Resisting A Single Story Narrative



       Throughout my life, I have experienced being an outsider within. An outsider within, according to Julia Wood, is "a person who is inside a particular social group through daily interactions and activities but is also excluded from that group because she is not defined as "one of them". Growing up multiracial, adopted, and with various mental illnesses, I have felt like I have never truly "fit in." I have felt like an outsider within in elementary school when I wasn't invited to play over at friend's house because their parent's spoke only Spanish and I did not. I felt like I didn't belong when other kids wouldn't play with me because of the stigma surrounding me not being raised by my biological family. 

         I have felt like an outsider within in places that were meant for those who did not fit in. Places like AA where we were supposed to be welcomed and yet not really fitting in there because I had another layer of mental illness. Dual Diagnosis groups were and are still rare to find. I have felt like an outsider in hospitals because I more than one mental illness and therefore I was "worse", making it harder to get help or connect in order to heal. 

          Labels make it hard for people to find their place in the world and sometimes they make it easier. They can make it easier to find others that are like them like with specialty groups on school campuses or in the community. At the same time they can also have people feeling like they never truly belong. 


Wood, Julia.  Communication Theories in Action, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2004, pp. 209.

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