As humans, we want to define ourselves and we want to define others.

We want to know who we are, who others are, and what we can expect of them. Whether on purpose or not we put labels on people. Some people love these labels and cling to them, not knowing what to do if a certain label is taken away.

Other people resist labels and do not want to be "put in a box," but in their own way are tying their identity to not having a label.

Having these labels can be very helpful in certain situations, but can also quickly become harmful, and that is what I am beginning to see in regards to mental health.

I am very open with my struggle with mental illness, and there was a time when I would have overidentified with my struggle with mental illness. And it was not long ago that I considered buying one of these necklaces and wearing it proudly, but recently I have been thinking a lot about identity and how much it truly matters.

Dictionary.com defines identity as "the condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is; the qualities, beliefs, etc., that distinguish or identify a person or thing". From this definition mental illness could be part of my identity but I know how easy it is for it to go from being part of my identity to what I'm basing my entire identity on. When I base my identity on having anxiety or depression things just don't go well. I become self-centered, feel sorry for myself, and create false narratives about what others are thinking. As a person whose natural inclination is to seek the approval of others, this is especially dangerous, and I can look back on the times in my life when anxiety and depression were the most present and clearly see how this fed them. So I will be leaning into my true identity and not be defining myself by mental illness.

So what is my true identity? And how can something that affects me greatly even to this day not be one of the ways I define myself? Simply put, I am a child of God (John 1:12) and "I can't afford to have a thought about me in my head that He doesn't have in His head about me. Any time it entertains things that are not absolutely true and central in His perspective about me then I'm visiting something that will war against what He thinks about me." As a child of God, my identity is found in what He says about me.

He says:

And so instead of wearing my mental illness on a necklace as my identity, I wear my identity as a child of God, loved by Him. Loved so much that He died to redeem me. And that is something I absolutely want to be reminded of every day.