Labels. We all have them. Our family calls us "Daughter" or "Sister", our friends "Friend." Those are the positive labels we ought to have, the ones we ought to identify with. Unfortunately, it's the negative labels that often leave a bad taste in our mouths and echo in our minds ad nauseum.

I'm only 30 years old, but in my lifetime, I've been called "Lazy", "Stupid", "No Skinny-Minnie Anymore", "Too Shy", "Over-reactor", "Depressed", "Rape Victim", "Someone Who Abuses Alcohol", "Anorexic", a "Compulsive Exerciser", a "Bad Seed", a "Hard Child to Raise" . . . the list could go on and on.

Those labels aren't even mentioning the things that have not been said, but inferred. Some of them came from my mother, some from my peers, some from professionals, some from ex-boyfriends.

At an early age, I started assuming the personality of those labels. I was "lazy" so why bother cleaning my room? In college, my mother told me not to go out with my friends the night I was sexually assaulted, so I must have deserved to be raped. Right? I was a "Rape Victim" not a "Rape Survivor." I had anorexic tendencies, so why not stop eating? My new psychiatrist told me I was "Bipolar" so why not have violent mood swings whenever I felt like it?

This labeling stuck on my by others, soon turned into the worst form of labeling: I was now labeling myself.

I decided I was depressed, bipolar, anorexic, an exercise bulimic, fat, lazy, dumb, useless, hopeless, shameful, a victim . . .

Here's a poem entitled "Labels" that I composed in 1996 at age 19.

So I'm abnormal, you say, like a Jeopardy answer.
"Who is Nikki?" you ask without hesitation.
Why are we so different, friend of mine?
"Afterall," I say, "We both agree I'm abnormal."

I dress how I feel, and how I feel is black.
What a contrast to my pale skin, you say.
I'm leaving this earth and never coming back.
"Selfish," you retort. No, just plain smart.

In an unfeeling, uncaring world,
I feel. I care. I worry.
I don't understand why this blind world doesn't read the signs.
If that makes me abnormal, then so be it.

My blue eyes analyze the gray of your outlook.
My heart mourns your absence of emotion.
It's taken over you too.
You've been without reality for too long.

I'm abnormal to you, because I am the only real person left.

After my assault, I let this self-labeling consume me for 7 long years, until I'd had enough. I was 28 years old, and I wanted to find out who I really was, to learn just to be me. That would finally be enough.

After two years of intense counseling and hard work, I have come out the other side of the dark Label Tunnel. I've learned to create boundaries around those who have labeled me in the past. Now, when I hear my mother tell me how I am, I let it in one ear and out the other. I nod and I smile and I move on.

I became a Survivor during those two years (one of the few positive labels I allow) and started my own Survivor Website in order to help others with their healing. One of my most powerful messages to those on my message board is that "You can be anyone that you want to be. Being 'Just You' will always be enough."