The Layered Life Identity: Who Am I Beyond the Labels?

Posted on 29/09/2025 by Shirley Appleby

By Shirley Appleby

It starts with a question many of us hesitate to ask out loud: Who am I, really?
Not the medical forms’ tick-box version. Not the job title on LinkedIn. Not the role others expect us to play at home.

Just me.

When life gives us multiple labels, person with a disability, carer, mother, professional, patient, it can feel like identity is being pieced together by other people’s definitions. And yet, underneath the weight of those names and roles, there is still a whole person waiting to be recognised.

The world often mistakes labels for identity.
They are meant to be shortcuts for understanding, but instead they flatten complexity. You become “the autistic student,” “the single mum,” “the person with chronic fatigue.” These labels might describe one slice of truth, but they rarely capture the whole story.

When we live layered lives, labels multiply. Each new diagnosis, each new role, adds another layer until it feels like your identity is hidden beneath a pile of sticky notes written by other people.

The challenge is not to deny those labels, they are part of us. The real challenge is learning to reclaim identity beyond them.

For many, the layers look something like this:

• A mother who manages medication for herself while also managing school runs for her children.

• A professional who prepares presentations at work while quietly calculating whether their energy will last through the evening.

• A carer who gives voice to someone else’s needs while struggling to have their own voice heard.

These lives are not defined by one story. They are an interweaving of many. Yet so often, when someone asks, “So, what do you do?” or “What’s wrong with you?”, we feel forced to choose a single answer.

This narrowing of identity can be painful. It erases the fullness of who we are. It makes invisible the creativity, humour, strength, and humanity that flourish alongside the harder parts.

Reclaiming identity doesn’t mean ignoring diagnoses or denying roles, it means putting yourself back in the centre. Here are some starting points:

1. Name yourself first. When introducing yourself, try leading with something beyond the expected. Instead of “I’m a carer for my son,” try “I’m someone who loves problem-solving and spending time outdoors, and I also care for my son.”

2. Create identity anchors. Keep a small list or journal of things that remind you who you are beyond roles and conditions, music you love, hobbies, values, friendships. These anchors pull you back to your whole self when the world narrows you down.

3. Practice gentle boundary-setting. It’s okay to challenge assumptions. If someone reduces you to a label, you can respond with, “That’s part of my story, but there’s more to me than that.”

4. Find spaces that reflect you fully. This might be a peer group, a creative practice, or a community where all your layers are welcomed. We need mirrors that show us whole, not just in fragments.

If you are living with layered identities, know this: you are more than the labels. You are allowed to be complex, contradictory, joyful, struggling, strong, and soft, all at once.

And if you are supporting someone with layered lives, pause before you reduce them to a single role or diagnosis. Ask about the rest of their story. See the whole person.

The layered life is not a weakness. It is a testimony to resilience, to love, to navigating multiple worlds at once. Our task is not to erase the labels, but to remind ourselves, and each other, that beneath them lives a full human being.

So when you next ask yourself, Who am I beyond the labels? let the answer be this: I am me, in all my layers. And that is enough.

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