Who I Who Am I?

My story isn't quite special really, although I have lived under some unique circumstances. My mother was a single parent raising my little sister and I until she married my Stepdad in 2007. I was five at the time and had no father figure until then. From that time on he became my dad. Our new family moved twice before living in a small city where we stayed for 6 years. This is where I made close friends, achieved academic excellence, went to church regularly, life was great or so I thought. What seemed to be our perfect life was turned upside down as hard times fell upon us. I was now the oldest of five younger siblings, my mom wasn't healthy, and my dad had to struggle to keep things going.

When I was a child, most of the stories or situations I have been through was, mostly, my dad hitting me and my parents fighting constantly; so pretty much I did not really grew up watching Barney, traveling to places, and going to Disneyland often. I thought I would have to live like this for the rest of my academic life, but one day around the age of eight, my dream came true. My parents had enough of each other, so they went their own ways; even though, I was glad that I do not have to life miserably anymore, I was not. I thought that everything would settle down and live a calm life with my mom, but as a result, I ended up raising my two siblings. My dad left the house, my mom was in her own world, and I had to watch my siblings. I thought my parents divorce would benefit me, but all it did was for me to not live as an eight-year-old would. I thought that my dream of going to a great university and becoming a Physician Assistant came crashing down. A couple weeks later, my dad came back and long-story short, my siblings and I had to go hang out with my dad for

Who am I? Growing up I have always been told that I can be who and whatever I want to be. Who is it that I want to be? And what is it that I want to be? These are questions we have all been asking ourselves since we could talk. This section on identity in Core 100 has challenged me on actually taking a deeper look into this question. It has made me look at how God’s revelation of himself as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relates and deepens my sense of who I am. In this essay I am going to talk about who I am, how is God related to who I am, and what the big questions I have are.

Everyone ever born on this planet, is different than the next or the last person that was born before them. Even twins, though genetically and physically identical, have unique personalities that make each of them their own person. There are similarities between us, however, with some people having more in common than others. Individual things like our appearance, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, family, likes and dislikes end up corralling us into certain corresponding groups. These groups are also known as co-cultures. When we belong to one of these co-cultures, different people will meet one of the members of it and then label that person, good or bad, and expect that certain label to apply to all members of the same group, essentially

Each of us has different individual characteristics and factors, and it is the combination of these that make up who we are.

When I was growing up, my family was like many other families, happy. Starting at age 6, I noticed a change between my parents because they started to not get along as well as they did before. No longer were they smiling at each eachother in the way you would to someone you cared deeply about. No longer did they laugh together as though someone would if you could see the world through their eyes. I felt my life was crumbling to pieces at such a young age, and there was nothing I could do about

As an eight-year-old in the fourth grade, I had yet to develop an understanding of the world. I believed every family had two parents. I believed all children lived in houses and attended school. And I believed a variety of other utopian and idealistic situations to be reality. Media, adults, and other influences lead me to believe that the only thing I had to worry about were my birthday gifts. This false pretense was clearly contradicted when I was presented with the news that my father had cancer. It was a weekend in the fall, and I was playing with various toys and games. My mother shouted down to the basement that we were having a family meeting. Although this did not inspire me, I eventually stumbled up the steps and staggered into the living room. In the room, I joined my brother, sister, and parents. As a took a seat, I readied myself for the

I on the other hand, was always the quiet girl who just got her work done and never strayed from the rules. I thought my brother was an imbecile before he left for college, always valuing trouble way more than diligence. When he left, I thought there was hope in the world. Like if my brother could do it, then I could too. When he came home, those expectations were shattered. There was constant fighting between Joseph and my parents. Arguments would echo throughout my household and create a thick tension that felt heavy in the air. Their voices would penetrate my room and bounce off the walls until they surrounded me. They would argue about basically anything. Joseph just had a constant itching to be right even when he was dead wrong. Our family slowly but surely became miserable with one another, like we were no longer family, but instead we were just people living in the same house. I dove deeply into reading and writing, hoping to drown out the sound of the obsessive combativeness that plagued my home. It triggered anxiety for me when he came home. I now have a deeply rooted fear

All humans have different characteristics which allow them to be unique in their own way including race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, and ability status. We are born with these characteristics which we inherit from our parents without consciousness or permission; this is known as the Beginning Step in the Cycle of Socialization. In addition, the location in which you were born and raised has a large impact on how you grow up as a child and also the values and beliefs you have been instilled with. The type of school you attended growing up also has an impact on who you are today. With growing up in various areas, humans are not as open-minded as they perceive about topics such as social justice and inequality. Therefore,

Humans are complex and interesting. All humans have feelings and the ability to think, and yet we are all different. What makes us differ? Psychologists and researchers have been trying to answer this question and continue to develop patterns in how our life experiences and environment help to make us who we are. The way we learn, remember, our attitudes, personality and what motivates us are some of the variables that contribute to molding us. To develop a better understanding of how these things affect us, I will compare my husband, Jim, to myself. Jim and I are close in age and race, but come from different

Due to economic circumstances and my father's alcohol abuse, my family suffered from family problems and emotional pain. My father would come home drunk and argue with my mother about our economic circumstances. I was too young to understand what was occurring between my parents and I grew up believing that this was the typical family. I remember a specific occasion when my dad came home and he said that he was tired of us. He left my mom with my three siblings and I without money and anywhere to go. This situation terrified me and caused me to focus in school to forget about my personal problems. I could not understand how my father could leave us and not care for us. We then lived in someone's garage because we could not afford a home. Throughout

When I was five years old my family and I moved to arizona I did not want to move because I did not want to move far away from my cousins and aunts, so we started packing our things and I was kinda excited, but at the same time I did not want to leave the house I grew up and spend most of my childhood memories in. Once we arrived in arizona it all felt unreal and it felt like i was in vacation. We move into a big beautiful nice house and we lived there for two years and in those two years, we constantly moved from house to house. My dad thought he could make a better living in Arizona by building houses, but instead it was the opposite and we lost it all. We started losing money and it started going bad for my dad. At that time I lived in a two story house, my older sister will come and visit us sometimes; since she got married before we left, she was young we she got married she was 18.

Growing up I never had the typical childhood. My parents had me when they were still teenagers in High School. They were not financially stable enough to take care of me, considering they were young and had no jobs. My mother dropped out to start working and my dad got his GED at an adult school before he started to work. For a while we were living in a motel because my parents were not on good terms with their own parents at the time. Although I was too young to remember our lives in the motels, I gathered enough insight on how it was for my parents, and it was not pretty. Since my parents were never together officially, after the motel stage, we never slept in the same house all together. My mom eventually moved in with my sisters dad, which

My childhood was simple. Nothing special, nothing horrible. I was raised to value hard work, honesty, and education. I love my childhood, and besides moving house a few times nothing happened that was a serious change. I liked to think that I was an average kid, I was going to graduate high school, go to a local college, and then find my way through life. However, the summer after I turned seventeen, things changed, abruptly. One morning, in late July, I woke up and decided to go on a hike. It was something I had always contemplated, hiking from my house in Newton to my grandparents house in the nearby town of Sedgwick. I got up early, packed some food and water, and left a note on the table. I remember heading out of town, walking out past Sand Creek Station, the golf course south of town. Then I remember waking up in a hospital room, no clue of who I was, where I was, or what was going on.

To start things off I lived in one big house with my Mom, Dad, Aunt, Uncle, Grandma and Grandpa up until I was about thirteen. When I was little I thought I had the most perfect family every, or at least that’s what I wanted to think. I would spend most of my afternoons with my Grandpa at the park or getting ice cream. He would always be the one encouraging me to go church and pray. He’s also the one who wanted me to be in private schools. The rest of my family followed