Juliana Wilson

ENG 2150

Assignment 3

December 7, 2023

Identity Crisis

Throughout my life I have struggled with my identity. It’s not that I don’t know who I am, but I struggle with accepting myself for who I am. I spent a great amount of my childhood and adolescence focused on who I wanted to be rather than embracing who I was. In elementary school, I never really felt as if I fit in with my peers, and was often bullied by the others. I felt like I had to constantly reinvent myself to have broader appeal. I have suffered the wrath of what labeling can do to someone so vulnerable. 

Every time I was called a name I took it to heart and I let whatever title I was given take control of my emotional state and self-perception. Three labels I was given in my adolescence that had the largest impact on me were “Gifted and Talented”, “Pop Prodigy”, and “Fat”. I would like to walk you through each of these labels, how they have affected me throughout my life, and why even positive labeling can be harmful for individuality.

“Gifted and Talented”

When I was in elementary school, I was invited to take the test to see if I was “Gifted and Talented”. The Gifted and Talented program is a program that centers around accelerated learning. This program is designed for children who have a high intelligence quotient. I ended up taking the test and getting into the program. My parents were given a pamphlet of what it would entail, and possible school options. I decided to not go through with the program because I didn’t want to leave my friends behind.

Even though I was still in my regular classes, it didn’t stop me from making sure everyone knew I was Gifted and Talented. This label made me feel powerful, and that I could succeed without lifting a finger. That was until I reached my freshman year of high school– which was when I failed a test for the first time. I truly never studied or had to work hard on school prior, so the sudden change in my grades was shocking to me. I built a superiority  complex around this label that I barely even fit into. I didn’t want to let myself fall to be an underling of my prior self, so I kept up the act I realized I was performing. 

School teacher Robert Johnson writes on the subject of Gifted and Talented children: “They have shown themselves to be ordinary–the worst adjective of all. Most especially, I have witnessed this fear of growth among the “G and T” crowd, for whom revision is to admit failure–absolute disgrace. Teachers of gifted and talented dancers, artists, musicians, and actors tell me similar horror stories. For far too many of our students, understanding has come to mean quick answers, insight in a flash.”(Johnson) I truly did think that because of being “Gifted and Talented” knowledge would come naturally. The only knowledge I really gained was that I wasn’t learning anything in school.

Gaining the title of “Gifted and Talented” led to a heavily distorted self-perception, and unfortunately, also led to me having a skewed view of my peers. I was really cruel to kids who I thought were not as intelligent as I was. “It can be argued that if the label of gifted results in negative perceptions by self and others, then increasingly negative behaviors may be exhibited causing social isolation and possibly negative emotional consequences.” (Gates) Jillian Gates, who has a Ph.D. in Gifted Education, writes about the negative effects of labeling a child gifted. Feeling a sense of inadequacy in fulfilling the “giftedness” brought out negative emotions in me and led me to feel burnt out. 

“Pop Prodigy”

I was, and still am, the only musician in my family. Music has always had a big part in my life. Starting from a young age, I was always singing and playing instruments. I spent a lot of my free time dancing and singing along to music on my iPod. When I was around 9 years old, I asked my mom if I could take singing lessons. Every Wednesday after school going forward for the next couple years I would take singing lessons with Cara. After the first lesson, she told my mom that I didn’t need the lessons because I was a “prodigy”. I still went weekly because I really enjoyed sipping tea and singing with her. I would occasionally sing the songs I’d sing with her when I got home. 

My dad was so impressed with me after I sang him a song by Mayday Parade, that he called up a family friend who happened to be a record producer and had me sing for him over the phone. He was reluctant to listen, but wanted to meet me immediately when he heard I was 11 years old. He was the second person to call me a prodigy. This was another label that wasn’t inherently bad, but made me feel like one of many instead of just me. I was offered a deal with this producer, and took it. We worked together for me to essentially become “famous”. In the next couple years, I did interviews for some newspapers, websites, brands, and radio stations. The way I was always introduced in these forms of publicity was with the work prodigy once again. 

“Labels end up conveying something absolute. That’s difficult to navigate away from once it’s decided. Why do this to yourself and prevent growth in other areas? Once we start tossing labels to the side, we can truly invest in our potential.”(Kramer) Bryan Kramer, a Forbes Council member, puts into words exactly how the label of prodigy felt. I was so heavily convinced that, as a “prodigy”, I was required to create amazing things effortlessly. It prevented me from really being creative. I was less inclined to write music or try new things with my voice because I was concerned it wouldn’t meet my own or other’s expectations. I was too scared of failure that I didn’t even want to pursue music as a career anymore.

Every time I google my own name, I am met with the person I was 7 years ago, and remembering who I could have become. I was not able to keep up with the pressures that the title prodigy held, and not succeeding had made me feel like a failure. 

“When children are labeled, it can affect their sense of self and how they are treated, and limit their potential…Remember when talking about a child, that labels can be difficult to remove.” (Kim) Yaebin Kim, Child Development Specialist, explains that once a label is given to a child, or anyone for that matter, those labels will be difficult to get rid of and will probably remain present throughout our lives. It is important for us all to be cautious when we label people, because it is often difficult to shed a label. Even though a “prodigy” is a positive thing to be, hearing it now only makes me feel like a failure– because, in my head, I believe a true prodigy would have succeeded.

“Fat”

When I was in elementary school, I was always one of the biggest kids in my grade. It was something I was aware of, but not embarrassed about. I was very active and ate fairly healthily. I was on my school’s soccer team, was on a dance team, and also did gymnastics. My body, unfortunately, didn’t reflect this and I eventually became the perfect target for bullies. Around when I was in the third grade- it started. The bullying lasted throughout the rest of my time in elementary school, and followed me to middle school as well. 

I was not the type of person at that point who would just let things like that go. Hearing that I was fat, a whale, or any of the other demeaning names eventually led to me developing an eating disorder. I became extremely self-destructive very quickly. I skipped meals almost daily and would water fast for weeks at a time. I felt like I was doing something good for my body and finally taking the power back in the situation. I was wrong. Every day I felt so ill and tired to the point I could barely get out of bed or off of the couch without feeling faint. This continued on for months, and I hardly saw any difference in the way I looked or with how much I weighed. 

It came to a point where I was having waves of both starving myself and also binge eating. After a while I ended up gaining more weight than I had initially lost. I spent a lot of time feeling like a failure and that I was always just going to be fat. That was who I was and who I would always be. 

When I entered my second year of college, I really wanted to work on myself. I spontaneously got myself a gym membership, and began going every day. I found a lot of information about eating disorder recovery online, and began to take small steps to change my eating habits for the better. Eventually, after around a year, I lost 100lbs. This would finally bring me down to my goal weight. Seeing the number on the scale excited me, but looking in the mirror did not. I could barely see a difference in my body at 250 lbs versus 150 lbs. I still felt like I was fat and I needed to lose more weight.

 It didn’t help that my family and friends urged me to continue my hard work because I was beginning to look so good. Author for the Center for Discovery Eating Disorder Treatment website writes that: “‘Overweight’ and even underweight children and adolescents tend to be at higher risk for being bullied because they look different. The torment that takes place is not by just the ‘mean girls’ at school. It can be from friends, coaches, and as subtle as teasing by family members. Oftentimes, family members and friends are not even aware they are bullying their loved ones but rather think they are just teasing by making hurtful remarks about another individual’s body image.” (Mahoney). There is a common theme in who children choose to bully, and in general, the victims will be people who look or act differently than the majority. But the onset or progression of an eating disorder does not have to come from a bully. The remarks can come from anyone and even the smallest comments can fuel a fire.

Sarah Babington, who is in recovery from her eating disorder writes about her experience on the website “Recovery Warriors” that, “Labeling a group of people creates an illusion in which they no longer become human beings… These labels make it easy to apply negative stereotypes and create common generalizations. This usually leads to common misconceptions about the group of people.” (Babington) Labeling is a way to dehumanize someone and represent them as a category rather than as an individual. Babington explains that she felt that she was less of a person with disordered eating, and seen more as “the girl with an eating disorder”.

Labels can have a wide range of impacts on one’s relationships, societal standing, as well as self-perception or psyche due to imposed labeling. Despite the possibility of beneficial labels—empowering individuals—labels tend to isolate more than anything. The label of “Gifted and Talented” resulted in an inflated self-image and an unrealistic sense of superiority. The label “Prodigy” was incredibly consequential for me, stifling my creativity due to feelings of inadequacy. Finally, the label “fat”: being bullied because of my weight eventually pushed me to work on my health, but initially led to an eating disorder, a distorted self-image, and many other emotional and social struggles. Overall, despite the “harmlessness” or positive intentions of these labels, they reveal how easily it is possible to limit growth, confine us, and perpetuate stereotypes. We all need to embrace our individuality and growth in a supportive and empathetic environment, encouraging the pursuit of individuality. We are the masters of our fates, and only we should have the power to define ourselves if we want to.

Annotated Bibliography

Babington, Sarah. “Feel Labeled as, “the Girl With an Eating Disorder”?” Recovery Warriors, 7 Mar. 2023, recoverywarriors.com/feel-labeled-as-the-girl-with-an-eating-disorder. Accessed 13 Dec. 2023.

The purpose of this work is to spread awareness about eating disorders and how they are viewed by people and how stereotypes are perpetuated. This was likely written for a broad audience, especially those who do not suffer from an eating disorder. The work is posted on a website designed to help people recover from eating disorders. This is relevant to the topics because it discusses how labels such as “mentally ill” or “the girl with the eating disorder” negatively impacted the author. The work alone is not very strong since there aren’t any other works cited, but Babington does discuss her personal experience. The piece is very short, so there is not a lot of information for her to analyze.

Gates, Jillian. “Children With Gifts and Talents: Looking Beyond Traditional Labels.” Off Campus Access @ Baruch College, web-p-ebscohost-com.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=7&sid=55d57bc4-4342-49c0-afa7-6467358ad207%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3D%3D#AN=2010-15324-005&db=psyh. Accessed 5 Nov. 2023. 

At the time this work was written, Jillian Gates was a doctoral candidate at Perdue University for a doctorate in Gifted Education. The paper was written to discuss the negative and positive impacts that labeling has on children. She specifically discusses how labeling affects children’s self perception, and perceptions others have on them. This work is relevant to the topic because it supports the claim that gifted and talented labeling can have negative impacts on a child’s self image. The piece is separated by bolded topic statements, and under each she discusses her bolded claim. Her piece is very well researched, and she uses over fifty references to support her claim.

Johnson, Robert. A Symposium: Being Special – JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/820132. Accessed 5 Nov. 2023. 

In this work, Robert Johnson writes about his experience with Gifted and Talented students– as a teacher. Johnson believes that gifted and talented labeling is dangerous and leads to children in gifted and talented programs having false perceptions of what excellence is. Students will focus more on their grades and following directions than thinking for themselves. The work is written in The English Journal, and published by The National Council of Teachers of English, so it was likely written for other English teachers to read. Johnson does not use any references, and only discusses his personal experience. He does talk about informal research he conducted among his students.

Kim, Yaebin. “Avoid Labeling Your Child | Extension | University of Nevada, Reno.” Extension | University of Nevada, Reno, 2019, extension.unr.edu/publication.aspx?PubID=3011. Accessed 13 Dec. 2023.

This work written by Yaebin Kim, was published for the University of Nevada. Yaebin Kim specializes in Parenting Education and Child Development. The work discusses how parents should not label their children. Her three main points are: Labeling affects the way children see themselves, Labeling influences the way children are treated, and Labeling limits children’s potential. This work is definitely targeted towards parents of children. Her piece is concise and to the point. She also uses six different references for her work, so it can be considered a strong source.

Mahoney, Ben. “Bullying and its Effects on Body Image and Eating Disorders.” Center for Discovery Eating Disorder Treatment centerfordiscovery.com/blog/bullying-body-image-eating-disorders/. Accessed 13 Dec. 2023.

The purpose of this work is to spread awareness about the link between bullying and eating disorders. This was likely written for people who believe they know someone who may have an eating disorder due to bullying, or either alone. This work lists off symptoms of eating disorders and signs of bullying to look out for. The work is posted on the website for the Center for Discovery Eating Disorder Treatment. This is relevant to the topics because it discusses the link between bullying and developing an eating disorder. The work doesn’t have any other works cited, but Mahoney writes down the information in a concise and easy-to-read way.

Kramer, Bryan. “ Why It’s Time To Stop Labeling Ourselves And Those Around Us.” Forbes Magazine Forbes Coaches Council, 21 May 2019 forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/05/21/why-its-time-to-stop-labeling-ourselves-and-those-around-us/?sh=5e19350f433d. Accessed 13 Dec. 2023.

The purpose of the work was to influence the public to stop labeling both themselves and others. Bryan Kramer wrote this piece for Forbes as a Former Forbes Council Member and business performance coach. He discusses how putting people into boxes limits our desires to connect and influences us to derive preconceived notions about people before we can dig any deeper. This source is relevant because Kramer believes that labeling is not important and should be something we consciously try to do less of.