Does anyone else feel like they never belong?

YES! I am new here and was thinking I would just kind of lurk a bit but your post hit me right on the head. YES! I feel this way so often! Like some of you have said and I agree, I think different than most people. I encourage you to read my profile. This feeling like I don't belong is a big thing I worry about. Thankfully I found someone that is just like me. We've been married for 33 years. The difference is, he is comfortable in his skin. I have not accepted ME. I often feel guilt and worry that I need to change or be better. Thank you for having the courage to express yourself. You are NOT alone!

Nope i don't belong even the vaguest sense of the word; i was bullied at school, tormented through college and even dropped out of university. All of which can't be contributed to my sheer oddness but it no doubt played a major part.

I'm ok with being unconventional. Fortunately i don't want what most consider to part and parcel of regular life. Marriage, children, the 9-5 grind; none of it interests me in the slightest. I would perhaps like a couple more friends but most of the friendships i have fizzle out after short bursts of great intensity. I often wonder if i'd be better off without them. The loneliness can be difficult but i think this is made worse really by the lack of solid routine. The devil makes work for idle hands as the saying goes. But i'll find my niche - we all do eventually.

I'm comforted by the fact that there are a lot of people like me - it's a shame we don't receive greater acceptance within society but when you live mostly on the peripheries that's what happens. I realize i can't have it both ways. I like my space, the solitude, the lack of pressure - it's only when we're surrounded by others and a way of life that's so different that those things start to become compromised.

It's not a perfect life, nor a particularly happy one. But far better to know what you don't want then be all to aware of what you'd like and your failure to get it.

Lots of us have social anxiety disorder...that is a good description of how we feel...

I also feel like I don't belong. Mostly because of how I think. I feel it is very uncommon and it is so rare to find someone who thinks like me. It makes me feel alone and it makes me wonder if I will meet a partner who is like the puzzle piece that matches mine because I haven't met anyone who I feel comfortable with and let go of everything I'm holding back (like my feelings).

I have felt this way many times and because of the MI, I never expect them to understand anything that is going on in my mind. I prefer the company of animals or being alone reading or listening to music. I sometimes cannot cope with the mental gymnastics "normal" people play on each other.

I feel that way quite a lot, sometimes even with people I am close with...and I always get way to worried about being rejected over any mistake I might make, way to hard on myself probably.

All of my life.

I do feel like this a lot, unless I'm talking to someone very close to me.

Every second of every day. I grew up as an expatriate in the Middle East, so moving to the States was a huge culture shock. I still don't get Americans sometimes. And slang cracks me up! I take it too literally, and it's a hoot (why would you want to see Jack **** in the first place???). I haven't found anyone else in NM who also grew up in a small American compound overseas, so I feel like no one gets me.

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I feel like a don't belong alot in between bouts of hope.

I never belonged. But I chose to embrace it at a young age ("tween") and that was somewhat helpful.

* Panic Disorder w/ Agoraphobia
* Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
* Hoarder
* Fibromyalgia
* Major Depressive Disorder w/ Recurrent Major Depressive Episodes

It is hard for me to feel that I belong mainly due to having lost my family. I do have wonderful friends but family is so grounding to me. So yes.

I belong to no one and nothing.

Thank-you for this post. And yes, yes, yes. I feel more like I don't even fit in the world now. As a teenager I was very outgoing, loved to have lots of friends. Even as an older teen, that started to diminish, I think that is natural.

In every situation after that, it seemed like I was always feeling lively and wanting everyone to like me but they seemed put off and it felt like I was trying to invade some click or secret society that just did not want me there.

Nowadays that I am out of the socially accepted place in life, single, almost 60 and on disability for mental illness, I am shunned by most. Even at churches. I can go to services and be completely ignored, rarely spoken to. No one seems to want someone of my status in a group, even though I do love people and feel like I could contribute something. Because of social anxiety now I am not going to push to be accepted so therefore I just stay home alone.

I've always felt that I live in the wrong age, I should have lived in a way earlier time like the 1800's or even been a teenager in the 1950's. Of course there was not modern day birth control! Blah!

Again, thanks for this. I wish I could help you but as you see, I struggle with this myself.

I think we all feel like that in one point or another and if somebody disagrees, they may not want to admit it. We all get in places or feel stuck in life at certain points and it is normal. it is abnormal to NOT be stuck in those rough patches throughout our life, and it's okay.

I find that I really can relate to what a lot of people here are saying... I've never felt that I really belonged anywhere. I'm 18 and don't share much of the same interests with others my age. From preschool on I have been bullied and ignored, up until March of this year when I dropped out of my junior year of high school. I like to write poetry, which most my age consider weird and lame. Sometimes I wish I had more mainstream interests so that maybe I could have some friends... I get lonely. I wish I could say I'm proud to be different and to be who I am, but...

Constantly

All the time, with just about everyone. Only the exception of one friend I think, but I don't fully belong in his life.

I have always felt special and different not in a special positive way more like a special case. This feeling has poetically progressed into a terminal uniqueness that has infected every area of my life. They say out of the darkness comes the light and im convicned that this sequestered feeling if harnessed in the right way can be a ppwerfull beacon of positivity

I feel like I don't belong/fit in much of the time too. I feel like I belong, for the most part, when I'm at an AA meeting. I say for the most part because part of me still feels like if people there knew about my bipolar, they'd think less of me. The only times I feel completely accepted are here, with my husband and brother/his wife, two friends (who each are recovering alcoholics with a mental illness) and my therapist.