I've been reading voraciously all of Brene Brown's works now, as you would have known if you gleaned my more recent posts. And even as I struggle to finish our book club read (Margaret Atwood's Robber Bride, which is another bleak and dismal view of the world; seriously, does this woman write anything not-depressing?), I am reading Brown's most recent book called "Braving the Wilderness". I'm still in the early bits of the book, but she had already started talking about belonging, revisiting some concepts she had earlier introduced; she started telling her story of how she felt like she did not belong -- about how she failed to make the drill team in high school (you know, being part of the cool club) the way her parents did (being part of the cool club themselves), and how their silence when she failed cemented further the reality of her failure, and that time in her life defined so starkly for her how, having always been the new girl at school and not belonging with her peers, she now in addition did not belong to her family.
I know that it is far from her intention to trivialize the feeling of alienation; it's the perception on the part of the person that matters; it's how alienated you feel from the people around you and not the degree of apparent difference between you and your social environment. But when I read her story, I almost scoffed. This was alienation to you? I know I'm wrong but I feel like I know best how it feels to always be the square peg in the round hole. Maybe everyone feels like this, to some degree, or not. I don't know. I only know my experience. I don't think there's ever been a time in my life I've felt like I identified with any group of people, at all, for more than illusory and brief moments. Even with my family.
Even when the thing that differentiated me from everyone else was a supposed-positive thing -- like being the smartest kid in the family across the board on both sides -- the pleasure of approval fades fairly quickly (leading to desperation for the next accolade and the next level of approval) to be replaced once again by a feeling of wrongness. There is something wrong with me; why am I not like everyone else? Primary school was still fine; though I still felt like I stuck out, my awareness of my difference was like a buzzing at the back of my head. It didn't bother me most of the time. And children at that age were still accepting and open and honest, and played with each other regardless.
Then self-awareness set in and secondary school began, and my growing eyes reflected on my difference, and made it so stark -- I now realise what I did; so that I would not see the difference, I avoided those spaces that would put the difference to light. I withdrew. I avoided the Malay Room like the plague (it agonized me that I had to go there to pray) -- because my goodness, everyone was always just too loud. If you belong to the Malay community, good luck in surviving as an introvert. Being quiet meant you were arrogant, no question; or dumb, perhaps. And in that room, you were somehow expected to know everyone or be able to say the right things, and to this day, one of my most vivid memories of my early days in RG was thinking, "How do all these people seem to already know one another?"
I felt like I did not fit in with my own kind. And to this day, I feel like I don't. I don't know if the way it is now is just a snowballing from then, but put me amongst my own kind, and I don't think I talk about the 'right' things or behave the 'right' way. Put me with my work colleagues say, who are mostly not of my kind, and I still don't fit in because I'm not the same kind to begin with! It's a strange world I feel I live in. Not to mention the whole thing about being a woman, and what a woman is supposed to be, and how obviously I don't fit in the nice, obedient, Muslimah category, but neither am I the obvious, brazen, bold, liberal. It is exhausting. It is exhausting to feel and live like the sore thumb. I'm struggling so hard right now to fully own who I am. I don't know how long this struggle will take, but God, I am so tired. I am so tired. And now, it feels extra worse because everyone is pitifully wondering why I have not partnered up yet -- and I don't know how to tell them, but I'm sorry, do you understand my whole life of being an alien? I have pockets of connection with people but they are few and far in-between. (And this reminds me again of how insulted I felt when someone tried to lump me as a woman just rabid to be married, when excuse me, how dare you reduce the complexity of my life; I'd concluded right then that of course, you don't see me at all; how could I have been so dumb.)
I feel and think all this, and sometimes I remember the kids I see, and I feel ashamed. Because I said I scoffed at Brene's story of alienation, and then there are my kids who are struggling. They would scoff at my silly struggles. (I think I gravitate to my work because I feel such an affinity for feelings of alienation.) The worst type of cases are sometimes the type of kids who know enough to understand that they are different; the ensuing struggle and pain of feeling like they're not enough, then manifesting as difficult behaviour. At the end of the day, we all just want to be accepted and loved for who we are, and not have our worth hinged on some external measure.
There is no conclusion to this post; I have to learn to post somewhat differently now. Because my struggle continues, and who am I to write conclusions when I don't know any. And God, please have mercy; I am still learning. Amin.
I looked this up, somewhat in relation to the above;
from Dead Poets' Society:
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