Pieces of My Identity

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          Finding one’s own identity isn’t something accomplished overnight, it takes years and possibly even a lifetime. Identity is a complex concept of ourselves that is composed of our experiences in life, our own personal growth, and our genes that physically make up who we are. The special part of one’s identity is that it is our own and our unique journey we go on to find the different puzzle pieces that make us up. Who I am today is a reflection of the events of the past, which have influenced my identity as a whole. My identity is compiled of my upbringing, my interests, the media’s influence, and my family. 

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MY UPBRINGING

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          My identity would not be complete without discussing the different aspects of my upbringing, whether it be positive or negative. I grew up the only kid in my family for seven years. I had no cousins my age or anybody near me that I could socialize with so my mom took me to Mcdonalds almost every day to get that social interaction. While some may say that going to Mcdonalds almost every day is unhealthy it was the only place I could interact with kids my age outside of school. I would play with every single kid in the playground and make them my best friend for those short couple of minutes or hours (depending on how long my parents wanted to stay). Having to make friends to play with instead of being provided with cousins to play with allowed me to develop strong social skills. My sister, on the other hand, grew up with cousins and family friends her age, so she was always provided with someone to play with. Which resulted in her not having the sharpest of social skills and having a hard time making friends both in and out of school. Though I was lucky to develop strong social skills as a result of not having people my age around me as a child I was around adults most of the time, which made me mature much younger. Like most kids, I had lots of energy, curiosity, and a desire to play, but being mature at a younger age led me to be frustrated with my peers. I found my peers could not follow instructions and would act wild and free, which is normal behavior for kids. Yet I had a sense of maturity and could not understand why my peers couldn’t “behave.” I was also what was called a “no-problem child,” which meant I didn’t give my parents a hard time. Which translated to me being able to complete my work, behave, and be a “good kid,” when really I was just more mature than my peers due to being around adults all the time. 

          At Vaughn Next Century Learning Center during your sophomore year of high school, you are allowed to begin taking AP classes. During this year I realized how challenging school became compared to the previous year. Since elementary school, I was praised for my academic performance and it made me an overachiever in school. When I entered middle school I found the content being taught easy, which validated the praise I was given as a child. That validation did not last long for me because as I entered high school I was struggling for the first time in my academic career. The struggle made me want to push myself harder so that I can prove to myself that I was “smart.” The overachieving hit its breaking point in sophomore year when I was juggling classes and clubs, which left me with an overwhelming amount of responsibilities. During this time I felt like I wasn’t as accomplished as my peers who seemed to be handling the same responsibilities effortlessly. The feelings I was experiencing were caused by academic burnout. In the article “Parents’ Education Anxiety and Children’s Academic Burnout: The Role of Parental Burnout and Family Function '' by Kai Wu, Feng Wang, Wei Wang, & Yongxin Li the causes of academic burnout are identified. “Researchers have indicated that emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of low personal accomplishment can be experienced in students’ learning process, course stress, course load, and so forth (Balogun et al., 1996; Lingard et al., 2007). Walburg (2014) reviewed the academic burnout in high school students and confirmed the three-dimensional construct of academic burnout.” (Wu, Wang, Wang, Li 2022). The causes of academic burnout identified in the article describe how my academic burnout came to be, with my feelings of being overwhelmed with my coursework and low personal accomplishment. 

          I overcame most of my feelings of academic burnout halfway through my sophomore year when the pandemic hit and it flipped my entire life upside down. What I thought was going to be a much-needed two-week break became a year and a half. Being at home with half of the amount of school work gave me time to reflect on my priorities and whether the amount of stress and time I had been putting in to be the “best” was the best for me. I found that the amount of time and effort I was putting in at school left me with no time to put into myself. From this time of reflection, I went on a journey of self-discovery and self-care, which helped me become the person I am today. The person that doesn’t prioritize school above her own well-being and knows what's best for her own mental health.

 

MY INTERESTS

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          In addition to my upbringing, the development of my interests, whether it be music, hobbies, or pop culture has played a major role in who I am. While people you don’t know personally shouldn’t have a big impact on who you are, two strangers that impacted the person I am are Harry Styles and Taylor Swift. I found Harry Styles’ music during the pandemic when I felt like the whole world was crashing down on me. Styles helped me feel like it was okay for me to accept myself throughout all the new things I was discovering about myself. Like my sexuality, my hobbies, and the person I wanted to be. As well, Harry Styles's main message of “Treat People With Kindness” inspired me to always be the bigger person and understand that people that are hurt, hurt other people. Therefore, I feel like I have become a better person because of his music and the values he stands for. Taylor Swift on the other hand has been a part of my life since I was a kid. Taylor was with me when I felt unworthy, alone, and overwhelmed. She has taught me that it is okay for me to feel my emotions and her songs help me do that. Along with that, she has helped me realize my worth and that I am deserving of everything good in the world. Both these artists shaped me into the kind and emotionally strong person I am today who knows what she wants, who she wants to be, and knows what she deserves. 

          One thing about me that I hear all the time is how I have a ton of hobbies, but out of all of them, two have had the most impact on who I am today. The first hobby I ever picked up was art. Ever since I can remember I have always had Crayola crayons in my hand while trying to draw my favorite cartoon characters. It wasn’t until middle school that I saw the true impact that art can have on your life. My best friend at the time had a highly developed art style, which inspired me to develop my artistic skills. Ever since then I’ve used art as a form of self-expression when I didn’t know what I felt in words. The second hobby is reading. While reading has always been a hobby of mine since I was young I found that as a teen, books truly had an impact on who I was becoming. Around 2021 I saw the book Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey Mc Quinston trending on TikTok so I decided to pick it up. Around this time I had begun questioning my sexuality and was confused about how I wanted to label myself. As I read this novel, I started to relate heavily to the main character Alex. Alex was also questioning his sexuality and he said a line that stuck with me “Straight people, he thinks, probably don’t spend this much time convincing themselves they’re straight” (McQuiston 112). When I first read that line it made me think about how many times I would use the excuse “but, there’s no way I could be gay if I like guys.” This book and many other queer books helped me figure out that I am bisexual and finally stepping into a part of my identity I kept locked away for so long gave me a newfound confidence. 

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THE MEDIA

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          Another essential element of who I am comes from the media and its influence on my body image. Ever since I was a child I was reminded of how my size made me different from everybody else in society. Normal-sized children could go to the doctor with a medical issue and be treated for it, meanwhile, the “cause” of all medical issues was my weight. Normal-sized children could go to the children's section to buy clothes with their favorite characters on them, meanwhile, I was already going to the juniors section by third grade. Normal-sized children could fit in school lunch benches effortlessly, meanwhile, I had to find a way to get in. Growing up on the bigger side comes with trauma that doesn’t go away no matter how your body changes as an adult. It didn’t help that the majority of that trauma came from the media, more specifically the media circa 2014. Around the 2010s many television programs had a “funny fat character,” but more often than not these characters were not close to plus-sized, yet were labeled as such. Having a warped perception of what a “plus-sized” person looked like made me feel like anything above a size 4 was wrong. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, there were many instances in the media where the portrayal of body image was toxic, but there was one instance that has always stuck with me. Around 2015 there was a new issue of US Magazine where Selena Gomez was pictured in a pink bikini. The main story for this issue was how “big” Selena Gomez had gotten, yet Selena was only a size 4 or 6 at the time and looked thin. 

          Though I grew up with a warped perception of body image, it all worsened when I downloaded Instagram. The broadcast transcript “Instagram fuels both body-image issues and social connections, teen girls say” by CQ-Roll Call, Inc speaks on the negative effects of social media, specifically Instagram. "I feel unworthy. I just don't feel great. I don't feel pretty. I don't feel right. I don't feel like I'm up to the beauty standard that women kind of have to uphold," (CQ-Roll Call Inc 2021). As someone who was exposed to media young, I feel the quote from the broadcast transcript perfectly sums up what it’s like to compare yourself to the celebrities and models you see on social media. For the longest time, I felt horrible about my body and felt like there was something wrong with me. Those feelings of self-depreciation only worsened as I scrolled through the endless picture-perfect posts shown on Instagram, so I had to recognize that it was toxic and unfollow everyone who made me feel bad about myself. Taking that first step of unfollowing what was making me feel bad about myself led me onto a path of self-love.

Around the time I took that first step I discovered a YouTuber named Sierra Shultzie. Sierra Shultzie was the first person on social media that I saw promoting the idea of being body positive. I had never heard of this concept before and as I explored her content I found myself going on a journey to be body positive. I feel without the help of Sierra Shulztie I wouldn’t be at a place now where I love and accept my body as it is and accept that bad days happen, but my size isn’t the end of the world.

 

FAMILY

 

          Perhaps most importantly, my family shaped the majority of who I am today. For the time period that I was born in, I found that my family was very progressive. Unlike other Hispanic families, my parents didn’t force religion onto me but instead let me decide what I wanted to believe in. Having the choice to choose my religion also influenced other aspects of my life where I was allowed the choice to choose my own path and my parents would be there to help me. I think this is what led me to pick up many hobbies because my parents allowed me the freedom to explore without judgment. The freedom to explore was a key aspect of having the ability to know myself very well because my interests and self-discovery were never shunned. 

Along with the freedom to explore the morals and values, my parents taught me have stuck with me my whole life. My parents taught me to always treat people with kindness and respect, but to not let myself be disrespected. This lesson is a core value to me because throughout my years at school I’ve encountered many people who I have been kind to and the kindness was not reciprocated, yet I didn’t end up hurt because I didn’t allow myself to take that negativity from them. Though my parents do have their flaws, for the most part, they taught me to be kind, and resilient, and to always be myself.

 

CONCLUSION

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          Identity can be complex due to the fact that identity can constantly be changing, growing, and evolving. Though it is complex I find that there are always key elements that stay a part of your identity regardless of how much it changes. For me, those constants are my upbringing, my interests, the media, and my family. I know that as I grow older my identity will evolve, but as of today November 23rd, 2022 I am me because of all that I have seen, experienced, and felt. I thank everyone and anything that has made me who I am today because out of all the versions of me I like the one now the best. 

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Works Cited

"Instagram fuels both body-image issues and social connections, teen girls say." The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 6 Oct. 2021, p. NA. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A678022757/OVIC?u=csunorthridge&sid=primo&xid=15083344. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.

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Wu K, Wang F, Wang W and Li Y (2022) Parents’ Education Anxiety and Children’s Academic Burnout: The Role of Parental Burnout and Family Function. Front. Psychol. 12:764824. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.764824

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McQuinston, Casey. Red White & Royal Blue. New York, St. Martin's Griffin, May 14, 2019.