(((((Lexi))))))

You say you have learned alot in your time here at PC. In that you must know that what your asking is truely something many people ask, even people that are surrounded by family wether it be a family they have grown up in or their own family.

I think most people feel like they have been on their own all thier lives. When I think back on my life and I have been around more than twice as long as you have, I see that most of my life I have felt I was on my own. Even when we are surrounded by others often there is some kind of decision that is ultimately our own.

Human beings are the most intelligent life forms on earth, but surprisingly we are the most fragile life form for many years of our lives, depending on other human beings to be there while we find our own bodies and learn to walk and eventually nourish ourselves. And for the most part we are very dependant on other human beings for our survival. Because of our design we survived best in groups and as time passed the groups got larger and formed societies. And somehow we all inately come to know that we somehow depend on other human beings for our survival. But there are animals that also need that and they do join together in what we call herds, schools of water wildlife, etc.

Every single one of us has questions that ask, how do I find the best way to connect with other human beings? And these questions are there because by sheer design we are ment to thrive in groups. And just as your asking your questions here, your doing so because of that single desire to learn how to be a part of some kind of group of human beings where you can feel comfortable and thrive. Just in PC alone are hundreds if not thousands of questions about somehow feeling alone and how can we be better and relate better in groups of other human beings and gain some kind of feeling of being better connected, more acceptable, appreciated for who we are, by others and ourselves.

So, if you look at the whole picture, what I call the landscape of humanity, Lexi,
your not as alone as you may think. Whatever your past is, you found ways to survive it so that your here now to ask this very question. And you say you have been a member here for a long time right? Well what you actually did all this time is find a group of other people. For a long time you have been a part of a group of people. As you have said yourself, you have learned a lot by being a part of this group. This very group is called a "support" group. And I am sure that in your time here you have also learned how to not only get support, but to give support.

What are you doing in your life now? You say that you are handicapped right? But you have also said that you donate your time somewhere, and in that you are part of another group, people who need support and those that give support.

As you are standing in this one spot in time, in your life and asking this very question, even though you look back on your life and say, "I have felt like I have always been on my own", you must also recognize what you have managed to accomplish even though that was a reality for you. In spite of whatever you faced in your life, you actually did survive and you also did find ways to connect with others.
And you did that pretty much on your own right? So, what enabled that to happen?
Lexi, even though you have been on your own, even though you are handicapped, you did something very important, YOU, LEARNED HOW TO LEARN. No matter what you are doing right now, you have accomplished more than you truely realize. The one thing you DO have in your one own life, is the fact that you did survive and more importantly, you have made a decison on your own somehow to "Learn". Remember, you have managed to be a part of some kind of group Lexi.

Lexi, as human beings, by design there is a natural desire to "Learn" how to be a part of a group of other human beings. Home? What does home really mean Lexi? Well, we are taught to think that it has to be whatever group of human beings that originally formed around us when we were small. We teach each other that these people are suppose to be our home. We believe that if we do not find a way to thrive with this specific group of people, that we have no real home. Now, think about all the messages that you have read over the years here at PC. How many people have talked about having a lot of trouble with that, all kinds of trouble. And how many people somehow blame themselves because that specific group of people had very poor skills at truely forming a successful small group that we call "The Family"?

Lexi, I want you to really think about this spot your standing in, this point of living for 20 years and stopping right here and asking your questions about being on your own and family. For just a few minutes, or even more than that, because you need to remember this as you continue your life. How many people have you met here at PC over the time you have been a member have expressed their own difficulty with the people they were supposed to call their family? Think about where you donate your time, how many people have you actually met that somehow struggle with the people they grew up around that were supposed to be what we call "Family" and "Home".

When people say the word going home for the night, what is in that place they actually call "home"? If you really think about that and see REALITY that word home can mean so many different things. It can be simply a very small apartment where someone lives all by themselves, or it can be a place where they live with one parent they don't really get along with, it can be many different things Lexi, but it is often never something that any of us can say is "The perfect ideal HOME".

Lexi, they say that home is where the heart is. So, where is your heart Lexi? Some of your heart is here, as you have made some friends here over the time you have spent here, and some of your heart is where you donate your time as well. At the very least Lexi, you have survived to this point and you HAVE learned enough on your OWN to connect with some groups. And if you really allow yourself to access not only your life but many other lives that you have come to know in your life, you will truely see that even though you are on you OWN, there are many others that are just like you in many ways, on their OWN as well.

So, Lexi, at this point in your life, you truely have to allow yourself to say to yourself, gee, even though I didn't grow up in a very healthy group of people, I still managed to survive and "LEARN" and I have connected with other people in my life and I did a decent job and all that time, I did learn different things, things about people I was not taught by those I was supposed to connect with somehow.

Lexi, if your time here at PC has taught you anything at all, you must have learned that no person is perfect, everyone struggles in all kinds of ways. And that statement your talking about here, being on your OWN, that is a statment expressed by many others as well.

Lexi, the one thing you have done is LEARN. And even though you may not have had a perfect "HOME", you do know and have learned how to reach out to others, and even offer your own compassion and knowledge that it isn't easy to be on our OWN, but even though it isn't easy, we can all use one thing we do have as human beings, we can LEARN and as we LEARN we can all reach out to others with whatever we do LEARN and SHARE, CONNECT and find our way to being a part of a GROUP. "Home is where the heart is Lexi".

(((((Hugs))))))

Your truely not alone Lexi, because you continue to choose to be a part of a group of other people, and you have learned that all on your OWN.

Open Eyes