I’ve been thinking over some of my past and have realized I had a strange life . Growing up, I was considered by adults as particularly cute by “normal” standards, and more than one person suggested my parents make me a model. My parents always said no, thank goodness. Random people often stopped my parents to tell them how I was very cute, right in front of other young family members, which I thought was very thoughtless and rude at the time, as though they thought children didn’t need emotional consideration. The attention I got for being “cute” didn’t make me happy. Over time, I became almost disgusted by it… The thing was: I wasn’t into impressing others or other kids my age. At all. Not in the slightest. I liked people for who they were, no matter what they looked like. I spent my first years mostly isolated from others and spent much of my time alone and exploring the world, without others’ words to “infect” me. So, I met young family member’s jealousy with confusion at that age. I didn’t know it at the time, but I later realized they didn’t like the attention from adults I got with the way I was born. I was treated with rejection. It seemed like many were very interested in appearing “great” in others’ eyes, which meant to them being attractive and being able to out-power others through any means possible. So, maybe to appear more “powerful” than me, family members my age rejected me even more, and did some mean things to me because I was too small to do anything about it.

The way they treated me solidified my character. And rejection from other children did much of the same. I always stayed that way: not caring about how powerful or attractive or “cool” other people were. I was always thinking logically, or maybe I was born with an inadequate sense or need of social interaction, and I couldn’t see how someone appeared or how powerful they were should be as important as being kind or simply enjoying time with others. I didn’t care too much about how other people perceived me… Most of the time, I only changed myself enough so that I was left alone without disturbance, and that’s it. This probably didn’t help with my fear around other people, who I, honestly, sometimes saw as disgusting, violent monsters… That impression of them probably didn’t help my ability to understand them either, though . I flip-flopped between being understanding toward others and being unable to handle their “vain” ways. I think I’ve out-grown this thinking now, however. I was being very naive to think that there was no reason to how they acted.


I can’t understand why I dealt with self-confidence and my need for social support so differently than everyone else. It seemed like everyone took to gaining the support and attention of others to feel happy and safe. I dealt with these problems by holding onto my beliefs strongly, almost aggressively sometimes, and becoming totally “strange” compared to the norm… Why did I cope in such a strange way?!

I can't really answer your question, Breezy Day other than to say that each one of us learns our ways of coping based on the circumstances of our lives & the problems that confront us. It sounds as though yours were perhaps somewhat unique & so the methods of coping you learned were unique. However, the dynamic that was involved was the same.

That sounds about right. It's strange how dealing with the same problems under different circumstances can lead to people who are very different from one another. I think I wanted to know how others I had described developed differently than me, but it's probably impossible to say.