A Question of Identity (poll)

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is a poll. Your first question is “Do you now, or have you ever, considered yourself to be different from the normal and/or ordinary person per some specific parameter?”

Elaboration: I don’t mean “Well, my outermost toes do have a weird little bend in them that almost no one else has” (unless you went or go around thinking of yourself, as a central aspect of your identity, as Person With Odd Outermost Toes); and I don’t mean “Well, I am left-handed, and that makes me part of a minority” (unless being left-handed made you feel sufficiently peculiar and differerent as to create for you the bulwark of your identity in comparison with the norm).

Your answer = “no” ——> "Thank you very much for your time and have a good day. <click> " (but feel welcome to post “nope, I was one of the ones who never had a unitary definitive category I thought described me” etc, if you’re so inclined, I’m not uninterested in your experience, but it’s ummm different from Different…)

Your answer = “yes”, please respond:
a) Were you aware of “it” first as one feature of who-you-are among many such features, and then something happened and you went “oh” and all of a sudden it became definitive? <if so please share your story if you’re so inclined>

b) Did “it” become “who you are” in a big way pretty much in your own head, on your own, or did you find yourself fitting into a community of people who identified as such and you had a moment of “aha, this is who I am, this is where I belong”?

c) Have you ever been specifically harassed, attacked, discriminated against, subjected to violence, or otherwise mistreated SPECIFICALLY as a representative member of “it”? If so: did that event (or ongoing phenomenon) play a role in you coming to think of yourself as “it”? Auxiliary question: have you ever bee specifically harassed, etc, SPECIFICALLY as a representative of some OTHER outgroup or variant that you do NOT feel specifically describes you? Main and aux question: <please describe if you’re so inclined>

d) Over time, did you modify, elaborate on, or add other “it” factors to your sense of who you most fundamentally are? If so, were these subdivisions or subtypes, or more akin to not-specifically-related factors that ALSO tended to define you?

e) All in all, has identification of yourself with a unitary “it”, a unitary “I am different from ordinary/normal people in THIS way” tag, proven to be more confining than liberating, more liberating than confining, or <other, feel free to elaborate>?

2

In one area, (an area that I suspect I share with some limited, but not insignificant, number of Dopers), I tend to differ from hoi polloi: an absolute fascination with words, word origins, and also the origins and history of the world around me.

I probably first was apprised of my peculiarity in fourth grade when I picked up the nickname “Mr. Dictionary.”
The issue has followed me well into my seniority where I have been abused by a roomful of college-educated co-workers for casually using such words as “surfeit” and “rivulet” in normal conversation without realizing that I had chosen words of which my audience was ignorant. I have also been abused (unfairly, in my opinion) when I was sought out by several co-workers to identify the country of origin of a coin. They were content to accept that it was Swiss, but were a bit gruntled that I explained that the “C.H.” on the coin indicated Confederatio Helvetica, the Latin expression chosen to avoid conflict among the four and a half linguistic groups in the country.

OTOH, I do not actually think of myself as a “word origin” person when I think of either my essence or significant attributes. It is more of simply an association that other people link to me.

3

My own answers, insofar as it’s a pretty invasive set of personal questions I’ve asked:
I guess the biggest and most personal and most explanatory “sense of self” I AM DIFFERENT thingie for me has been to think of myself as a “heterosexual sissy”. Kind of like a transsexual person except that I have no problem with the biological body I was born in, it’s pretty exclusively the cultural and social projected understandings of “boy” or “man” or “male” that run contrary to who I am, where I’ve long thought I’d be more at home were I instead thought of the way people think of “girl” or “woman” or “female”.

And for me, I was aware of it but had this observation filed away in my mental filing cabinet as “Interesting Thoughts I Don’t Know What To Do With” but definitely not as “This Is Who I Am” until a cascade of emotionally intense events suddenly underlined it as “OOOH THIS MATTERS” and suddenly defined me to me, and within 48 hours made amazingly comprehensive sense of my general life experience unto that point. “Oh, NOW I understand…”

For me it was, and is, almost exclusively an identity in my own head. I think it COULD be or become a widespread cultural WHO WE ARE kind of identity-factor, but that of course depends on how many other guys really are like me, as opposed to my identity-experience being not so projectable onto that of most other guys. Either way, it hasn’t happened yet, and I’ve never had any sense of community with regards to this identity-factor, so all in my own head, really.

I’ve sometimes been harassed for it, nevertheless, but more often than that for being a representative member of groups I’m not a part of, including being gay male (pretty often), being nerdy ‘intelligentia’ of some sort (sometimes, mostly younger), being ‘hippie’ or ‘troublemaker’ (sometimes, mostly as an adult and often but not always as an employee), and as wrongly attributed ethnicity (jewish most often, sometimes). I’ve never been harassed for “being a transsexual”, which is something I’d expect (??)

Over time I’ve sort of moved beyond it as Definitive. In some contexts I’m more Different by other terms. And I’m not short of peculiar adjectives I can apply to myself. I’m a diagnosed schizophrenic, I’m politically an anarchist ( and a conservative one at that ), I’m a radical feminist, I’m an esoteric theist claiming personal revelations instead of following any established teachings, etc etc, lots of attention-whore stuff. PLENTY of ways to be different, and alongside of them ways of being and feeling myself to be part of a whole, member, participant, not-so-different, including SDMB member (that’s Charter Member, mind you), taxpayer, US citizen, registered voter, Mac computer user (minority, but not isolate by any means), English speaker, etc… the more taken-for-granted my ID as hetero sissy is, the less ubiquitously central it is to WHO I AM. (Yeah I know that about me and others and life, let’s move on…)

Liberated versus confined: massively in favor of liberating. Lacking any community I’d lose by ceasing to embrace it as central ID, my only bugaboo was whether or not I’d embraced it just to have SOME explanation to embrace. That did worry me in the beginning but concrete results from assuming it to be so consisted of pleasant outcomes often enough to ratify it as an explanatory model. I was far less often frustrated and pushed off-balance in social situations, and also got laid more often to put it bluntly. AND got into increasingly persistent rels. It worked for me. It made sense of life, and if it was a reductionistic sense of self it still underlined what needed underlining at the time. All in all, identity politics worked spectacularly well on a personal front for me.

How about you?

4

Thanks, AHunter3. This will be cathartic. Please share your own experience.
(I see now that you did. Thanks)

a) Yes. As a child I was fanatical about rescuing and protecting the natural environment. I spent hours in the creek constructing little “caves” for crawdads. I spent hours hiking, and felt shame and physical pain if I inadvertently ruined a spider’s web or stepped on a bug. I put out nesting materials for birds, planted seed pods and acorns, rescued strays, etc. I felt I had a purpose, and my identity is derived from making small but frequent efforts at conservation.

b) I haven’t found a community. No one in my sphere cares about the natural world, but I am taking steps to remedy that. I will be returning to school this summer in order to pursue a degree in forestry and agriculture. In spite of my lack of community, I haven’t changed my point of view or behaviors much since childhood. But I have it on good authority that someone out there feels like I do. (Are you reading this, elelle?)

c) Every kid that met me found out that I was hypersensitive about nature and would regale me with dead kitten and puppy stories, hunting tales, brush fires, etc. This continues as an adult. If the topic of pets or conservation comes up, someone near me will provide me with a story of suffering or destruction of the natural world. I am known as the bleeding heart treeehugger in all of my social and professional groups, even though I don’t preach and seldom bring up my interests as no one around me shares them. But somehow my reputation precedes me and people whip out shocking, sad stories especially for me. Even though I am a ball buster at work and at home, nearly six feet tall with an intimidating posture and figure, my sensitivity to waste, neglect, and destruction is perceived as a weakness, and others pounce with predictable regularity. So bullying, yes.

d) Yes. I learned more constructive ways to modify my behavior in order to make more of an impact on my environment. I collect roaming neighborhood pets and have them spayed or neutered and vaccinated, then return them to their owners. (I will be pitted for this radical action, so I will say in advance that I have never altered a purebred animal, nor any that appear well groomed and cared for. I only collect the neglected ones.) I plant trees, reduce trash, by local produce when possible, avoid overpackaged items, etc. I am a very conscientious consumer.

e) Liberating. As a child I couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t concerned with the suffering of living creatures like I was. As an adult, I realize that I don’t require support or approval of my efforts and feel rewarded when I see progress towards my goal, which is to make as small a footprint as possible. I find my own efforts as sustainability and conservation very satisfying.

5

To Beaucarnea:

I think this could be your era. So much of yesterday’s ‘environmental nutjob silliness’ is today’s ‘this is how it is’.

Coincidentally, I just wrote to my niece, expresing my musings of the moment. I said that I think the species collectively, aka “SOCIETY”, is a conscious organism, and it thinks in long slow waves. Our danger as individuals is that we burn out, thinking that our failure to “change the world” in short order = failure on our part; when actually our fervent efforts, especially those geared towards communication with other folks re: our ideas, may tend to have an effect on the “thinking” (for lack of a better word) of the SOCIETY over the long slow timeframe in which it mulls ideas over, and thus even if we see little reward / positive feedback in the immediate months and years in which we’ve expended our energies trying to communicate, that doesn’t mean it didn’t do anything.

(and I say this as a non-vegetarian who might approve of at least some research endeavors that involve imposing pain upon other species; I may not agree with your perspectives at this point but I totally celebrate your fervor and am willing to learn)

6

a) Were you aware of “it” first as one feature of who-you-are among many such features, and then something happened and you went “oh” and all of a sudden it became definitive? <if so please share your story if you’re so inclined>
“It” is that I’m a Highly Sensitive Person (eminently googlable), and I discovered it when I read a book about it in my mid-20s. I always knew that I was different and that I had more intense and different reactions to stimuli than most people, among other things, but it wasn’t until I read that book that I knew anything about HSPs.
b) Did “it” become “who you are” in a big way pretty much in your own head, on your own, or did you find yourself fitting into a community of people who identified as such and you had a moment of “aha, this is who I am, this is where I belong”?
It was already “who I was”, but the knowledge helped me immensely to stop trying to be like everyone else and accept myself for who I am. It gave me permission to make myself happy and comfortable and live how I needed to live in order to be at my best. As far as community, it’s very easy for me to spot someone who may be highly sensitive, so even if I don’t actively pursue their companionship because of it, I can at least understand what may be going on with them emotionally.

c) Have you ever been specifically harassed, attacked, discriminated against, subjected to violence, or otherwise mistreated SPECIFICALLY as a representative member of “it”? If so: did that event (or ongoing phenomenon) play a role in you coming to think of yourself as “it”? Auxiliary question: have you ever bee specifically harassed, etc, SPECIFICALLY as a representative of some OTHER outgroup or variant that you do NOT feel specifically describes you? Main and aux question: <please describe if you’re so inclined>
I have felt bullied, especially in school- for being a shy, quiet, bookworm type who you just knew could bust out crying if you said boo to her. Self-awareness of being sensitive ironically helped me to build strength, and I haven’t now been bullied in a very long time.

d) Over time, did you modify, elaborate on, or add other “it” factors to your sense of who you most fundamentally are? If so, were these subdivisions or subtypes, or more akin to not-specifically-related factors that ALSO tended to define you?

This question is hard for me to answer, as it would appear to relate to my general personality traits and whether they would be related to being sensitive. I don’t know.

e) All in all, has identification of yourself with a unitary “it”, a unitary “I am different from ordinary/normal people in THIS way” tag, proven to be more confining than liberating, more liberating than confining, or <other, feel free to elaborate>?
It’s definitely been more liberating. I don’t feel guilty or selfish for taking a decent amount of “alone time” for myself, because I know for a fact that it makes me a productive and happy person and that it’s necessary for me. I don’t compare myself to others and envy their ability to schmooze with strangers or be the life of the party or go on a few hours of sleep. I go to lengths now to take care of myself physically and emotionally, and try my best to be as comfortable as possible as much as possible. I now know that I am who I am, and that there are actually biological reasons for my seeming quirkiness. That’s helped tremendously with accepting who I am and loving myself, something so many women seem to struggle with so much.

7

No. <click>

8

Ths may not be what you’re looking for, but your questions gave me pause.

I’m an artist/designer. I realize that’s not all that different from a lot of other people, but growing up in my family, I learned people were supposed to have jobs. Art was a hobby, unless, of course, you were an artist. Of course, no one ever explained exactly how one goes about becoming an artist, so I sort of just assumed that if I WERE an artist, I would know how to go about being one. Since I didn’t, I obviously wasn’t.

Though people complimented me frequently on the jewelry I made and often bought it from me, it never occured to me that I could BE a jewelry designer. I found a local bead society and joined out of mild interest, STILL not realizing that people really could choose to do this for a living. Somewhere in my second year of membership (yes, I am a bit slow on the uptake) I realized that these people were just like me - they made art! They made jewelry! They were artists and designers! I was an artist and a designer! Who’d’a thunk it?

I’ve never been discriminated against for being an artist, but there’s still a vague, “yes, you’re an artist -pat on the head- but you know, what do you actually DO for a living?” kind of mentality that I encounter often enough to be frustrated by it. Sometimes I still have to remind myself that being an artist counts as a job, even though I don’t go into an office. There’s also a fair bit of snobbery within the general community of artists. I have been criticized by feminist artists for making “pretty” things that don’t make a statement; there are artists who find my media too common/lowbrow; artists who snub my work as being “too commercial” – and conversely, at least one other designer who has criticized me for finishing my production pieces too well! And yes, that sort of thing does make me call into question whether I actually AM an artist… if other artists don’t think so, maybe I’m not? (Never mind the fact that plenty of other artists have been encouraging to me, the naysayers feed my inherent self-doubt far too well.)

I’m in a constant state of acquiring new information and trying new things, and I was a late bloomer in this field, so for a long time my work was extremely derivative of whatever the last shiny thing was that caught my eye. I’m becoming more confident of my own “artistic vision” so I’d have to say that “artist” is much more a part of my personal identity than it ever was before. And yes, it is liberating!

9

How incredibly kind of you to find a unifying theme for me. You are a very gentle man. Thank you for validating my intentions.

(For the record, I do not oppose hunting, I just don’t care to hear about it. The kill is quick and the meat is much healthier than that from processing plants. I have a few acres, and hunters that I know are excellent shots are welcome here. Nor am I against animal testing for medical research, although I find animal testing for cosmetics and household products unnecessarily cruel.)

10

I love the idea of you fitting comfortably and confidently somewhere “in between”. I would trust a man like you to be free from bias, free from prejudice, and free from stereotypes. I bet you do get laid- well and often. We like men who don’t have a preconceived notion that a woman in want of a partner must be in possession of loose morals.

11

Yes - I don’t think like other people do.

a. I didn’t even know I thought differently from other people until I was well into adulthood, and other people pointed out to me that the way I think is different, and that I didn’t understand the reasons other people do things because their motivations wouldn’t occur to me.

b. The Straight Dope is the closest thing I’ve found to a group of people who think somewhat like I do.

c. The only discrimination I could possibly think of would be standard tests, because they are always written so that people who think like most people understand what the questions are asking for. I don’t think people discriminate against me; they just don’t get me.

d. I haven’t modified or elaborated anything. I yam what I yam.

e. I have no idea what you’re trying to ask with this part of the poll.

12

Yes, I think.

I don’t know if this is what you’re thinking of, but at 23 I emigrated to a country with a relatively homogeneous linguistic, racial and cultural makeup that’s significantly different from my own. In any assembly of people from here, I stand out as very obviously different in terms of color, shape, size, family relationships, knowledge base, religious exposure, manners, communication skills, direction of thought and probably many other things. The fact that I did this voluntarily, on my own and with minimal discomfort probably makes me somewhat different from the norm of my home population as well. I’m not sure which aspect of the whole mash is the one that defines my identity, but there it all is.

a) Were you aware of “it” first as one feature of who-you-are among many such features, and then something happened and you went “oh” and all of a sudden it became definitive?
Well, “it” was pretty obvious the moment I stepped off the plane. My near-complete comfort with “it” and realization that “it” was probably going to be the rest of my life, that came sometime around when I was 27 or 28.

b) Did “it” become “who you are” in a big way pretty much in your own head, on your own, or did you find yourself fitting into a community of people who identified as such and you had a moment of “aha, this is who I am, this is where I belong”?
“It” is frequently more a matter of who I’m not rather than who I am, so seeking out a community of people like me feels like escapism at times. For the most part I’d like to become closer with the community that surrounds me until I become identified as ‘me’ rather than ‘it’.

c) Have you ever been specifically harassed, attacked, discriminated against, subjected to violence, or otherwise mistreated SPECIFICALLY as a representative member of “it”? If so: did that event (or ongoing phenomenon) play a role in you coming to think of yourself as “it”?
Yep. Had one realtor tell me directly he wouldn’t show me any apartments because he didn’t want “it” moving into the neighborhood. Had another realtor refuse to say what the problem specifically was, but do his damnedest to get me to leave. Had a few clubs say that “it” wasn’t allowed, but were politely apologetic about it.

Occasionally I hear high-school age kids say “Oh, my God!” (a stereotype American expression; after a while you realize just how frequently Americans say it) as I pass by to try and get my attention. I usually give a little smirk/nod/wave and then keep going. It doesn’t bug me much, if at all. I wouldn’t call this harassment, since I don’t think the kids are trying to be hostile and I certainly don’t feel threatened, but it counts as attention from strangers as a result of “it”.

Had one drunk in a restaurant try to pick an argument/fight with me because he assumed (correctly) that I was American. This was around the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing and he kept referring to it. I didn’t rise to the bait, and just finished my meal, paid and left as he kept trying to antagonize me. Nobody else said anything, but the staff all looked really embarrassed, especially after I spoke enough Japanese to the cashier to make it obvious that I’d understood the guy. After I left, I realized I should have gone up to him and said “No, I’m German! How have you been, clap him in a firm hug My Old Partner! Seriously, what were you guys thinking with Pearl Harbor? If you didn’t bring the Americans in we could have had an empire together from England to Australia! Would’ve been wonderful, eh? Well, maybe next time.” He ticked me off, but I kept going back to the restaurant. Never saw him again.

No violence, vandalism or criminal behavior directed at me.

Aux. question: No.

d) Over time, did you modify, elaborate on, or add other “it” factors to your sense of who you most fundamentally are? If so, were these subdivisions or subtypes, or more akin to not-specifically-related factors that ALSO tended to define you?

In this case, one’s sense of “it” tends to evolve over time, and along a similar path for many who become “it”. Part of the butt-sniffing ritual that all foreigners here do is ask how long you’ve been in Japan. There’s no pecking order or outright status attached to length of stay, but there is some sense of dues paid, experiences shared, etc. When I had the sniffing-out conversation with a Norwegian businessman a while back, for example, his expression visibly relaxed when he learned I’d been “it” almost as long as he had. Other things that define me are not that unusual and are mainly things I share with other people in my immediate vicinity (who are not “it”), so in a sense they’re ways of becoming not “it”.

e) All in all, has identification of yourself with a unitary “it”, a unitary “I am different from ordinary/normal people in THIS way” tag, proven to be more confining than liberating, more liberating than confining, or <other, feel free to elaborate>?

More liberating. I’m not expected to be exactly like everyone else, so my life feels more like an open environment I can explore in ways that people who aren’t “it” tend to assume are off-limits. It’s also proved very profitable, as most of my income is because of the unique qualities or perspectives that “it” provides.

13

Yes. I spent my childhood being hammered with the notion that a lot of the things I did or wanted to do were either
a) not acceptable as a source of pride (my parents didn’t want me to get conceited, so they chopped my self-esteem to bits instead :smack: )
b) not acceptable in a girl.

I ended up becoming, officially, a female engineer and the most veteran RPGr in my hometown. It’s neat, running into someone who says “oh wait… you’re X and Y’s sister? Oh man, they got me into the dice thing!” I call those my RPG-grandkids :wink:

a) the first time I became aware that part of the problem was the female thing was overhearing two teachers discuss someone’s handwritten report (may not even have been my own). He said “what’s wrong with it, it’s clear, the exposition is good…”; she said “but the handwriting is awful!”; he “eh, it’s perfectly readable, just not pretty”; she “well, it would be ok if it was a boy, but it’s a girl!” I was in 5th grade at the time. That led me to analyze the behavior of grown-ups and realize that a lot of the things that were forbidden to me were OK for the boys.
The other thing took a trip to the US and my first paying job. My bosses congratulated me on things that I was used to hearing were “no big deal” if I did them perfectly but a source of applause if someone else did them halfway decently. I realized that first, I’m good at many things that others aren’t good at, and second, there’s no shame in knowing what is it you’re good at!

b) I blame the librarian from my college (for getting me into Chem Eng, where half of us were girls) and Gary Gygax for obvious reasons. Yep, I found my niche, woohoo!

c) “This is a job for an engineer, missy. You’re a girl!” and similar. I’ve not been violently attacked but discriminated against yeah, you bet.
And of course, everybody knows that RPGrs are all serial murderers, psychopaths, drug users, etc. What I’d like to know is why people talk about “serial killers” when one guy goes on a single violent rampage. I realize that Spain has so far had only one serial killer, but dangit, killing your parents and sister with a katana does not count as “serial.”

d) Well, the labels change. But the essence is the same.

e) Liberating. Specially that one time when Mom was insisting that her 20-30+ years spent trying to “normalize” us had paid off, and myself and Middlebro informed her, in stereo and while Lilbro the accountant nodded, that “we’re engineers, Mom, we’re not normal! And we don’t wanna. Pass the salad.”

14

**
“Do you now, or have you ever, considered yourself to be different from the normal and/or ordinary person per some specific parameter?”
**
Yes. Not because of a desire to be different, but because I seem to be forced into that concusion. The specific parameter is “being human”.

**
a) Were you aware of “it” first as one feature of who-you-are among many such features, and then something happened and you went “oh” and all of a sudden it became definitive? <if so please share your story if you’re so inclined>
**
For as long as I can remember I desired to be not human. It didn’t matter what I actually was, as long as it wasn’t human. Recently I realized that I actually got my desire, but it wasn’t an “aha” moment, the realization just kind of grew on me.

**
b) Did “it” become “who you are” in a big way pretty much in your own head, on your own, or did you find yourself fitting into a community of people who identified as such and you had a moment of “aha, this is who I am, this is where I belong”?
**
No, I didn’t find myself fitting in with a community, actaully, I found myself slowly being removed from them.

**
c) Have you ever been specifically harassed, attacked, discriminated against, subjected to violence, or otherwise mistreated SPECIFICALLY as a representative member of “it”? If so: did that event (or ongoing phenomenon) play a role in you coming to think of yourself as “it”? Auxiliary question: have you ever bee specifically harassed, etc, SPECIFICALLY as a representative of some OTHER outgroup or variant that you do NOT feel specifically describes you? Main and aux question: <please describe if you’re so inclined>
**
No. I usually hide it well, and when I make a mistake, people don’t know me well enough to tell.

**
d) Over time, did you modify, elaborate on, or add other “it” factors to your sense of who you most fundamentally are? If so, were these subdivisions or subtypes, or more akin to not-specifically-related factors that ALSO tended to define you?
**
No. I have not yet elaborated on what it means to be not human, but it is something I should consider.

**
e) All in all, has identification of yourself with a unitary “it”, a unitary “I am different from ordinary/normal people in THIS way” tag, proven to be more confining than liberating, more liberating than confining, or <other, feel free to elaborate>?
**
A difficult question to answer. On the one hand it means I need to be very careful around other people, lest I give something away. On the other, I don’t get stressed, angry, happy, or sad. I can ‘swallow my pride’ anytime and do what’s required without a second thought, whether I actaully agree with it or not. That could be considered fairly liberating, I suppose.

15

Yag Rannavach, what would the alternative be? Would you be more at ease in a different era, or perhaps a different cultural or socio-economic group? Or do you feel uneasy with the social habits of homo sapiens in general? Do you mind elaborating?

16

As I said before, I’m not sure what it is I’ve ended up becoming, but it isn’t human. When I was (much) younger my thoughts went along the lines of ‘not human’ == ‘alien’, but I no longer hold that view.

17

Yag, you’re not human any more? Sorry, saw that you don’t know what you are. How do you know you aren’t human any more?

18

Because I don’t respond to situations the way others do. Ah, why am I being so oblique? Basically I lack empathy. For example, my first thought upon hearing that a co-worker isn’t going to be coming in for a week is “will the project they were working on get done”, not “are they okay”, this is because I don’t care about the second question; the answer to it does not affect me.

I don’t know if I killed it off, or if I never had empathy to begin with, but I assume that humans have it and so, because I don’t, I’m not human. This suits me just fine, since I never wanted to be human anyway, though it does make certain things more difficult.

19

:: follows Yag into the thread from Beaucarnea’s link in the pit thread ::

Yes, extremely, from my youngest days (around age 4). I was smart.

I thought it was normal. It was the way I have always been; I assumed everyone else was the same. I did not understand why people didn’t understand me.

No hints of such community until university, and even then, they were fragmented, tantalising. I’m a lot closer to such a community, but I am not yet home.

Yes, extremely. From kindergarten, I was bullied, threated, humiliated, abused, and physically hurt because of it. This tapered off after grade nine. I knew before I ever went to school, though.

The original it factor, smartness, was with me from earliest days. After grade six or so, when social relations developed among my peers, and eventually puberty happened, I gradually I became aware of a second factor: lack of social communications. I did not know what I was doing wrong or anything, but I knew something was wrong or missing.

Confining. I felt that I was trapped in a hell because of what I was. Many times when I was young, I wished for nothing more intensely than a miracle that would remove these things that people didn’t like, and the stigma associated with them, and make me normal, liked, and popular.

20

It’s the combo of screen name and post content, but I see Yag Rannavich and my brain thinks Yog Soggoth. Ain’t human, ya know?! :wink: