What does it mean to be individual? What does it mean to have a sense of ones own individuality? Does one ever have a sense of their own individuality? Is it something that can be achieved or is it ingrain in our DNA?
I think there are some who would believe that it’s ingrained in us, just like the color of our eyes or the pattern in which our taste buds form. But others think it’s not something that is at birth but something that is shaped and crafted through experiences?
I think…that it’s something for another post.
This post is to ask, do I have a sense of my own individuality? How would I go about defining such a thing?
I like to think I’m very one of a kind. But then again there are times when I’m not sure. Does the make-up of all mental issues shape how I respond to my surroundings? I think it does. How I perceive the world around influences how I see myself in the mirror and even in my mind’s eye. But what if someone doesn’t know the extent of the mental issues does that count? Just this year I found out that all this time that my mom has joked with me about being on the spectrum, wasn’t all jokes. I am indeed on the spectrum for Autism. I was tested and everything. I of course have no memories of these, but I do have memories of a change in how my teachers treated me. I even know that I had to go to counseling and speech therapy while in elementary. I also had a special person, that wasn’t like a big sister but more like a shadow therapist type of person. I have a form of Asperger Syndrome...which is on the opposite side of the spectrum of the kids that my mom did one or one with.
After learning this out, (I was told one night while my mom was making spaghetti and I asked if it was gonna be baked because that’s the only way I can eat it. I don’t like the feel of noodles. She said yes I know, it’s that whole texture thing. That’s why you are on the spectrum. Me: Haha, very funny. No I’m not joking, see look. And she shows me some testing papers.) I looked it up and now I know more about why I react to certain things. But what about the last 23 years?
Being close in age with my sister has, I think, stifled yet at the same time as fed into my sense of individuality. I mean when I look at it, growing up I never had a sleep over at a friend’s house by myself. Not even over family’s houses, it was always with my sister. I rarely had friends my own age, usually they were my sister’s age and I just kind of tagged along. But it wasn’t of my own doing as much as my parents. My sister was way more sociable than I was and I was often pushed along with my sister to go play with other kids. And I guess the other kids just accepted me as a friend. I wasn’t an odd child, I warmed up sooner or later to everyone that I wasn’t an horrible little sister to have around. And the craziness that is me today was me then. And as much as that sounds like a positive thing, I can’t help but to think…was it?
It has always been that me and my sister have been lumped together in an almost one entity kind of thing. One good example is simple Christmas presents. Always something to be shared between us, or the same thing just different colors.
Me and my sister have had one common teacher, and it wasn’t until parent/teacher conferences that she knew that we were related. When I think of our personalities, I like to use her words, “Like night and day.” (Now who is the night and who is the day…I’m still not sure.) So how can our very own family not be able to separate the two. Even to mixing up or names it results in the same thing, am I not remember-able enough to be a separate entity from my older sister?
Have I not spent enough time in my youth crafting my individuality? But then again if it is something that can be crafted, when does it start? If it’s something from birth, when does it become apparent?
I’ve never been one for social labels. I can’t be goth. I can’t be prep. I can’t be rock star. I can’t be hip hop. I am me.
There are things that I like and there are things that I don’t. Every school year I remember the agony of going for new clothes, it was as if it was the only chance my mom and sister would get to buy me the type of clothes I should be wearing. And every year it would be the same, this year would be different. So I would end up with clothes that I would wear once and then I would revert back to my jeans and t-shirts with weird sayings on them. But that’s just never enough. In all honesty yes I would like to wear items that might be a little goth, prep, rock star, and even hip hop. But body consciousness sometimes prevents me to explore such things.
But is individuality just in clothes? I don’t think so. I would rather watch episodes of The Simpsons, than an episode of The O.C. what does that say about my mental facilities? Is the fact that I prefer cartoons over drama series, a testimony that I behave like a child, that I haven’t grown up?
What about the fact that I always say I like older men, but almost every boyfriend I have has been younger than me? Even my online guy is younger than me. What does that say about me and how much I know of myself?
Yet I still come back to does this even define my individuality? When I say there is only one me…am I saying I’m the only one who has chosen to arrange the same thing everyone is in this particular way so that it makes me?
So the questions I posed at the beginning remain: What does it mean to be individual? What does it mean to have a sense of ones own individuality? Does one ever have a sense of their own individuality? Is it something that can be achieved or is it ingrain in our DNA?
How do you define your own individuality?
B.J.
Bianco Jade