Identity Crisis

My plan was to create my posts in somewhat of a chronological order as to when experiences occurred throughout my transition process but as often is the case with life, things are not going according to plan. Something happened today that I feel the need to write about.

I’ll go into more detail later in another post but I am currently working as an Instructional Aid at a middle school helping kids who struggle. Today my assistant principle moved me to a different class. She introduce me to the new teacher as Mrs. Burkhart so I corrected her and let her know that I have the kids call me Miss Shelley. She then said I can’t do that and have to go by my full last name, not even initial. We proceeded to have a back and forth about how I choose to be addressed which was unpleasant for all of us.

Here is my issue. During the 25 years I was Mrs. Burkhart not only was it my name but it was part of what defined me and I lost myself to it. I was happy to take it at the time and don’t regret it at all but I am no longer that person and prefer not to be verbally reminded of my ex all day long. It has been quite a process to discover who I am as an individual and I would like to keep my focus there now. So, easy solution (which she also suggested), use my maiden name. Two reasons that doesn’t work for me either is my kids are Burkhart and I don’t wish to separate myself from them even by name so I legally won’t change it and honestly I have no desire to take my nonexistent dad’s name back either. Just as smells conjure up memories for people, both of my last names bring back a flood of bad memories associated with stress.

Hence the identity crisis. I’m not having some major emotional break down, I just very simply don’t want to be referred to Mrs. Burkhart or Ms. Reddam 8,000 times a day. So I have dug my heals in and will continue to be called Miss Shelley especially since the kids already know me by that but I have a new empathy for divorced women who have a similar struggle. It is a very strange feeling to think I don’t have a name that really belongs to me. Help me out ladies, am I the only one who feels like this??