Unlearning the Labels I Grew Up With

I spent a lot of my early life being told things like I was vain, shallow, mean, and negative. Don't get me wrong I most definitely was but I grew up. However those words weren’t just thrown around and forgotten—they stuck to me like a fly on poop. I fully land what it meant when people said old habits die hard. Even now, more than a decade after my stroke, I sometimes hear them in the back of my mind, echoing in moments when I try to be proud of myself or show confidence.

After my stroke, everything changed—not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I was forced to reevaluate my entire identity. Suddenly, I wasn’t the social butterfly or the pretty one or the life of the party. I was the girl in the wheelchair. The one people pitied, or worse, ignored. I went from being on the top of the social ladder to feeling invisible. It was a drastic change.

What’s been hardest isn’t just the external shift—it’s the internal rewiring. Because even when I try to celebrate my small wins, a little voice says, “Don’t get too proud, that’s ego,” or, “Don’t share this, it’ll come off as shallow.” That inner critic isn’t mine—it’s something I most definitely acquired through my travels of life.

Unlearning those old labels hasn’t been a straight line. It’s come through painting, comedy, traveling, and letting myself show up—even when I’m scared people will just assume things and judge me. After all that's how my mindset worked before my stroke. I’m starting to realize that celebrating your growth, your strength, your weird little joys—that’s not vanity. That’s survival. That’s reclaiming your life.

I know a lot of these stereotypes and stigmas I have to navigate through and fight to disprove has all been portrayed via media. The news, commercials, magazines, movies, radio... etc I really do not understand how grown adult teachers could allow middle school students to listen to the stuff that we listened to back then. I blame that hot in here song by Nelly and scary movie 2. No wonder most of the world is brainwashed. The movie The Matrix says it all. There are so many people on this planet sucked in and stuck in the matrix.

So if you’re reading this and you’ve been told you’re too much or not enough, I see you. I’m with you. And I hope you give yourself permission to unlearn what doesn’t serve you, and remember who you actually are underneath it all.