I'm in a similar boat! I'm rejected by many. I make some friends, but they are all really distal. No one is close to me. There's no one to hang out for fun. They are (thankfully) there to help me with driving me to an appointment here and there, about twice a year, but that's the extent of my newfound relationships. There's no invites to safe walks outside or outside barbecues. I suppose my friends are still maintaining their own separate pods. I have no family who can help me. I have no family whom I'm close to. My mother prefers my able-bodied sister because they can take care of her, and they all reject me because they don't believe I'm disabled.

I find what I can online, but I know that's not the same as real live in-person meetings and friendships. There's something about in-person contact and seeing body languages that make a huge difference in feeling belonged. Still, online groups help in many ways, even when you have in-person friendships. Online groups allow you to be anonymous at times, and even more open to speaking about deep things that you normally wouldn't tell a non-close in-person friend or family member. Those who are privileged and fortunate to have *close* in-person family and *close* in-person friends (like best friends, bosom buddies, etc.), they can share their most deepest thoughts with and find comfort. But for many with mental disorders and certain physiological disorders (especially those physio disorders that keep us homebound or slow us down when walking with others), mainstream society "just doesn't have the time" to slow their lives down for us. I realize then that I am slower, am not as functional, and am not as healthy as mainstream society. But still, that's no reason for them to discriminate in terms of making meaningful friendships with us. But then again, it's like classism and those who are constantly able to achieve more and more money or power; they tend to stick with their class and then ignore any classes below them. Same mentality regarding ableism and whether or not someone can keep up the pace.

I've had a lot of time to think about my own invisible prison - the kind that keeps me caged inside my apartment, the kind that tells me that I don't belong with many groups, and the kind that keeps me uneducated, unemployed, and underappreciated as a societal member.

I've gotten depressed during the summertime, when most people are spending time with family and friends outdoors, and I cannot. I've gotten depressed during every holiday, when most people are spending time with family and friends indoors, and I cannot. I've gotten even more depressed during this pandemic, when most people are assuming that the disabled and the elderly and the obese should just die off and leave their able-bodied, ageist, skinny world to them who "deserve it." I've felt even more depressed at the growing number of hate crimes, violence, and political polarization, as that means even more discrimination, rejection, and segregation.

Belongingness is important, according to Maslow. If we don't feel belonged, we can't get many of our basic needs met because we are shunned, and because our health is deteriorating. There's no purpose in life, and no real actualization or transcendence. We become invisible. We get ignored. We are left to fend for ourselves and die, even to flock with those who are divergents or "factionless," as that Divergent series alluded to. We're not pure, but considered damaged and therefore not worthy of taking up privileged spaces that the privileged would deny as being "privileged," due to their privileged blind spots and lack of empathy.

Elitists, ableists, ageists, racists, xenophobics, nationalists, and more all reject people based on something. Such rejection hurts. Such discrimination hurts. Such betrayal traumas from our family and our ex-friends hurt!

We can find some sense of belonging online with others who struggle similarly, but then we are faced with similar factions online - those who are segregated based on their beliefs, religions, politics, cultures, nationalities, races, ages, and more. We also see how online serves as yet another invisibility stance, a place where we're in a pseudo prison of sorts, because we have this belief that if mainstream society cannot accept us, but only a faceless anonymous online forum can, then we don't deserve to be seen in person. We reinforce those ideas with some of the things we do here that we don't do in real life. We don't receive real hugs. We don't receive eye contact. We don't get the olfactory senses we get when someone has good-smelling soap, perfume, cologne, and/or hair products. We don't get human touch - the safe kind, that is, like hugs and handshakes. The pandemic has changed all this, too.

There are many ways to look at the depths of rejection, segregation, ableism, ageism, hate, discrimination, and more. There are many ways to see how all of these rejections harm people.

Neurodivergents and related disabled persons with mental disabilities have difficulty with belonging, so they are often dealing with its opposite - loneliness.

We can say that you're not alone in this struggle, which is true. We can say that you have us here, which is true. But when it all comes down to it, not everyone struggles the same. Some people are more alone than others, more rejected than others, more hated than others. I, for one, can understand feeling depressed and upset at the injustices with all these inequalities. But even if you remove that social-sciency language, we're left with feeling THIS depressed. I can relate to being super-rejected.

I'm sorry you struggle in that way, too.