At birth we are given a name, a number, and a certificate of life. All of which helps to identify us, it gives us a unique combination of letters and symbols, as well as showing who’s who by stamping an image of our feet onto a piece of paper. As Alan W. Watts once said, “We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.” Of these ID’s, we only have the right to reside over one, one form of identification that we can personalize. One combination of letters that we have complete control over. We have power over what we are called, and, for most people, we change our name as we grow …show more content…
I was born to a lower middle class family, at the McKee Medical Center. They are the ones to give me my first nickname, Catie, like my father wanted, and that’s how I started my life. I grew up as Catie, my friends, my family, and I, myself, knew me as Catie. It wasn’t Cathrine, or Cathrine Sarah, but Catie. I lived my first couple years going by this nickname, and I loved it. I even felt possessive over my name. It was mine, not the girls sitting next to me, I didn’t care about being called by a name given to me due to the pressures of society, the requirements of a specific name that would be used to place me in a specific group of people for a specific job position. I was free to choose what I wanted to be called, in school I went my Catie, it was my way to keep control of my life where control had been taken away from me. It was a personal right to change it as I saw fit, I had to abide by a strict schedule, a schedule set by those who were above …show more content…
I wanted to be called Cat, then Cate, then Catie, then Cathrine. I felt a sense of empowerment by choosing what other people were allowed to call me. I felt a sense of control. Although, that control did not fully reach to specific people. My familial connection to my mother diminished. I was moving away from her due to a distinct hatred for her husband. A man that I began to associate with hate and just pure, arrogance and ignorance. The longer I was around him, the more I heard him call me by Cate. And, I started to hate that name, this was a man who I clashed heads with multiple times. The more I heard him say it, the more I started to hate the name. I was associating it with him. With a portion of my life that I couldn’t stand. I wasn’t in control anymore, It was taken away from me and I hated the feeling. In middle school I realized this feeling I had toward this name. Any time that someone called me it I started to associate a feeling of anger and depression with