Songfacts®:

• In the song, Blige explains how after all she's overcome, she is going to stay true to herself and not change to please others.
  
  Several songwriters contributed to this hit track, including Jordan Suecof (Avicii's "The Nights") and Thabiso Nkhereanye (Britney Spears' "Me Against The Music"), as well as three members of the writing team The Clutch: Ezekiel Lewis, Candice Nelson, and Keri Hilson.
  
  The Clutch also crafted the hits "Radar" for Britney Spears and "One Less Lonely Girl" for Justin Bieber.
• This samples "Garden Of Peace," a 1979 song by Lonnie Liston Smith.
• In July 2010 Jay Ballard and Kim Jones filed suit against Blige and production team The Clutch, claiming this song is based on their 1995 tune also titled "Take Me As I Am."
• Blige explained the meaning of the album title to Oprah Winfrey, saying, "The Breakthrough is the self-love. If we believe in negative things about yourself... That's what's going to happen. If we believe in positive things about yourself, that's just going to happen. I believe that I'm smart. I'm beautiful. I'm strong. I'm loved."
• In the music video, directed by Bille Woodruff, Blige portrays several characters from different walks of life, who all face difficulties with men. Waitress Mary struggles with a partner who refuses to get a job, and she has to work extra hard to take care of their kids. Supermodel Mary suffers from tabloid rumors about her mental health that cause her to be replaced on a photo shoot. Meanwhile, the photo editor at the shoot, another version of Mary, is fed up with being sexually harassed by her boss. She's horrified to discover the supermodel slumped in the bathroom, with the farewell message "Take Me As I Am" scrawled in lipstick on the mirror.
  
  Elsewhere, Mary's alter ego Brook Lynn is on a lunch date with a controlling boyfriend (Lance Gross) who orders her a salad before heading to the bar to flirt with another girl. Waitress Mary, who works at the same restaurant, storms out after getting in trouble for making a mess in the kitchen. At the end of the clip, she takes her anger out on her lazy partner and finally throws him out.
• The video used an extended version of the song because Woodruff needed more to work with. The director told Rated R&B in 2020: "I needed more of the song to fit in all of the story. I had done a video of Mary for a song called 'Your Child' where she played different people. So, she called me and once again, she wanted to have multiple personalities in the video. So, I came up with this concept but to fit everything in I needed some more. It was honestly, just because I needed more to make it more dramatic and to have the story land. So, I requested that because the other version wasn’t long enough and I needed more."
  
  Woodruff also directed videos for Toni Braxton's "Un-Break My Heart," Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," and Nelly's "Hot In Herre."
• "Take Me As I Am" was used in a Chevy Tahoe commercial that aired during the 2007 BET Awards (where she was nominated for Best Female R&B/Pop Artist). In the ad, the glammed-up singer performs the tune onstage and changes back into casual clothes in her dressing room. Still singing the song to herself, she drives off in the vehicle with her then-husband, Martin "Kendu" Isaacs, along for the ride.
• The Breakthrough, Blige's seventh studio album, debuted at #1 in the US, where it sold more than 3 million copies (7 million worldwide). It also debuted at the top of the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
• The album's fifth and final single, this song peaked at #3 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
• Blige sang this, as well as "Be Without You," at the fictional club Capricorn on the ABC soap opera One Life To Live in 2006.