Dear Lulu:

As I read your post, I found much commonality with you: like you, I too wanted to be a writer, a published writer. My 2nd desire was to study psychology and become a therapist.

Like you, I didn’t feel that I belonged in any group of people. I grew up lonely, feeling isolated within my small family, within the classroom at school, in the neighborhood.. anywhere and everywhere. No one wanted to hear me, to know what was happening in my mind and heart. I remember wondering, at times when the noise of distress within me was particularly loud: how can it be that NO ONE NOTICES? NO ONE HEARS ME?

I think that it is this isolation, not being seen or heard, that was behind my motivation to .. make the whole world see me by publishing a book that would be widely read all over the world. I used to daydream about being a dancer or a movie star and be seen and admired by millions of people all over the world.

This is how unseen I felt. The thirst to be seen was huge.

I wanted to study psychology and become a psychotherapist so to understand the painful puzzle that I was to myself, and to help me and others like me.

“My mental health wasn’t taken seriously by anyone. No one could ever really understand my intentions or feelings… I’ve always been a social outcast even amongst other black people“- reads just like me, a social outcast in  each and every ethnic group, in each and every group, small or big. I simply did not belong anywhere.

“I’m essentially going to be paying a lot of money just to be an ‘another black person.’ There’s nothing unique or intriguing about me“-

– I felt, while growing up and many years after, like a nobody. Someone others looked down at. I wanted to be a somebody, to be seen as a unique and intriguing person, someone like no other. Unique, in an admirable way.

“They seem quiet. Polite. Invention. Accomplished. Distinguished. And most of all, neurotypical… I’m autistic and if I’m not very quiet and practically a fly on the wall, I’m in your face loud“- this reminds me: all the years when I felt different/ abnormal in negative ways, I (wrongly) thought that I was the only one that felt that way, that everyone else (all my peers) were.. normal, that I was the exception.

What a surprise it was to me, when I realized for the first time that it was not so. There is so much trouble in so many minds and hearts. I was never the only one. It only seemed otherwise, from my point of view.

“It’s never an issue of ‘not seeing people who look like me,’ it’s never seeing people who ACT like me… In terms of the liberal arts field, this school outranks Howard by miles. They’re very interested in me“- the people in the school you are referring to here, the people who are very interested in you, they met you, they know the way you ACT, (being loud, etc., ways you perceive to be different from your peers, in a negative way), and they re very interested. How do you explain it?

“Maybe I’m the con and will continue to be so no matter where I go“- can you elaborate on this sentence?

I hope to read from you soon and reply further, if you’d like that.

anita

Dear Lulu:

“No matter where I go, I won’t fit in I think. Like, I’m just doomed essentially to always be an outcast because I’m me“- this is what I thought and felt for many years, no matter where I went, I was an outcast.. until I was not.

“A large part of me wants to go into the psychology field to learn my place in the world both socially and mentally, and to explore a side of myself that I find uncomfortable or disconnected“- if we are disconnected from others (parents, caretakers) very early on in our lives, for too long, we feel disconnected from ourselves. It is like two sides of the same coin: disconnected from others/ disconnected from oneself.

It is so because we are social animals, born that way. We have to be connected to others early on and onward, if we are to be healthy human beings.

“I want, more than anything, to have a sense of normalcy and be able to not only take care and support myself, but also be a pillar for people who feel like me; out of place.“- this is a noble purpose. I hope that you do become a pillar for people who feel like you, out of place. Maybe you and I, here on your thread, can explore ways for you to be this pillar for others sooner than later.

I am wondering, what did you think about what I typed for you in my first reply, about the commonalities I feel we have?

anita

*-lofty