AthenaErdmann
Silver Member
For those who feel comfortable discussing their virtual "face": I am curious about why you chose that particular username and why you chose a stable avatar, or change your avatar every now and then, or use no avatar.
And as I am the one being nosy :smile: I had better be the first to answer. Warning: this is a bit long, as I chose both the username and the avatar with care, and they carry a lot of personally important symbolism.
My avatar is a Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia), one of the few birds that make their nests inside holes in the ground, and one of the few owls that are active during daytime. The avatar symbolizes my struggle between wanting to dig myself underground and hide from the world and my longing to fly – to be visible in the daylight, to dare to be myself. There is also a positive side to the burrowing - I love Tolkien's Hobbit, and one of my strongest calming down "mantras" is quoting the beginning of the book "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit..."
Athena (or Athene) is the name of the most powerful of the ancient Greek goddesses, the favorite daughter of Zeus, who was born fully armed from his forehead (and gave him a mighty headache before springing forth). The Romans called her Minerva, and she was the goddess of civilization, wisdom, strength, strategy, craft, justice, and skill. Her symbol animal was an owl. Choosing this name has a strong connection to refusing to believe my father's constantly repeated assessment of me: that I was no good at all and that I could never manage in this world without him, because I was so [insert put-down of the day here]. I also like the character of Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter books a lot, and imagine that I might have turned out a bit like her, if my childhood had been different and if I had not married.
Erdmann was even more directly Harry Potter inspired - the character Hermione Granger's given name means "of the earth" and Erde is German for earth. “Granger” (or grainger) again was the title of a farm bailiff in medieval Britain. I have a strong bookish streak: I love to read and I do well in my studies, so there is a clear resemblance with Hermione. But this name is also about my roots on my mother's side. My mom has a very complicated relationship to earth, soil and growing things. On the one hand she is ashamed to death about having grown up poor on a small farm, with earth between her toes and under her fingernails always, and on the other hand she has been an obsessive gardener as long as I can remember. By choosing this name I wanted to make my peace with the soil, as I see nothing to be ashamed of in having a bit of earth under one's fingernails. By choosing a German family name, I also wanted to make peace with my mother's home language. I don't need to have a quarrel with the German language, even though I don't get along with mom.
I would have preferred to use my real name and face also here - I do that on most forums where I participate, in Usenet newsgroups, on Facebook and LinkedIn, etc. However, I also want to be as open as possible about my story, which means that I write also about the lives and experiences of other people. I do not have the right to "out" my sisters as survivors of physical and mental abuse and economic exploitation - if they ever want to share their stories, they have the right to choose where, when and how. So my username had to be something other than my real name. As I had established Athena Erdmann and AthenaErdmann on two other forums where I did not want to use my own name (for similar reasons), it felt natural to continue using that name here. This seems to be the forum where the name fits the best, though, as self-acceptance, the struggle of healing and growing, and learning to be assertive all are themes that are actively addressed here.
That was the story of my username and avatar - do you want to tell yours?
Athena
And as I am the one being nosy :smile: I had better be the first to answer. Warning: this is a bit long, as I chose both the username and the avatar with care, and they carry a lot of personally important symbolism.
My avatar is a Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia), one of the few birds that make their nests inside holes in the ground, and one of the few owls that are active during daytime. The avatar symbolizes my struggle between wanting to dig myself underground and hide from the world and my longing to fly – to be visible in the daylight, to dare to be myself. There is also a positive side to the burrowing - I love Tolkien's Hobbit, and one of my strongest calming down "mantras" is quoting the beginning of the book "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit..."
Athena (or Athene) is the name of the most powerful of the ancient Greek goddesses, the favorite daughter of Zeus, who was born fully armed from his forehead (and gave him a mighty headache before springing forth). The Romans called her Minerva, and she was the goddess of civilization, wisdom, strength, strategy, craft, justice, and skill. Her symbol animal was an owl. Choosing this name has a strong connection to refusing to believe my father's constantly repeated assessment of me: that I was no good at all and that I could never manage in this world without him, because I was so [insert put-down of the day here]. I also like the character of Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter books a lot, and imagine that I might have turned out a bit like her, if my childhood had been different and if I had not married.
Erdmann was even more directly Harry Potter inspired - the character Hermione Granger's given name means "of the earth" and Erde is German for earth. “Granger” (or grainger) again was the title of a farm bailiff in medieval Britain. I have a strong bookish streak: I love to read and I do well in my studies, so there is a clear resemblance with Hermione. But this name is also about my roots on my mother's side. My mom has a very complicated relationship to earth, soil and growing things. On the one hand she is ashamed to death about having grown up poor on a small farm, with earth between her toes and under her fingernails always, and on the other hand she has been an obsessive gardener as long as I can remember. By choosing this name I wanted to make my peace with the soil, as I see nothing to be ashamed of in having a bit of earth under one's fingernails. By choosing a German family name, I also wanted to make peace with my mother's home language. I don't need to have a quarrel with the German language, even though I don't get along with mom.
I would have preferred to use my real name and face also here - I do that on most forums where I participate, in Usenet newsgroups, on Facebook and LinkedIn, etc. However, I also want to be as open as possible about my story, which means that I write also about the lives and experiences of other people. I do not have the right to "out" my sisters as survivors of physical and mental abuse and economic exploitation - if they ever want to share their stories, they have the right to choose where, when and how. So my username had to be something other than my real name. As I had established Athena Erdmann and AthenaErdmann on two other forums where I did not want to use my own name (for similar reasons), it felt natural to continue using that name here. This seems to be the forum where the name fits the best, though, as self-acceptance, the struggle of healing and growing, and learning to be assertive all are themes that are actively addressed here.
That was the story of my username and avatar - do you want to tell yours?
Athena
