad you spoke about being multiracial. I’m biracial and I also had an identity crisis because people always wanted me to pick a side. I was never Spanish enough because I can’t speak Spanish, but I was also never black enough because I have fair skin. It sucked.

  9. Thank you for opening up and sharing. I’m glad to hear that you’re undoing those perceptions put on you by other people. The journey of learning who you are and becoming the best you is so so worth it, I agree, we choose who we are.

  10. Yes!! Good for you, I’m so glad to hear you’re on the path to figuring out all you truly are. I think we all grow up with these stereotypes conditioned into us so when we get older we have to unlearn everything that has been taught x

  11. I love that you have shared this. So many people struggle with the identity that society forces upon them based on their gender, race, religion, etc. We don’t even realize growing up that we are literally being trained to think that way, trying to ‘fit in’ to the box that society has placed us in. The first step to letting that go and discovering your true self is being able to identify it and your post is going to help so many people do just that.

  12. Aww.. I’m sorry you had to go through those things. Those situations def. molded you into who you are today. Thank you for sharing.

  13. Finding out who we are can be a hard journey. Especially if you had such negative comments in a young age. I think the first step should be the one you started implementing in your life: Not giving a **** about what everyone thinks about you. I hope you will find yourself eventually, wish you the best! Thank you for sharing!

  14. It’s so important to find out who you are! Mine was clouded for most of my teenage years by other people and mental health issues, but I think I’ve finally figured out who I am x

  15. Good for you, it’s so hard to block out and reverse many years worth of other people’s perceptions but I’m glad to hear you’ve done it 😍

  16. Wow this is ayet another amazing post. And yeah your identity is soo fluid. And what’s so craze I realized we all want to be seen as fluid. Like I am who I am in a certain passage of time, but people will box you. It’s so freeing you’ve seen you’re more than those labels and thank you for sharing with other women who WILL need to hear this

  17. Unlearning some of the stuff learned through life can be really hard and have many questions attached to it. Other people’s perceptions can cloud so much and actually cause a lot of pain so I celebrate you for forging your own path and letting go of anything that does not reflect who you are. Thank you for sharing this!

  18. I particularly loved when you ended with the words “I will choose who I identify as.” I firmly believe that it is up to the individual to decide who they should identify as. It is our right to identify however we wish.

  19. It really takes time to distance yourself from what society has been feeding us from the beginning. I am so glad you are trying to overcome it and becoming the version that you want. Cheers to that.

  20. Interesting post. It’s a shame that theres a common theme with people being brought up a certain way and having to unlearn the things they were taught as normal!

    Corinne x

  21. I can relate to this post very much because it is what I have dealt with as a biracial person. it is hard but as you very wisely said what matters is that identification is your choice. people may label you as something because of their perceptions… but we should just ignore it. it doesn’t matter. and it shouldn’t matter
    what should matter is who we are. and how we feel about ourselves.

    but society won’t let us do that. society is still intent on identifying us which does affect how we ultimately view ourselves. it is a vicious 2 way cycle. and one im trying to figure out myself

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