Names are incredibly powerful tools. Bullying, for example, usually begins with name-calling. Sometimes, name-calling is all that bullying is. The names we call other people are so powerful that they can wound; in the case of suicides that arise from bullying, they kill.
We know this. So, those of us who consider ourselves “good people” do not bully. We do not – or try not – to call others names that could wound or kill. Occasionally, we are careless or we are angry or we are hurt and we don’t mean to… but we do anyway… and sooner or later we realize that name-calling was a bad choice. We recognize the power of the names we call others and we try our best to use that power only when absolutely necessary.
On the flipside of name-calling is a kind of love; calling others by names that will lift their spirits, make them feel seen or good or known or loved. You are so awesome. You are so kind. You are a badass. You are a great runner. You are the best cook. These are powerful names. Giving someone a sincerely positive name can help to change their perspective of themselves or boost their already healthy confidence.
Most semesters, for example, I make it a point to tell my students that they are not just students in a writing class but rather, they ARE writers – at least for the next 15 weeks. This creates a change in many of them. It makes them take the writing that we do more seriously. It helps them to earnestly invest themselves in their writing. It creates confidence among many of them.
But, if the names we give others are incredibly powerful tools, the names we give ourselves are massive machines. Sometimes they are wrecking balls. Sometimes cement mixers. Sometimes cranes. Someone else giving us a name is one thing. If this name is said often enough, it will stick. When we give ourselves a name, it doesn’t just stick – it invades. The names we give ourselves get deep inside of us, into our very cells – and they either smash away at our insides until demolition is complete or they lift us up and build a scaffolding strong enough to keep us climbing upward.
The names we give ourselves become our identity. WE construct our identities. Yes, part of this construction relies on what the land already looks like; the qualities of the material we are building with – but ultimately, who we are is up to us. We build it.
I have been aware of identity as a construction since I was a young girl. I was an angry, self-hating child with very little understanding of how one is supposed to behave with others. I had no social graces. None. Luckily, I was likeable enough – maybe because of my energy or my inherent passion for… well, everything! – that I always had at least some friends. But in third grade, I was aware that my “friends” didn’t like something about me. I vividly remember a moment on the playground at recess where I declared to my friends that I was going to “change” but I can’t remember, completely, what it was I thought I needed to change. It was all very dramatic, though. I yelled my declaration toward my small group of friends and they laughed at me and walked away, rolling their eyes and I went to cry in a corner somewhere. It felt like a scene from one of my mother’s soap operas.
Now, it is highly probable that I knew something was “different” about me but that I had no idea what this difference was or where it came from. My friends didn’t swear as much as I did. My friends didn’t know what pornography was. They didn’t watch R-rated movies with their families. They didn’t sneak their mothers’ cigarettes or wine and try to get everyone else to smoke and drink with them. They didn’t tell cruel jokes about each other. They didn’t say mean things about themselves. But, in third grade, neither my friends nor I knew how to explain, exactly, why any of these things were bad or could even connect, necessarily, these behaviors to what made everyone else uncomfortable.
I made other people uncomfortable. I knew that. And I was aware that, if I wanted to, I could change that. I just had no idea how or exactly what I had to change.
Then, one day – in fifth grade, I think – this boy I absolutely loved pointed out one very specifically bad habit of mine that he thought I should strive to change. His name was David. He had dark olive skin and jet black hair and beautiful brown eyes. His family was rich. He was one of the smartest boys in class and, as you will see, very articulate. I have always very much appreciated smart, articulate people.
For probably the one billionth time, I said, “I’m so fat” which I promptly followed up with, “I’m so ugly.” Our desks were always moving around but for this particular week, I shared a table (four desks arranged in a square) with David and my friend, Maria. I was talking to Maria but David heard me and he said, “you shouldn’t say that about yourself.” Of course, I was immediately offended and embarrassed and ashamed and mad and I glared at him. He said, “You need to love yourself for who you are. You say that too much.” I’m sure, if he was 20 years older, he would’ve followed up with, “The names we call ourselves become our identity.” I heard recently that David became a pediatrician. I’m glad. Kids need someone on their side who understands the basic strength of self-love.
I didn’t listen to David, not really. It was the first time anyone had ever tried to tell me to be kind to myself. And I didn’t hear that message again for a very very long time. My ex-husband tried to tell me once or twice but I think mostly out of the frustration of having to live with someone who is so self-hating. People who are openly self-hating are exhausting and tiresome to others. I know, I have exhausted many a friend and lover with my self-hatred.
Yesterday, my husband and I were discussing the previous days events. The sadness that took hold of me. The low. He said that even in the midst of my lowest moment, he recognized something very different about this time, something that actually has been building successively with each low over the last few years. He said he felt a great deal of confidence that it would run its course quickly. He said he trusted me to emerge from this low with some deeper understanding of myself, my identity, my relationship with others. He said it’s clear to him now that these lows are like growing pains. He said he watched me go through it, knowing it was way outside of him and it was taking place for a good reason: like a thunderstorm. He couldn’t control it or stop it or make it better. He said he knew that I was grieving – and this part was really interesting – that I was grieving the loss of my previous identity.
At that, I stared quizzically at him and he said, “you know, all your writing, all those pages you recycled yesterday. You were letting go of the person that you were. Finally.” At that, I cried.
Here is what no American (or maybe Western or maybe, ANY) woman wants to be called: The Fat Girl. The Ugly Girl. And yet, these are the names I called MYSELF for the first three decades of my life. It makes no difference whether these names seemed externally true to anyone else, they were internally true for me. This is always the case with the names we call ourselves. It doesn't matter in the least whether others do or do not / would or would not call us these names. They are "true" because we believe them to be "true." Consequently, none of us can know by looking at someone what kind of names they have given themselves on the inside. Fat and Ugly are the names my father called me. And they stuck. But when I started using them on myself, they invaded. Every. Single. Cell. In my body became those names.
When you are The Fat Girl and The Ugly Girl, you take whatever you can get. You don’t say no to anyone’s affection or love – even if it’s really bad affection and not anything like “real” love. You know that you are unlovable so you’d better take advantage of whatever attention anyone offers you because you may never get this attention again.
When you are The Fat Girl and The Ugly Girl, you do whatever you can to avoid being inside your own body. You don’t look at it. You cover it up with clothes that don’t show it. You overeat, drink and maybe even take drugs to keep you outside of your body so you don’t have to think about it. You don’t have a body, you tell yourself. Your body doesn’t matter, you tell yourself. Sometimes the way you stay outside of your body is to busy yourself with everyone else’s lives instead. Whatever you need to do to forget the names you have given yourself.
When you are The Fat Girl and The Ugly Girl, you might create other names for yourself that you feel outrank those names. You become The Career Woman. You become The Funny Girl. You become The Best Friend. You become The Supermom. You become The Valedictorian. You become The Party Girl. Though they are another type of hiding from the real problem in some ways, these names might be the occasional piece of scaffolding you need to eventually build a new life for yourself.
When you have been The Fat Girl and The Ugly Girl for three decades, it takes an enormous – ENORMOUS – amount of energy to not just become, but to NAME yourself a Healthy Girl, a Fit Girl, a Triathlete, a Runner. This is not a surface change. It is not something you can just say and it is not even something that you can just do. It is a complete rebirth. It is a complete death of The Fat Girl and The Ugly Girl. A death. A loss.
Because the truth is, The Fat Girl and The Ugly Girl is the girl who saw you through everything. She has been there for you through a lot. Her firm belief in who she is has maybe seen you through college and grad school and marriages and divorce and friendships and loss and the births and, even raising, of children, and many many relocations and moves.
My Fat Girl and Ugly Girl was intimately tied to my Poet self. She was intimately tied to the person I was when I conjured this life for myself of being a Writer and a Professor of Writing. Ironically, my Fat / Ugly Girl was both able to accomplish quite a bit for how much of a nothing she felt AND she held me back from fully investing myself in either of those roles. The degrees and writing projects took me away from my body and made it possible for me to be “more” than just The Fat Girl and The Ugly Girl BUT… The Fat Girl and The Ugly Girl made it impossible for me to believe that I could be much more than, basically, a failure in my writing and in my teaching, in the end.
I have been consciously struggling with this – what amounts to an identity crisis – for the last year. Over the last 5 years, I have been able to do triathlons, to run races, to lose some weight, to make fitness a part of my everyday life and relationships but in this past year, I have known that, if I want to keep this level of fitness, none of those things is enough. I have to have a new name. I have to let this new name invade. And, honestly, I think that’s EXACTLY why I began creating the concept of The QueenPrincess a little over a year ago. I needed that new name to become a new me, or I needed that new name to reflect the new person I was already becoming.
Everyday, I am more The QueenPrincess. The QueenPrincess is NOT – could not possibly be – The Fat Girl or The Ugly Girl. Because The QueenPrincess believes in: 1) Self Love; 2) Mind-Body Awareness; 3) Fearlessness. These are at least the beliefs I have identified, so far. Having only been born about a year ago, I’m still quite young and learning. Please be patient with me.
-qp
Charis
6/11/2015 09:28:53 am
Brilliant self reflection. Somebody needs to write a book about the development of identity and coping skills in the 40s that will hopefully shape our later years with wisdom and hope for a better day.
QP
6/25/2015 10:00:13 am
Thanks, as always, for reading Charis. Comments are closed.
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JodiAnn Stevensonlives, cooks, mothers, teaches, walks, runs, wuns, ralks, trains, bikes, swims, kickboxes, steps, writes, obsesses, dances, stresses, learns, karaokes, loves, zumbas and dreams big big dreams in Frankfort, Michigan and elsewhere as time, money and opportunity afford. Archives
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