I remember when the Professors and Youth in Action came and spoke to us about Resiliency, Positive development, and Critical Youth development. And how we had to take a short written survey about our identity status and explain a story that has a an emotional attatchment to us. It could be something that either excited me, puzzled me, or caused me to work harder at being me, or perhaps make me sometimes feel that I am not myself. Afterwards we would turn to our neighbor and discuss our story and then figure out if we were diffused, achieved, forclosed, or moratorium. Then we walked towards the corner that was labeled with our identity status and took turn sharing a shorter version of our story to our group and figure out the connection between all of stories.
So my story was when I was in the 9th grade at first I was very close to 8 girls, based on how people treated them and how they treated others they were known as the popular girls. When you are a freshmen in high school all you really want to do is fit in. Especially if a year ago you just moved to Providence, RI from Florida, and the year before that I was born and lived in Queens, NY. So finding a group of girls that I could actually fit in with for four years was very important to me since I moved so much. The only problem was, that I was friends with girls that were popular only because everyone was scared of them. You were either friends with them because you were scared or enemies because you decided to part ways. Since I was the studious one of the group they never made fun of me and called me hurtful names, because they knew how much value I added to their grade point average. Until one day, I will never forget and until today it is something that it does not hurt me but it does make me wish I never became their friends. I was extremely shy they probably would of never noticed me. But it happened no way to turn back now. So that day during 4th grade I was in my English class and the main girl of the girls was looking around the room trying to find someone to make fun of, it was a daily routine that never went unnoticed. She stopped at me, and said some really rude comments about me and just like that the entire room erupted with laughter. Without me giving my eyes permission I started to cry and my face turned extremely red, and because she realized how embarrassed I was she enjoyed it and kept doing it. In the hallway, in the cafeteria, in each of our classes because when you are a freshman you take the same classes besides electives, then goodness for electives. I tried getting help from my teachers but unfortunately there are so many students in a classroom that they could miss so much in a matter of just turning around or stepping out to discuss something with a teacher between periods. I also tried getting help from a school counselor but she only made it worse by inviting the girl to one of the appointments we made and just when the humiliation died out it begin again since the girl went to class and told everyone that I went to the counselor. My parents never found out since back then they both work 8am-5pm jobs so by the time I came home with my brother who is 5 years younger then me, my eyes were completely cried out.
I turned to my neighbor and explained all of this to her and then told her what my identity status was in this story and I said diffused. The reason that I believed that I was diffused in this story is because I felt helpless and even though I tried going to teachers and the school counselor it just made it worse. I also feel like because I just wanted to belong and follow a group, I was losing my identity.
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