Dialogical self

In this entry, I am gonna talk about an article that is about a young boy, whose name is Zach, age 17, who 'came out' as being gay when he was 14 years old. It is describing his struggle thru primary school, when he didn't want to admit to himself that he is gay. His parents were and still are supporting him one hundred percent and when he came out, his life turned upside down. He had problems with his schoolmates and neighbors his age, because they were teasing him all the time and calling him by insulting nicknames. But when he started high school, his life became better, he got a lot new friends, he is now participating in singing and drama groups, and he also won the middle school's top vocal award. He said his social life sky-rocked in sophomore year.

In the beginning of an article, there is an obvious struggle between identities in a young boys mind. He didn’t want to admit to himself that he’s gay, because that was not what society was searching for. All boys from his class were talking about girls, and which one do they like, but he didn’t feel that way. He couldn’t say which one he likes. From desperation, he invited one girl to a school dance event, just so others would think that he likes girls too. He didn’t allow himself to be what he wants to be. He just wanted to fit in a society. He was coping with two different voices in himself, and he wanted to shut one down. Because of that, he was angry, unhappy and had really low self-esteem.  Like Herman and Dimaggio are saying in their article about Self, Identity and Globalization, personal voices of individuals or the collective voices of groups enter the self –space and form positions that agree or disagree with or unite or oppose each other. In this case, voices formed positions that opposed each other. That’s what this young boy was fighting with. He had two different identities in himself, and he wanted one of them to disappear, but that was not possible, because this identity was too strong. Because of that, he was bad at school, depressed, fighting with parents, etc. ‘Within us are contradictory identities, pulling in different directions, so that our identifications are continually being shifted about. ‘(Hall 1992: p. 277)

He had two different voices in conflict. He wanted to be a ‘normal’ boy, but he knew something doesn’t allow him to be like others. He tried to push the voice, which was telling him, he is gay, down. His parents asked him, if he is gay, before he even knew by himself that he is. And he didn’t want to hear anything about it. But, when he decided to let the other voice come on the surface, the process of forming and developing an identity started.  Reffering to Hermans and Dimaggio, dialogical voices can be reasoned and emotional. They can argue, negotiate, convince, and shout, accuse, beg, laugh and cry, express anger, joy, sympathy love, fear… These are just a few ways in which people relate to their environment and to themselves. At first,  Zach was coping with strong emotions of fear, anger and sadness. His parents helped him in best possible way, in my opinion. They found him a gay therapist, who found Zach a gay youth group, so he had people like him around himself. They helped him to start building his own ‘bonding’ social capital. This concept is formed by Putnam and it means that Zach started to ‘bond’ with people who have similar interest as him, belong to a same group as him, they share same values, mainly, they are very similar to each other. Bonding social capital results from in-group trust and is very important in difficult emotional situations. When an individual knows, that there is someone else, who is going thru a very similar challenge in life as he/she is,  person starts feeling better about himself and about solving the problem, because she/he knows he is not left alone with it. It is important just to talk to somebody, it doesn’t have to be a solution right away. Bonding social capital makes people stronger and more optimistic about themselves and their future. And that is why Zach felt much better about himself after he joined gay youth group. He also let his other voice to be free and speak for itself. He started to feel good in his body, his self-esteem raised and most important, he found a way to communicate with his dialogical self. He let the voice about him being gay, become stronger and help him to evolve his personality. That reduced his previous experience of uncertainty about himself and the world around him.

I think this article is a very good example of how to help young people, who are struggling with evolving their own identities. It is very important, that parents are supporting their children with being what they want to be. Adolescents need a support of their parents more then they realize. Second most important thing is, helping a child to create his own social capital, and a net of friends, with which he is comfortable with. Otherwise he won’t be able to develop his personality in a way he would want to. All of this is very crucial in my profession, because I think we’re going to deal with lots of cases like this, and we should know how to approach them, so we can help them the best way we can. Without prejudice and discrimination, we have to find a way to help youngsters develop themselves in a way that is suitable for them and not only for society.