Represent-Feature Story

A Man of Many Names
My alter egos help me handle my life

By Griffin K.

I am a person who has had many different names. I change my name when I know that change is needed, both mentally and emotionally. The scariest thing in life to me is dealing with too much at once. I take on different names so that I can handle different situations and aspects of my life.

Each name comes with a different mindset and emotion. This prevents me from fully changing back into the person I once was.

It all started in 2002, when I left the campus I’d been living on for nine years. I had the chance to get rid of the person I was. I needed a fresh start. So I became Lone Souljah. I was hoping that by changing my name, I could forget all about Griffin.

“Griffin” was who I used to be, and boy was Griffin something else.

A Name for a Nobody

Griffin is the name I was born with. As a young one I was never really shown any kind of love. I was beaten with a broken bat, burned with a fork, and to top it all off I was never really heard. No one listened to my pain.

For the few years I was at home abuse was all I knew. So when I left, it didn’t take that much to make me snap.

As Griffin, I was a nothing, a nobody. People did not respect me and they didn’t even want to hear me. They treated me like some bum on the street.

As a result, Griffin was a very confused youth. He had no direction, so he went off on anything. He couldn’t see what he needed to see, that some people did care.

A Losing Battle

When I got to my first foster care placement at Children’s Village, a residential treatment center, nobody knew me. But come to find out they knew of me. They read the file and took a look into my past, and I guess they didn’t like what they saw. I felt that everyone had judged me before I got in the door, and they had their own plans for how to handle me. I felt like the odds were always stacked against me. They made sure that for every mountain I climbed there was a giant at the top waiting for me.

I was feeling so hopeless and trapped I even tried to kill myself. That didn’t help my situation one bit. All they did was place me in the hospital for a while. I was so beyond lost I vanished from the map.

I tried to stay positive, but it was always a struggle. No matter what I did there was always an obstacle bigger than the last one. On my 17th birthday, I had to put my brother in the ground. Then I lost my best friend that Thanksgiving. I had to do something with my life and I had to do something fast. The pain was unbearable.

My Survival Strategy

I felt I had no choice but to make the negativity a part of me. At Children’s Village, being disrespected was an everyday thing. All I could hear were people calling me out my name, and I couldn’t do anything about it. But every time someone said something negative to me I would hold it in, and then unleash it later on whoever was there, friend or foe.

What I’d do with that bottled-up anger was unpredictable, and that gave me this strange feeling of satisfaction. One minute I could be chilling, the next minute I’d be out of control. When I was Griffin, bottling up my feelings and then letting them loose was my favorite trick.

One night I was talking in my room with a peer and he said something negative and I just snapped. I took an electrical cord and started beating the hell out of him. I did this for about 20 some odd minutes. I just keep swinging. Even though my arm was weak I just could not stop. With every swing I was thinking about all the people who had disrespected me. Afterwards, I went to go have some dinner and thought nothing of what I had just done.

The negative energy that I was so happily feeding off of was creating a monster in my soul.

Sometimes I wanted to get rid of my monster, but I couldn’t. The damage was already done. This monster had destroyed my name. From the suicide attempts to the lashing out to Griffin doing anything for attention, it was over for me. It was too late to change at Children’s Village.

New Era, New Name

When I was 16 I moved to a different RTC, Green Chimneys, and it was a new era for me. Nobody knew who I was. So I had a choice to make: I could remain Griffin the monster or I could become someone else. I chose to become someone else.

I became a loner. I did damn near everything by myself. I would sit in trees and watch Ebony (a girl I treated as a little sister) play kickball. I would walk around campus just to clear my head from day-to-day stress.

All that alone time helped me a lot. It made me realize that I had to do something to advance myself. Being alone allowed me to throw my life in rewind. I was able to see who I was and the path that I was on, and who was really with me. I opened my eyes and only saw myself, and the love I had for my family.

I couldn’t turn my back on either one. That’s when I became Lone Souljah. The Lone part stands for all the time I took for myself. Souljah stands for my family and the loyalty I pledged to them.

Letting the Bull Go

Changing my name gave me something to live for. My demon was still there, but Lone Souljah was someone with more control than Griffin had, and more to lose. I was keeping myself occupied for once, working and playing organized basketball and baseball. Losing it all wasn’t an option anymore. I had no time for the negativity. I handled it differently by staying focused on my jobs and my hobbies.

Being Lone Souljah helped me look inside myself. I was able to let some of the bull go, and put my attention on other things, like improving myself. Sometimes in life you just got to let go. Griffin was nothing but untamed anger, and I wasn’t like that anymore.

I still flipped out sometimes, but only when people violated me or my family. People disrespected me less in Green Chimneys and that meant that I didn’t have to do so much fighting. The emotions were still there, but Lone Souljah (L.S.) was way more open. So when I did flip out, it was really nothing, because damn near every corner I turned there was someone to talk to.

By New Years Day, 2005, I was living back at my mother’s house. Late that night I was done drinking and started smoking, and that was when I went deep into thought. I sat on the chair on her little porch, took a pull, and lost myself in my own mind. All I could think about was my brother Boogz and his death.

I had to face the fact that I would never see my brother again, and realize how alone I really was. But I also had the feeling that I had to become something more. I made a vow that day to do everything in the name of Boogz, and by doing that I became his prophet. I made Alone Prophet my new name, to represent my love and loyalty to my brother.

Getting Power Over Myself

Whatever name I pick I must live up to that name, and that’s what helps me change. That’s how I’ve been beating my inner demon. See, with each name comes a different level of wisdom, a new way to help me win this battle for my soul.

Lone Souljah was a brother that kept to himself and worked on the physical and mental things in his life. Alone Prophet is more of a spiritual brother who works from the inside out. Going from L.S. to A.P. is yet another step that will help me destroy my monster within. Changing my name makes me feel like I’m getting power over myself, and I need that.

I used to see all the obstacles in front of me as too big to handle. But as A.P., I see that some obstacles are big yet manageable, and the others are just stairs. I’m calmer, more focused and determined. I control my temper a lot better than Griffin did, just by knowing that I have that short fuse and by understanding my limits in certain situations. I seek positive attention instead of the negative attention.

I chose the name Alone Prophet because to me it means understanding one’s life and destiny, and I want to understand mine. I want to understand death because everyone else is scared of it. I know that there is a light in death and I won’t stop trying to understand until I find it.

Where I’m Going

As time goes by, things will change, and I must change as well. It’s in my plans to become something more, and A.P. is just a stepping stone to help me get there.

What kind of person do I want to be when the fog clears? I want to be strong: mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

A.P. will die the same as Griffin did. When there’s no use for something anymore, you get rid of it. Dropping the name A.P. will come one of these days. I want to master my loneliness, and then I’ll move on.