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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-28
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4eUGlBKlmY
your story scenes that calm seas organized by students headaches youth and SEC when I was five I was unapologetically and authentically me it didn't matter that teachers parents and peers alike would tell me that I dressed weird or that my name was awed but I talk too much about things I didn't understand if they didn't like the way I was the knot was their problem but
as I got older I noticed a startling trend as I grew up I was also starting to grow out of myself for me it started in the sixth grade I was walking home passing by the locker rooms and at that age I wasn't exactly popular but I was always able to brush it off sticks and stones you know I wasn't gonna let some hurtful words change
me I was happy the way I was so I was passing by the locker rooms when three boys two older and one of my grade got the bright idea to grab me and to push me into the boy's locker room now I am not disillusioned enough to try and romanticize my abilities as a small eleven year old to fight back against boys were older bigger and
stronger so tell like it happened they got me they've pushed into the locker room they knew I wouldn't fit into one of the lockers so instead they showed me into a box for old P. E. close they don't see me around they called me names chink five dyke they used false because they didn't know which term to use to attack stereotypically gay way but I dressed
they can turn around and it was over could have lasted for more than thirty minutes but instead of coming out of that experience like I always did unwavering and unwilling to bend or break I wasn't stud struck with a different thought as I laid there on the ground I thought to myself I deserve this there must be something wrong with me maybe it's the way I
dress the way I express myself and from that day forward eyelids is an unhappy show I repressed my differences instead of celebrating them but still the way people treated me did not change I didn't have any more friends that I had before I had believes that served as a constant reminder that no one likes the real me the only thing that changed was that I was
unhappy repressed and punishing myself for not fitting in now like every great story I was able to refine myself I like every great story it was because of a beautiful and wonderful girl she was older than me and she could have written it off like so many others have instead she befriended me and she gave me a place rifled accepted and her gay straight alliance now
let me just say that at age twelve I was not an ally I was just so desperate for friends I was willing to be whoever she wanted me to be but she didn't want me to just be anyone she wanted me to be myself and proud of it which took a lot more soul searching that I'd like to admit I had to ask myself who I
was was I defined by the words that were used to keep me down was I defined by my repressions was I defined by what everyone else thought of me I forced myself to confront certain truths that I'd been unwilling to acknowledge before that it was fine if I want to wear a dress over talks %HESITATION talks over a dress at the only person that had like
the length of my hair was me and that it's okay if sometimes the person that I wanna hold hands with is someone of the same gender which brings me to my question how do you define yourself is your sense of self based on your actions and the way you choose to carry yourself or is it found from others and how they perceive you see I'm no
psychologist but I've noticed that as humans we have a very base urge to try and sort people we categorize the people around us based on superficial stereotypes and preconceptions but the world around us places in our head we store people based on things like gender race religion and try to force them into boxes that fit our notions of the way that they should be and no
one is exempt from the system we even do it to ourselves over time the system affects the way we perceive ourselves we turn from authentic and unafraid five year olds into one dimensional versions of the people that we truly are we base our self worth and identity office societies rating system and try to fit ourselves into neat nicely labeled boxes for some people this happens over
time the line between authentic self and the person that everyone else wants to see blurs slowly but for others including myself it only takes that one catalyst event to push ourselves into that box looking back on it now it seems absolutely ridiculous to try and impress myself to the extremes that I did but I also realize that it's something that everyone struggles with this system makes
everyone into a victim sixth grade me was just as much a victim as the three boys that committed that act of violence against me we were all our lives in subtle minute details that difference is not to be accepted those boys had just taken that idea to the next logical extreme which was violence I am no way condone their actions but I can still recognize that
they are also victims of this methodical character categorize Asian I was able to break out of the system with love and friendship that thou me when I was at my lowest point because that love led me to realize that I deserve to love myself which is why my life is modeled after the same love and kindness that was shown to me I will forever appreciate and
pay for it that kindness that led me to reexamine the life I was living I now know what it feels like to live with someone that I'm not self loathing and the numbness so I unapologetically love myself and I love that I could spend every second of the rest of my life living authentically and knowing that no one else could ever take that away from me
