Owning Pink

I have always been seen as "different". When I was younger, I was unpopular and nerdy. College was not much better. Another big issue for me has been an inferiority complex; so many times I have felt that I was in the "second-best" group and others acted like I was not good enough to be in the "top" group.

Me too love! I'm 41 and I"m just now learning that it's not only okay to be different, it's a blessing. OWN your difference and rock it. But I also feel the loneliness you're talking about- and I hate to say it, but that part doesn't go away. You just learn to find ways to rejoice in what makes you unique.

I think the divorce of my parents at a very early age (4), set me apart from the happy go lucky normal kids. I always felt as though I had different standards about my activities in order for me to feel good about myself. Then...he died. Wow. So, a double whammy. At that point, no other child I knew came anywhere close to the grief I felt and had to deal with.

Not to drag you down my litany of confusing and awful (at the time) events, but I have always sought out some sense of connection with others. I have sat in a room full of great people and felt like such an alien. It has not been always easy and have definitely had wrenching times of such longing, but I finally learned to reach out to myself instead of to others.

There have been a couple of people who 'get' me. Mostly, *mostly* I don't look for validation from others. If I don't fit in, well...cool. I go on trail runs, pick strawberries and cherries and make the best jam now. Oh, and I make dandelion wine now! I look at the stars and swim in my pond and listen to my two children laugh. And, I have many people who now say to me - I would love to be your friend, business partner, running buddy, err whatever. And it takes almost every bit of me to not say - the reason why they think this way is because I have realized I don't care anymore about whether they like me. I personally have had so much disappointment and grief in my life, that I have chosen to focus on the things that are in my control - my happiness, my time, my focus, my energy levels. Versus caring about whether my thoughts and actions are deemed okay by others.

From deep loneliness and separation came acceptance of what "is" and what "isnt". And I don't fight those measurements anymore. The universe provides both of these scenarios regularly and I see it as a test to see where you attain your validation from...

And, yes, every once in a while, I hiccup and have to remind myself of my worth, the tests, the results.

Keep strong, my different ones. I herald your decison to not fall into cookie cutter mentality and not live a life where you don't know thyself.

I hear you, Willa, and thank you for sharing your story. The more of us that band together to celebrate our uniqueness, the more we lift each other us.
Hugs,
Lissa

I never understood why I was so different growing up. I just watched everyone around my in third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade make friends and talk about normal pre-teen things. I was always more mature that anyone else my own age. I fit in more with adults than children, but I wasn't an adult, so they never took me seriously. My gash was a sexual abuse. It singled me out from the age of five, and I never fully recovered to be what some would consider "normal". I was too nice to be with the cool kids, but I wasn't nice enough to fit in with the other Catholic children as the parochial school I attended for nine years. I blamed myself for being an oddity. It wasn't until my senior year of high school when I realized just how special I was. Because of my abuse, I had always been more gentle and caring with others. I wanted, and currently am going into, a career in psychology. I took a personality test that I found on a psychology website and discovered that I was what the test called INFJ, or Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, and Judgment. Turns out, only 1% of the whole population is estimated to have this specific personality type. It is the rarest of all sixteen types that are available. I'm proud now to be the different-est. My abuse was traumatic, but living through is it what has made me so rare.
On a side note, for those who worry about finding someone to understand you, it takes a long time for people as different and special as us to find people to really fit in with, but when we find them, they make the strongest relationships, because we are able to relate about our separateness from the rest of society.