You can’t reject me! I’m rejecting myself!
Wanting to belong is not an uncommon feeling, neither is seeing oneself as separate from the group.
I’ve always felt separate, weird, like I don’t belong. Since I was a kid, in preschool even, I’ve felt like an outcast. Leaning into that feeling, making myself weirder and more of a contrarian (sometimes deliberately being unlikable) became a coping mechanism for me over time. You can’t reject me! I’m rejecting myself!
At times, it’s felt like a superiority/inferiority complex. These people think they are better than me, but actually I’m the one whose better. These people are all happy but they are stupid and should feel as miserable as I do.
In reality, I realize this was all a false front, a way to shield myself from negative feelings, a protection when I feel less than or when I try to contribute and get ignored or do not feel seen among a group of people who are not my friends. I know I’m not better or more worthy of love than the people I sometimes call (as a cope) “normies” or anyone else. I’m not special. I’m just a person who has been bullied and is still struggling to cope with that injured mindset.
There’s a memory I have from when I was in the fourth grade that still kind of haunts me. Some kid, one of my classmates, was making fun of me. I don’t remember what they said, but it stung and I lashed out: “Yeah well, I’m smarter than you because I’m in the mentally gifted program,” I said. My teacher, Ms. Zondek, heard this and pulled me aside to scold me. She didn’t ask why I would say such a thing or try to find out the context of the situation, she just told me that I wasn’t smarter than anyone. I just nodded.
It made me feel like shit and it taught me to stay quiet. My teacher wasn’t being fair to me, and she inadvertently through her carelessness added insult to my injury, but she was right. It didn’t matter that I was being defensive, and it didn’t matter that I was being reactive. I’m not smarter than anyone else, and I have no right to put another person down like that.
Obviously this is still something that I’m working through. As much as I’d like to believe that I don’t, I do care what other people think of me. It’s often difficult for me to express my feelings, especially in the moment. I bottle myself up and I harbor resentments, even when they’re only imagined in my head. It’s just another backwards way of shielding myself, being contrarian, rejecting myself before anyone else can reject me. I do not like that I do this.
Others may not always agree with me or see things the way that I see them, and it’s only up to me to decide how I respond and carry myself. I’ve been realizing that I need to improve my verbal communication, to say what I mean and if I need to clarify what I mean then to do that too, in the moment, without feeling like I’m being misunderstood.
Loosening up is another thing I’m working on. I’m not as weird as I think I am, and I’m not the only one who feels like I don’t belong. Recently I posted a thought on Facebook: I wish I could feel like I belong. It got a lot of responses from folks saying they relate to the sentiment. Wanting to belong is not an uncommon feeling, neither is seeing oneself as separate from the group. There were also a number of friends who reminded me that I belong with them. And I guess that’s what matters.