Belonging

ime, and genuinely not to discount experience itt or elsewhere, talk of peaks in that way is a road to toxic thoughts

All I can think is that when you're shit on constantly, just being able to walk around appears defiant to people who don't experience that. It's funny. What else can you do, cower in a corner until graduation?

Yeah cf also the people who said, "I wish I could be like you, you don't care what anyone says," knowing a) what it was costing me privately, and also b) if someone wants to hurt you WHY TF WOULD YOU SHOW THEM IT'S WORKING? Duh.

Man we have a lot of hurt to work through. I'm glad we all turned out to be such well balanced high-functioning people who found each other on the internet!! Truly.

xp otm

Was all this bullying their misguided way of trying to make friends? Or did they just gradually realize they wanted your company?

family issues aside, i never really put too much weight on the fact that i hang out or spend time with various groups, some of which would probably not hang out with each other.

i do have a small tight-knit circle of friends i've known for twenty years or so now. they're probably the people i can relax with the most and be more honest with. but we're also, for the most part, more "like-minded," which sounds hippy-dippy, but it's true!

having said all that, it's all pushed me to compartmentalize my thoughts and life more than i'd want. so when another circle of acquaintances finds out something about me that seems left of centre for that group, they become intrigued. but given the context, it's hard to really gauge whether this is something that i should share more of, because some human interaction is just plain difficult and some people are just hard to read. i'd rather keep it to what brings us together when in these circles.

xp I think it's more for a lot of people they didn't realise how impactful their words etc had been and didn't like the idea of someone harbouring bitterness towards them.

1. I grew up in an evangelical christian church that thought the end times were nigh and the world was corrupt. This drove strong feelings of division: belonging within the church and isolation from the outside world. The sense of community was amazing but also like a cult.

2. My father was culturally jewish and despite #1, we also went to synagogue on high holidays, kept kosher at passover, etc. There were not that many jews where I grew up, so this heightened the sense of isolation from the general community and even from others in our church.

― perhaps I myself was the object of my search (PBKR), Friday, March 5, 2021 7:29 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I am absolutely serious when I say you could sell a book proposal about this in about half a second.