The Power of Defining Yourself (Before the World Does It For You)

Audre Lorde, the legendary Black feminist writer and activist, once dropped this truth bomb: “If I don’t define myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.”

Let’s sit with that for a second. What does it mean to be “eaten alive” by someone else’s fantasies? Picture this: You’re a puzzle, and everyone around you is holding a piece they swear belongs to you—their expectations, their stereotypes, their narrow little boxes. If you don’t grab the pen and start sketching your own blueprint, you’ll end up a collage of everyone else’s ideas instead of your own masterpiece.

Here’s the hard truth: Self-definition isn’t self-help fluff; it’s survival. When we don’t claim ownership of our identities, values, and truths, the world rushes in to fill the silence. And let’s be real—those outside definitions are rarely kind. They’re built on society’s lazy shortcuts: racist tropes, sexist assumptions, classist judgments. They’re the same tired scripts that shrink us into side characters in someone else’s story.

Lorde wasn’t exaggerating with “eaten alive.” Think about the last time you bent yourself into a shape that didn’t fit just to please others. Maybe you code-switched until your voice felt foreign, or swallowed your anger to seem “palatable.” That’s the crunching sound of your spirit being compacted. And the longer we tolerate it, the hungrier those external fantasies get. PTSD taught me how easily we internalize others’ narratives. For years, I let therapists, well-meaning friends, and society’s obsession with “recovery timelines” draft my story. “You should be over it by now,” they’d say, and I’d nod, burying my rage and grief deeper. That’s the crunch Lorde warns about: the slow compression of your truth to fit into boxes that were never yours.

But here’s the flip side: Defining yourself is an act of rebellion. For marginalized folks, it’s how we carve space in a world that wants to erase us. It’s saying, “I exist on my terms,” in a society that’s always whispering, “But have you tried being quieter? Smaller? Less… you?” Self-definition begins in the cracks. It’s the moments you write “I am safe” on your wrist when the world feels too loud, the way you finally say “No, that’s not my story” to the voices (internal or external) that reduce you to a diagnosis or a stereotype.

So how do we start? It’s not about crafting a perfect “brand”. It’s the daily work of asking: Am I living my truth, or just recycling the ones handed to me? It’s small acts of defiance; keeping the parts of yourself that others call “too much,” rejecting labels that feel like straitjackets, and writing your story even when the world keeps trying to scribble in the margins. For those of us who’ve survived trauma, defining ourselves isn’t about crafting a perfect identity. It’s about gathering the scattered pieces of who you were before the world told you to be small.

Maybe it looks like:

• Letting yourself cry without labeling it “weakness.”
• Wearing the outfit that makes you feel strong, even if others call it “too bold.”
• Writing a letter to your younger self: “I’m sorry I believed them when they said you were too sensitive to survive.”

It’s messy. It’s nonlinear. Some days, “self-definition” is just surviving the hour. And that’s enough. Audre Lorde’s words are a compass, not a club. They don’t demand you roar before you’re ready. They ask you to breathe. To notice when you’re shrinking to comfort others. To reclaim your voice, even if it trembles. In a world that’s always hungry to define you, your job is to make sure it chokes on your authenticity.

Manel Miaadi

Jan 28, 2025