A new name and new era!

A new era in my personal identity slowly edged into the forefront. It had crept up in the background and seeped into the fibre of my being. The first inklings of awareness were like a distant sound that I strained to hear. It was a promise sent to my basic senses; a taster of whom I would become.

When my mum died, my whole world bottomed out and destabilised. In a few short months, I had to gather my wits and re model myself, as well as fighting the raw, overwhelming wound of loss and bleakness. Those months are patchy in my memory, like a faded photograph. I acknowledge my actions and words were wholly me, but at the time, I felt like a shade in a world that had moved on. As I desperately hung onto the memory of my mother, I began to construct a metaphorical protective, healing chrysalis around me.

In those hollow times, I became aware that the years had emotionally battered, disappointed, dejected, and physically weakened me. The contributors ranged from my own incurable health condition, exterior negative influences, and watching those that were close to me fall ill and die. I had suffered too much damage to my own identity and worth. Sadly, in the past I had also let others treat me badly and it had turned into a negative cycle.

I found myself in situations and circumstances that allowed others to wear my self -esteem and inner confidence to a tooth pick. I was told I wasn't good enough and the worst thing is... I believed them. Once. No longer.

I felt the first instances began in my early years, from a school system which didn't understand or attempt to comprehend my world view. In fact, I remember being crushed and ridiculed for my independent, enquiring mind. The quintessential core of my personality always naturally challenges the predisposed norms and questions constantly. That has never changed. Why? Where? When, and how? Teachers seemed engaged in the business of forcing children into neatly-labelled boxes - completely malleable. I certainly wasn't malleable, and I kicked out at those constraints. It continued in various forms of vilification and bullying tactics by adults and children through secondary school. Almost unbelievably, it continued in social groups for a few years after. It’s hard to break negative cycles when they are entrenched.

I was accustomed to being viewed as a scapegoat, stupid, an object of pity, a villain, a joke, and at best dismissible. All because I viewed the world 'differently' to my peers.

Recognising the systems of abuse is almost impossible when you are in the thick of it. But that chrysalis gave me the protection and time to re-evaluate every aspect of my life. Over the years, in the hiatus between my old and reformed self, I came to the staggering realisation that through the trials and hurt, I could overcome anything! I was strong, powerful, intelligent and most importantly brave.

Without noticing at first, my life and my identity had changed for the better! I had self-esteem, confidence and be damned if I was going to let anyone from the past or the present pollute my opinion of myself. Nobody would use me as a crutch for their inferiority complexes again! I began removing and distancing myself from many people, because of their refusal to see me as I was, not who I used to be.

  

In the last year or two, I appeared fully formed out of my chrysalis and I hadn't even realised. It was a silent knowledge that the new phase of my life at started. This was the time 'Sofie Jude' was manifested. It was directly coeval with my final evolution. My stage name is a slight change in spelling to my real name. In that slight change, I finally shed the chrysalis.

I felt a novel whimsy that I had all but abandoned at a far too young age... it was hope.

I couldn't carry on with my old name, when I signed it; it felt like a malfunctioning anachronism from a past that I had long since repaired the damage from. I honour that my mum chose my name, but it was my choice to symbolise a positive evolution of once damaged identity.

Sofie