I think I was 13 or 14 when it happened. An aunt called to ask me for my “other” name. I was confused because, while I hadn’t ever been overly ecstatic about my first name, I didn’t have any problems with it either. But when I asked why she was was interested in it, she gave me a vague response that has characterized my subconscious fear and dislike for my name ever since. She told me of a “prophecy”, one that involved someone using my name to tie me to the spirit of philandering and waywardness, and the only way to escape that fate was to adopt another name. Looking back, I know she didn’t mean to cause the depth of pain and confusion that followed in the coming years, but in her haste to help a child remain a “good girl” and avoid being a victim of life’s pitfalls, she caused trauma so deep that sometimes it’s still hard to find clarity in both logic and mercy.
An identity crisis is not something I’d wish on anyone, least of all on a child who hadn’t even developed one to begin with, but in recent years I’ve made a conscious effort to define my identity, and to extend grace for all that it means. Because inasmuch as we would like to all be perceived as perfect, as individuals we know the truth. Perfection is an illusion constructed by humanity’s yearning for the divine. The Catholic Church created the perfect out for me by allowing me pick a Confirmation name, and although my reasons for picking mine at the time were superficial, I have long since come to realize that even then, Mercy was speaking for me, even when i did not know myself. And so, I renamed myself, birthing a person who embodied all the virtues of the archangel I desperately sought to emulate. And then there were two. The first me, human and flawed, with all the faults and failures of the fact, and then there was the next me, straining and yearning after the so called perfection of the divine. I did not know enough, did not understand enough, to even be on the battlefield, let alone lead the charge against the principalities I battled within. I didn’t know me, and at that point I didn’t know the One who knows me. And so I let the world define me, and boy oh boy, did they keep flinging the labels. Cold, unemotional, holier than thou, goody two shoes, pretentious. And I let them in, and internalized their definitions and the hurt that they caused and the confusion that I felt until I eventually became a conundrum of emotions. That, unfortunately, is the situation many people find themselves in today.
I grew to hate the one thing that made me me, the beginning of my identity as a person, and of course, it was only a matter of time before I began to thoroughly dislike myself. And so, even as I knew, I knew with every fiber of my being that I had been set apart and consecrated, I didn’t understand what that meant. I couldn’t see past my own self loathing enough to realize how much love surrounded me, how much Love Himself loved me. I just could not. And what’s more, I wasn’t trying to. I buried myself in everything else, and school became my savior. It was my first, last and all. Then friends and boys came along, but whenever they “failed”, I turned back to my first love, my grades. My mind wouldn’t fail me. Exams wouldn’t fail me. I didn’t know a lot about a lot but I knew how to study. I knew the psychology of teachers and I knew how to answer questions. So I did what I knew how to do, and I did it well. And nothing could take that away from me. Or so I thought, until depression hit, and life became harder and darker than ever.
