Once an Outcast, Always an Outcast
You must create belonging; not wait for it to fall into your lap.
If you tend to be an outcast, you will always have that tendency. Some of us are strange, and that’s not an issue if these people also create belonging among other people for themselves. Friendships are forged and tended to if we put ourselves out there and take chances. Without risk, there is no reward. Some of us remain friendless due to fear, attachment to things remaining the same, and never resolving maladaptive beliefs from youth.
I met an old woman who participated in trysts to feel as though she hadn’t lost everything dear to her that she ever cared about. That position came from an instilled childhood experience of being overlooked as the eldest sibling. I felt as though if that had happened to me, my despair would have destroyed me. There is an immense, powerful dooming feeling when I think about being alone. It is my worst fear.
As a child, knowing myself to be the kind of person who might have been an outcast, even though others would speak to me and want to spend time with me, I befriended all other outcasts in my grade that I could find, the little girls who were eating lunch alone, standing on the side of the playground, hiding behind a dump upset they were not included in a kickball game. These little girls…
