Personal Narrative: What Made Me Who I Am Today

My family has always been the center of my universe. They’ve taught me the importance of being united and taking care of one another—because in the end, all we truly have is each other. My parents have raised me to be a good daughter, sister, and citizen. They’ve shaped me to be respectful, responsible, and virtuous, knowing these values will last a lifetime. But above all, my parents have instilled in me an appreciation and eagerness for education.

4. Explain 5 things you value. Some of the values and beliefs that make the person I am include: Family and friends- I value the idea of keeping family and friends important in my life. For me, family and friends are the ones that will always be there for me when I’m down and will help me when experiencing troubling times.

Throughout my life I have come from and created a few identities for myself. Perhaps, the most dominant identities that have been apart of my life are being an athlete and being a family orientated man. In this paper I will write about how my identities have shaped my life. First off I believe my biggest identity is being an athlete.

Chapter One: You Are What You See In today’s society, the media is inescapable. The advancements of technology have led to an even larger outreach of media--touching close to every person. For me, the media has always been an influence in my life. From the songs I’ve listen to, the movies I grew up watching, and the stories I’ve heard, the media has sculpted a significant portion of my identity.

These values were first inspired by my parents, my upbringing, my school life and my community life. I realised at an early age that being respectful to everyone and their emotions, beliefs and personal values were a simple way to avoid offending people. These values have developed as I have developed and are an essential part of my character and would be a fundamental element of my practice in becoming a culturally safe healthcare practitioner. This is evident in the Code of Ethics for Nurses in Australia, where it states that the second code is that “Nurses value respect and kindness for self and others.” (Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council,

Beliefs and Values Beliefs become standards by which people order their lives and make their choices. A beliefs will develop into a value when the person’s commitment to it grows and they see it as being important. My personal beliefs have developed in values, because I view them as important part of my life.

The following are four events which made me question my existence and meaning: A brutal father, a son filling his shoes, two loves walking away, and my personal narrative. This paper is written around the trait of losing trust, but in reality I’m telling the events which made me hate myself, and men, the most. I should have told someone about these things, but who do you tell when you can’t even trust family, and you have a new fear of masculinity? I’m not here to play the victim of a tragedy, or to make people feel sorry for me. These are my mistakes; I should have handled every event differently than I did.

And the sets of values I live my life according to are based off of two things: my spirituality and my experiences. I believe that life is also affected by spirituality, and acknowledging that it is, gives purpose to the lives we live. And my life is grounded on certain spiritual beliefs and ideologies, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m not open to other perspectives and views in life as long as it doesn’t go against the beliefs I am grounded upon. My values are also dictated by my past experiences. I have become familiar with the feeling of failure because of sports.

I HAVE LIVED MY LIFE THINKING THAT THE WAY I LIVE WAS NORMAL. I wake up at 7:00, do my homework once I come back from school, do my after-school activity homework, and sleep at 12:00 A.M. to 1:00 A.M. I repeat that every weekday. I had no choice but to think that what I do was what everyone else did. I was wrong.

Current identity characteristics include: white, female heterosexual and age group 17-30. My new identity characteristics include: first people/ native, bisexual and differently abled. When researching portrayals about this identity I decided to break it down into three separate characteristics. There are stereotypes that go along with my first identity of native. A common one being that this identity is all alcoholics1.

I identify as an African-American, Mexican and Native American woman as well as a first generation, low-income student. My ethnicity and socioeconomic class are two essential entities that make up my identity, entities that I’m proud to claim. With that being said, I realize that the challenges I might face during my time in Spain are going to be based off my racial background, my family’s economic status and quite possibly, my gender. I have become aware that Spaniards will want to place me in some sort of box because of my skin complexion, clothing, and speech etc. I am no stranger to this “box fetish” or the social construct of race and class.

I have a confession to make. One that makes me wince a bit and pushes me uncomfortably against contradictions it creates in my identity: I am in an impassioned relationship with the creation of a ‘perfect’ wedding. Hours of reality television shows about affirming the best dress? Check. Casually browsing wedding registries at Macy’s?

A sense of accomplishment is invaluable to a person. Not only does a sense of accomplishment build confidence and faith in oneself, but it also allows one to reflect on how wonderful the journey to the accomplishment was, and how every little struggle and triumph was worth it. In the middle of summer, where time seems endless and the stress of the previous school year has been shed by students, I never expected to find out that I scored a five on both of the advanced placement exams I took. Nor did I have one-hundred percent confidence the goals we set as section leaders of the marching band would actually be met. Yet to my surprise, I had the good fortune of accomplishing challenging things in both aspects of my life.

Throughout my life I have had several influences that have molded me in to the person I am today. Whether it was a positive influence or not, these agents of socialization have effected every aspect of my life. However, I believe my family, the military, and the media have had the largest impact in shaping my emotions and character. In this paper I will analyze my influences and how they are connected to several socialization concepts. I was born in Portland, Oregon on July 20, 1992 and shortly after moved to Milwaukie, Oregon where I was raised.

My family’s past experiences also teach me how to live my life the best way possible. For example, my parents did not finish college, so they were not able to obtain lucrative careers. Not finishing or not even going to college can take a toll on your life. If my parents finished college our life would have been more successful financially. Although my parents did not have the best money,