Fighting My Identity Crisis - Who Am I And Where Do I Belong?

From the day I was born, I always stuck out.

​It was like I was a puzzle piece that you knew didn’t fit anywhere but you also didn’t want to get rid of it because you still had hope that maybe, somehow, it would fit somewhere. Being adopted is maybe my most discussed trait. It seems at times like it is the most interesting thing about me to people. They always have questions about how I grew up and what it was like and how old I was. It’s the thing that makes me different from everyone else and although it’s not a bad thing, it’s hard for most of them to understand what it’s like when your identity can be defined by the fact that you exist in a place that wasn’t made for you.

I am sure I am not alone in this feeling though. I know plenty of people that don’t belong where they are. I have friends who are far from home or different countries. They must adapt to new surroundings and build a life in a place with an entirely different atmosphere than what they were used to. It is natural to go through that at some point. It’s necessary as we get older to diverge, but as a child you should never be singled out for the things you can't control. 

Maybe the most distinct reason for feeling so out of place is the area I grew up in. Everyone looked the same when I looked different. Kids at school would point out that my parents and brother looked different than me. It made it so difficult to feel like my family was my family just because of my race. 

Another unfortunate thing that developed from this was my identity crisis.

Society has placed a lot of expectations on mixed-race people. If you aren’t connected to both sides deeply then you can only be one, or how the social characteristics of one race can be either a good or a bad thing depending on what the characteristic is. Often, I was called “white-washed” because of the way I dressed or the way I spoke. Not only were there these people setting expectations for me that shouldn’t have existed, but they were also instigating stereotypes. I had only grown up around white people and the way they spoke and the way they dressed, so naturally I followed suit. But that wasn't okay because to them, that isn’t what someone with my appearance should be like.  

It didn’t help that in the second grade my mom started to straighten my hair. I don’t hold it against her now because she was truly clueless at the time, but in a way, she was erasing one of the few things I had that appealed to people. My curly hair was something I had that could connect me to my “lost identity”.

Even though I didn’t act the way they wanted me to, at least I was born to look the part. 

The downfall of my identity happened the most intensely when I had straight hair. My mom wasn’t a great stylist and the kids at school made sure to let me know. I decided if I couldn’t be black, I would just be white. Maybe I could finally find a way to fit into the place I had been shoved into before I suffocated.

In middle school, I made sure to wear light-colored makeup. I would always wear the things the popular white girls would and try to wiggle my way into their clique. I picked up their mannerisms and attitudes. I had finally found my place. I had finally become white.

Eventually, I would come to learn that the one thing people hate more than someone who doesn’t belong, is someone who pretends that they do.

In my head, I had finally become like everyone else. To them, I was disgraceful. I was ugly. I was unwanted.

I realized this at one of my “friends” birthday parties. I was so happy to be invited to something because I usually was never even a thought in their heads. Along with being ugly, I was also poor, so they probably thought I didn’t have much to offer other than my presence. At the party, there were maybe seven of us. It was a slumber party so after the normal birthday activities, the birthday girl was to decide on sleeping arrangements. I was excited because even though we were only sleeping in a room together, at least I was there with everyone else doing what they were doing.

Before she revealed who was going to sleep where, she revealed that she was one bed short. When she asked who was willing to sleep on the couch in the living room, of course everyone looked at me, and of course I volunteered because if I didn’t do it, they would have done it for me.

The day my identity crisis ended was Halloween night of 2021. I had became so frustrated with how ugly and undesirable I was, that I decided the only way to fix it was to start over.

I didn’t want to erase myself because I knew I was better than that. I wanted to be fresh. I wanted to be something new, something different. So, I grabbed the scissors from the drawer and cut off my hair in the bathroom. I spent hours crying in my room after. It was terribly noticeable but it was gone. Losing that small piece of me was like a weight lifting off my shoulders. To a lot of people, this would make the situation worse, but this only made me realize that no amount of change and no new identity would ever solve the self-hatred I had developed for myself.

My hair was gone, but I was still standing there, looking in the mirror back at myself as if nothing had changed but something did. 

I eventually found that the reason I was so disliked wasn’t because I was ugly, and it wasn’t because I was different. It was because I wasn’t the same.

I had spent so much time trying to shove myself into the box these people had created in the name of identity, that I didn’t realize there was so much more room to breathe on the outside.

There are things so drastically individual about me that it can feel like I am entirely unrelatable and irrelevant to everyone else. However, that is often the comfort people look for. The greatest relationships I have found in the present are with people who I don’t share the same identity with. We come from different places, and different backgrounds, and have different faces. The reason we can share the same space is because that is what makes it so comfortable.

Today I am most complimented on the things that people then would have torn me apart for. My personality, in its lack of restraint and all the paths it follows, is most memorable because of so.

To belong with others who don’t belong and to be identified with those who are unidentifiable is like breaking the odds that have been against us our whole lives. After living for so long looking for my so-called identity I have realized that I can exist nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. I am greater now as undefinable than I ever was with a definition.

Yes, I may be the puzzle piece that is unnecessary and fits in nowhere or the piece you only kept because you felt bad it was all alone, but I have always thought that puzzles took too long and were boring anyway.