Fantastic first try Penny!
Good for you for swimming out of the reeds! I love your voice and really relate to so much of what you wrote. I've been rather focussed, lately and not posting on many threads. I don't start many threads either. For me.....it is my own self-talk/inner thinking that influences that. What do I really want to say or know? Will anyone else be interested? Sometimes, I'd just rather read and others....post. One of my first tries.......I started as "annonymous". Too chicken to use my real guest name, even. The "anything" thread. I guess it worked out ok. I was afraid people would think it was silly or a waste of time or not be interested. Negative self-talk galore there eh?
I'm glad you took the plunge and braved starting this thread and I truly thankyou for what you said about once you hit "Post". I like it when threads are allowed to go where they might.....where people can just discuss stuff. I also understand that sometimes, a person has a real need for support or a problem they really would like to discuss, and in that case, I might feel rude if I end up highjacking the thread, or contribute stuff to it, that has nothing to do with the original title/topic.....as if I have no consideration for the original thread starter. Ofcourse, that isn't true. I do consider that person, but I don't always remember to say so or appologise.

Your story reminded me of my kindergarten experience. I had to go to school that was not my regular school, because my regular school, where the friends I played with near my house went, did not have kindergarten. So my friends, must have been younger or older than I. Heehee. Little kindergarten friends. My first friendships. I remember those. (little red heart icon please).
Anyhow.....ya........I didn't know a soul and felt totally excluded. I heard discussions, similar to what you described, about people's birthday parties, to which I had not been invited, nor did there seem like there would be a chance of that. I was quiet and shy. I wanted to please the teacher but she seemed uninterested in me compared to the others. At that time, we kids were given a blanket and told to have a nap, each day, for however long?? I didn't nap at home and thought it was such a babyish thing but I complied....tried......couldn't sleep......would be corrected for it. I felt very much alone in kindergarten and actually......didn't like it at all. I felt like the other kids knew eachother and just didn't notice me, except for when the teacher was correcting me, and I thought the teacher.....didn't like me.
But I did like painting. I did like standing in front of that little easel and splashing my feelings there with paint. I remember doing that. And I remember the teacher........coming to look..........and making corrections.....not asking but telling me what the painting looked like....which was completely NOT what it was about. I remember smiling and pretending she was right, hoping that would please her and I remember it didn't. She went on to make corrections.......tell me how I could improve it.......how her choice of colours was not the same as mine. "Not fair!", I thought. "They're my feelings."
But I smiled and listened and tried to let her see that I agreed with her. It didn't matter.
Hahahaha! I've changed a lot since kindergarten, I think. But I guess I haven't really felttt......for little me, back then. Forgot all about it. Buried it. Didn't even realise that part of my self-doubt might have been generated by her behaviour??
So, I have to thank you for bringing this up, since it's helped me to see that somehow.....I've found a way to use my voice, since then, regardless of having self-doubt imposed by being centred out as different, having my "work" put down, and not being welcomed and encouraged to be part of the group.
I left that school and went to my regular school the next year, thank God, and things went along much better.
In 3-D life I have actually learned that I am a hugger!
Me too, although I'm very careful about whom I hug. But I'm a touchy-feely person, as Archie Bunker would put it, and it's helped me to learn this too.
when the words of some people disturb me or confuse me or make me doubt my perceptions, now I can start to figure out what is going on under my skin, in me, that has struck such a chord.
Thankyou for this wise gift, Penny. This is a biggie, I think. And congratulations! I need to do more of that, I think.
Your post was very touching and you strike me as really wanting self-awareness. Me too. Sometimes I think I'm out to lunch.
And then people like you come along and help restore my faith in myself (on edit: that I can keep learning and changing). I'm glad you're here. (((Penny)))

Sela