What happens when you just don't fit in?

"You have no shoes on and are walking on rocks."
 --Alice Little, No Contact Survivor


You have never fitted in and that truth will eventually sink in.

What has happened, in reality, is that once you start to recover or become aware of abuse of any kind, once you stop lying to yourself, you clearly notice truths once hidden from yourself. Truths like not fitting in.

Before this you may have been subtly aware of it but all you did was compensate for it.
When others rejected you, you tried harder.
When they shunned you in groups you appeased.

During this time you gave away more and more of yourself in an effort to fit in and be liked by others. It didn't work. The more you tried the more people expected from you. You got exhausted trying. The main problem was that you thought all of this was your fault. Never seeing that those around you were not helping you, not making space for you. You were in fact the innocent scapegoat.

You may have been the scapegoat for your family and then it carried on into adult life wherever you went. Or it may be that you became a whistleblower on abuse and were then scapegoated for that. However it was that you were turned into a scapegoat for others problems, once you realise this, you can start to disown others projections upon you. It is a slow process but empowering.

It is not easy to be on the periphery of life, of a group, a family, friends, it hurts. But from that vantage point you can begin to see that, rather than wanting to be in the middle, the inner sanctum, instead you see how lucky you are to be apart from it. When you are in the inner sanctum you will get burned. There is a price to pay for belonging to a dysfunctional group, especially as an empathetic scapegoat.

Most people in history who bucked the system were shunned. Those who questioned the current norm. Some of them were even looked on as holy men and women. So you are not alone, even though you feel as if you are, because you are treading in a path that others have walked on before. It takes incredible strength to be walking this particular path. To hold onto your integrity.

Feel no shame for being an urban hermit. It does not mean it will last forever. Let others mould around you instead of you moulding around them. People often have great admiration for those who don't follow like sheep.

It is not an easy path.  

You have no shoes on and are walking on rocks.

Don't give away parts of yourself to fit in, be flexible but not too flexible that you lose sight of who you are.One day you will see and understand why you are on this path. Until then just be you and see who is down with that.