At What Point In Your Life Did You Decide To Stray Away

When I was in 5th grade, I was bullied. This one girl picked on me every single day. She told me I was fat even though I was really skinny. She called me ugly. She told me I shouldn’t be friends with my best friends because they were taller, richer and prettier than me. She said that I couldn’t dance because I was cuban. She told me I was stupid and that I should be in special ed. I held it in for half of fifth grade. One day, I bawled for two and a half hours. I was home with my dad who was working in his office and when my mom got home

After years of harassment, I concluded that the only way to end this torment was to change myself. I deepened my voice and regulated my actions, concealing the qualities that made me, me. For a while, it worked; the bullying had ceased, and I eventually fit in. However, after eighth grade, after I had finally managed to

Who I am? Personally, I believe that a person’s identity can take only one of two routes. One, a person’s identity can change within that person’s life. Who I am now, is not necessarily who I was when I was younger. Experience can and will likely modify our identities. Therefore, experience can solidify our personal identification or it can weaken our personal identification. And as such, individuals and their perspectives are always evolving, or at the very least, they should evolve over time. Although there are some identities that evolve throughout one’s lifetime; there are some identities that remain consistent. Two, some identities cannot and will not change. So identities are socially and/or politically forces upon you, some identities are genetically assigned to you, and some you choose to keep. No matter the reason or reasons, these identities have been and will be consist within your lifespan. But, how you deal with them is up to you as an individual.

As an elementary school student, I did not have many friends. I had not been with my classmates since preschool, so I was an outsider from the start. Being so young and ignorant, I did not really see that I was bullied, disliked, and unwanted, however, as I became more mature I realized that these people I would spend 8 years of my life with looked for anything to nitpick, from my rupunzelesque hair to my love for drawing. Come middle school, I finally and completely understood the animosity, and still sat alone at lunch, worked alone in class, replied with silence to their words, and when I was even assaulted I did nothing more but shrug it off and try to ignore it. However, when I would come home in the evenings I would retreat to my bedroom where it would all hit me at once. The anguish led to rivers of tears, insomnia, low grades, a refusal to leave my home, and eventually even suicidal tendencies. My drawings became graphic, about suicide, loneliness, and the anger I felt. The school believed I had ADHD, my parents believed it was just a phase, but they were blinded by their own problems at the workplace.

After graduating at the top of my 8th grade class and being named the valedictorian, my future appeared to be bright. By this time, I already envisioned having a career in the military. The road to getting to the top of my class was by no means easy. The mental strain placed on me through bullying was immeasurable. I knew what I wanted to do in life, but being degraded by the people who were supposed to stand by my side as friends took away a lot of my motivation and confidence. How could the same people I trust steal things from me and harass me? The effects of these incidents were displayed throughout my ninth-grade year in high school

Personal identity is the concept that people develop about themselves and it evolves typically over the course of a person’s life. It is vital to note that for a people to experience a sense of wholeness, they must be able to recognize their true identity. When people fail to live a life that is consistent with the authentic character, they often experience

In Jr. High, I just wanted to fit in with everyone and feel like a family. My group of friends started bullying another person by calling him names, excluding him out of activities, and making him feel like an outcast. I was peer pressured into calling him names too, because I felt my friends leaving me behind because I wasn’t making jokes about him. I never knew how in this situation was until I saw him sit alone at lunch, I quickly realized my actions were wrong, but a simple word like sorry wouldn’t do anything. I had to show it through my actions, I told my friends to stop and I went to go sit with him. I had to change myself for the better, I didn’t want to change for the worse. He told me that everyone would do anything just to fit in and he was right. My conflict made me the better person I am today, I couldn’t tell what was right and wrong, but through this experience, my desires have changed. I had to show it through my actions, I told my friends to stop and I went to go sit with him. I had to change myself for the better, I didn’t want to change for the worse. He told me that everyone would do anything just to fit in and he was right. My conflict made me the better person I am today, I couldn’t tell what was right and wrong, but through this experience, my desires have

Often, my parents work late at night, so I have to rely on my friends for constant support. They cry with me, laugh with me, or binge watch 12 episodes of Fuller House with me. I have created inseparable bonds with those I have met in highschool. It is crazy that in a little over a year, we will all be graduating together. It won’t matter who wore what, who said what; what will matter is how we treated everyone as a whole and what we learned in the past 12 years of education. As I think back on my elementary school years, I realized that maybe I was treated that way for a reason. I now have somewhat of a “thick skin,” meaning that people “picking” on me does not really get to me. I am glad I experienced five horrible years of my life and got them out of the way now, in order to set me up for life as a whole. I feel equipped to deal with people bullying me in the real world and I know not to let it get to

Our perception of our identity is constantly changing, the groups we belong to, the people we talk to and the way we connect with others help to form our identity. There is one thing we all have in common despite our individual identities, is the need to belong. There’s no obligation to belong to only one group, you can belong to many. An individual can belong to many groups, which will then create multiple identities; hence our understanding of identity is never constant. Belonging to a loving family, group of caring friends that help us to develop our own sense of self. However, belonging can have a negative side. For example our families might have an expectation of us to do something that might alter our ambitions and interfere with

The question “How do you identify yourself?” that was once arbitrary asked of me, has had my mind occupied for a long time. And as my life became, just like a book, layered, complex, and chaptered, the path to answering this question became convoluted.

For example, when I was in Middle School they used to bully me all the time.This kid named ”Alex” used to call me fat letty;therefore,my self esteem was really low.I always felt insecure of my body because I was overweight.When I was in the halls and saw them I used to walked the opposite direction from them ;in addition,I never wanted to go to school.I started getting low grades,and I went to court because I had numerous absences.When I went on the bus Alex’s friends used to through me toilet paper,spit balls,wrapping papers,water,etc.I always felt horrible;in addition, I told my mom to change me schools but I didn’t tell her why.One time,they locked me up inside a locker for 30 minutes until a janitor finally heard me.Those were the worst longest minutes of my life,and I thought that as soon as I got out I was going to tell the adults everything.That problem made me the person that I’m now.Being bullied made me realize not to let

What is a personal identity, and how does one go by gaining one? This is a question that has been asked and debated for centuries by many philosophers who at one time in their life asked themselves, who am I? Personal identity is the personal “qualities, beliefs, etc., that make a particular person different from others (Merriam-Webster)”. Many people think personal identity comes from a specific pivotal moment in your life where others, feel that you receive personal identity at conception. Yet some believe that you get it based off of the life experiences that you have. It is true to an extant that you have an identity at birth, although you gain more of a semi-permanent identity in time after you have learned through

In the past I have experienced bullying and discrimination from those around me. I attend a small high school in licking county Ohio that is rather undiverse, so anyone that is seen as remotely different is targeted. Throughout the years I have experienced the normal slurs and jeers from my high school peers, as well as the disapproval from my father and his side of the family. I have learned over time that in order to continue on, I need to develop a tougher skin and not always listen to the opinions of others, no matter how destructive they may be. I have discovered that I am the only one that can hold myself back and have the ability achieve my dreams however I shall

V. S. Naipaul, a Nobel Prize-winning British writer, once said “One isn’t born one’s self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas – and you have to work through it all.” (as cited in Gussow, 1994, para. 1). We as humans normally attempt to find our true identity. One isn’t born one’s self but needs to work with a mass of ideas to find the true self as V. S. Naipaul stated. It is not quite an easy process, which involves challenges, struggles and pain. There are various ways to identify oneself and people find a category they fit into and live with that identity. However, there are some people who experience extreme confusion in finding the true self – like Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) patients. DID patients

However, as I grew a little older, I was bullied and used tremendously from my so called friends. My friends would throw my backpack at the garbage can, pretended to be my friend when they needed me for something, they teased me about my speech problems and most of all during recess, they would leave the me roaming around by myself as if I was loss soul. When I couldn’t put up with the bullying anymore, my bullies began to torment me even more to the point they tease me how ugly I was. I started to believe their words that nothing looked good on me, cute things don’t