Beyond the Labels

Blog Series - Beyond the Labels, who Am I

I sat on the couch in my therapist’s room the room where I’ve had some of my hardest conversations and my biggest turning points. And today was one of the big ones. Not loud, not explosive just quietly confronting in a way that landed deep in my chest.

We were talking about labels.

The ones I wear because life handed them to me. The ones I’ve learned to say out loud so others understand why I am the way I am. The ones people put on me when they didn’t understand me at all.

• Trauma survivor.

• Chronically ill.

• Domestic violence survivor.

• Mum.

• Nanny.

And I was honest those labels don’t even scratch the surface. There are darker ones I never chose, the ones other people silently (or loudly) placed on me.

• Too emotional.

• Attention-seeking.

• Broken.

• Difficult.

• Too much.

• Not enough.

For a long time, these labels became my navigation system my identity, my justification, my protection. If people could see the pain, maybe they would understand me. If I called myself a survivor, maybe I would feel strong. If I named my illnesses, maybe others would treat me gently.

Labels became my shield. My explanation. My language.

And then my therapist asked something that winded me.

“Who are you without the labels?”

I opened my mouth to answer but nothing came out.

Because I didn’t know.

Somewhere along the way, my identity fused with my survival story. I didn’t just experience trauma I became trauma. I didn’t just have chronic conditions I became the sick one. I didn’t just survive domestic violence I became the survivor.

Every label made sense but every label also kept me in the story.

And now I’m here, in the messy middle not rejecting my labels, not ashamed of them, not pretending they didn’t shape me. But wondering:

• If I wasn’t surviving would I know how to live?

• If I wasn’t pushed to be strong would I know how to be soft?

• If I wasn’t holding everything together would I know myself at all?

I don’t have the answers yet.

This is not a blog tied up with a bow.

This is a beginning.

A beginning of learning myself not through pain, but through curiosity.

A beginning of finding the parts of me that existed before life hardened me and the parts that are still waiting underneath the rubble.

A beginning of stepping into a version of me that isn’t shaped by what I had to survive, but by what I choose to become.

I am still a survivor.

I am still chronically ill.

I am still a mother, a grandmother, a woman who has lived through a lot.

But I am also more than that even if I am only just learning what “more” looks like.

And maybe you’re here too. Maybe you’ve been defined by your pain for so long that you don’t know who you are without it. Maybe you’ve been surviving for so long you forgot that living is an option.

If that’s you, you’re not behind, you’re not broken, you’re not lost.

You are becoming.

And this blog series will walk through that becoming, one honest piece at a time.

Reflection Question

What labels have shaped you and which ones are no longer the whole truth?

Mantra

I am allowed to be more than what hurt me.

Journal Prompt

If I could take off every label for one moment, who might I be underneath?