BELONGING

[write]

I just saw this word and it awakened  a whole conversation back in the past...it has always been a balancing act for me- belonging to a group ( even of two ) and not being submerged.

I NEVER belonged in my family. Even now. They close ranks on me in a weird weird way...I'm outside their internal code system!

Does belonging have connotations for other people?

[Hopalong]

Good question, Write.

I don't belong in a happy way to NMom or brother.
I do belong heart and soul to my daughter, and my friends. Just a few in 3-D, but fine fine people.
And for extended family, I belong to my church. That feels like aunts uncles cousins, etc. Potlucks.

I'm feeling a sense of belonging here on this board too.

(When I was little I certainly belonged to my sweet Dad, with joy...but since he's gone and I faced Mom's Nness...I'm not as bothered about the nuclear family thing.) My daughter boycotts holidays so I'll invent my own traditions when I'm on my own again. Probably soup kitchen service stuff.

I'll always belong to my daughter and my friends and my church community, that's my family now.

I do feel lonely at times. What's good for me with this community, is I can say so and keep dignity. I go deeper, spiritually, when I ask myself to do stuff there.

Hops who should be sleeping

[nightsong]

A therapist once asked me if I was more afraid of being abandoned or engulfed by other people. I realised how frightened I was of both. And I know where that comes from - the message from day one from my mother, which was, "be exactly like me", that is, lose your identity, "or be the enemy", that is, be abandoned - emotionally if not physically.

So now I long to belong, but when I start to get close to it I get scared and withdraw. This board is a good example - I lurk, I read what you are all posting, occasionally I post about someone else's stuff, but I do't reveal myself, I don't get known by you - and then I feel excluded.

OK, now I feel uncomfortable so I am just going to press the post button quickly and go and surf some other site ...

[Hopalong]

Hey Nightsong,
Tweet? That you warbling? Here's a poem for you.
You're not strange, you're just shy. --Hops

Pickup Sticks


I remember being seized by concentration.

The pile of thin sticks, clumped randomly
as pine needles, dumped before you like life.

One’s your color and you must tease it out
without touching another to survive.

You must stand on your own two feet.
You must find the color of your parachute.
You must not clutch or need or tremble or
your stick will roll and disturb the equilibrium
of its neighbor.

I learned this well as a child and now
I have a painting of clumped pine needles
floating on a stream above my bed.

My friend who has cancer did this.
The pine needles look soft as a bed,
a mass of pinky browns so webbed
together it’s clear that’s why it floats.
She painted each needle, however,
which is why I bought it.

One could take a pile of pine needles
and paint and shellac them in loud
colors and toss them before a person
with the job of pulling it apart

I don’t want to play

[darky]

there not many times i feel a sense of belonging. ive felt like an outsider. my extended family some of which i get on well with, they have extended their arms and reached out to me, i love them but i dont feel i "belong" the only place i truley belong, is at home with my husband and kids.
i feel like i belong here. here i feel warmth and safe, knowing that people understand and i can share how i feel. i think that is a special type of belonging.

[2224Jessica]

Hi Darky,
I know what you mean, I'm happiest and feel like I belong with my hubby and kids. I sometimes feel like in my playgroup friends group I'm an outsider. They are friendly to me and everything but I still feel like I don't fit in. I don't know whether its just my perception or if its that I don't let my guard down therefore people think I'm distant. I also feel like I have difficulty having close female friends. I get along with females and everything but I always feel like the third wing. It's like any relationship I have with a female is at arms length. I don't know whether its because of my nmum. I feel safe and feel like I belong here too.
Jessica

[2224Jessica]

Hi write,
I've never belonged in my family. I was on the phone with my parents the other day and they were both on the phone barking orders and talking in unison. I kind of tuned out and it's like I realized that I'm getting over and separating from them because I use to listen and put up with them. I have always been the one to question things in my family in terms of whats right. My parents have hated that and therfore have kind of branded me the blacksheep. I didn't conform to what they expected. I have felt like I suffered for it but now I'm glad because being the black sheep allowed me to move on easier. I have always had issues of belonging. I feel like I belong with my hubby and kids but not really anywhere else. I don't know why but maybe its because I don't want to belong or whether It takes longer for me to feel like I belong. I feel like I belong here, its like its designed just for that by allowing us voice.
Jessica

[write]

This board is a good example - I lurk, I read what you are all posting, occasionally I post about someone else's stuff, but I do't reveal myself, I don't get known by you - and then I feel excluded.

Hi Nightsong, welcome. Join in! A place like the board is good to work out your balance. (((((((((((((())))))))))))))))))))))))

I see people using words like blacksheep, outsider, enemy, excluded.
I guess from an early age we got this message that we weren't welcome...we didn't fit.

I wish I could find a church like yours Hop.
I like your poem.

[Hopalong]

Thanks, Write.
I wish you could TOO. Don't give up. You deserve a warm, gentle, trustworthy family. You'll find them. I trust that.

When our Vespers started I went and had tea with a man afterward. He'd been away a long time and explained it was because he didn't like this or that about the previous minister, but now he's coming back because he really really likes this new minister (she, one of the pair, leads the evening Vespers). Then he disappeared again and when we next spoke I asked why and he didn't like this or that about her services, now.

I had the same trouble (not same as yours, the same as his) in many churches for a long time because I wanted the ministers to love me and heal my childhood wounds--I watched them like a hawk and judged every sermon and gesture for its faults. I didn't know that's what I was doing, though, at the time. Frankly, we've had a few I didn't like much at all--one cold fish in particular. But the place felt right as a whole, so I decided I would stop my minister-worship...they're just ministers...people....not mystics, not priests with magical powers of discernment or access to the divine...some of them are mediocre, a few toxic, most well-intentioned and fine. But regardless, the church is not them, but the people. (Kind of like the government! Yikes.) So I said to myself, ministers come and ministers go, but this is the right community for me. Over the years, that's helped. We're lucky now in having two wonderful, ethical, decent and caring co-ministers. I like them  d lot and trust them both. Meanwhile, same dear old faces in the pews that were there 20+ years ago, and a host of new people. It's nice to sit there and meet someone new and say yep, started here in the 80s. (But I was in other churches in the denomination in other states when I lived away...so that gave me a broader perspective on how they could vary a lot.)

Anyhow, I know there is a good community/family for you, Write. I know even better how very lucky they will be to have you find your way to them. They will have a deep, fine new human being among them. You will deepen THEIR lives, as much as the other way around. You are a gift to them. Just as you are. Warts and fears and all.

(Ain't nothing like the gratitude of the lonely for a safe welcoming hearth. Sez me.)
Knowing what you've been through, have you ever checked out the Sojourners? Or Society of Friends? Or UCC? (No need to answer, really. Just tossing thoughts. Not trying to start a comparitive religion thread, I promise!)

(((Write))))

Hops

[pennyplant]

I have "belonged" only rarely in my life.  Lots of reasons why.  It probably starts with parents not wanting me.  Then there's the looking different (short, little redhead).  Being too much of something--too talkative, then too quiet when everyone always tells you to stop talking (and nobody listens anyway), trying too hard to please, not being interested in the same things as other people all the time ( I mean sometimes people are so shallow, repetitious, and narrow-minded with their interests and conversations).  Being depressed periodically.  Worrying so much about what other people think of you.  Probably comes from being harshly judged and criticized in childhood.

I tend to believe that the finer you are, the less likely you are to "belong".  My son rarely belonged and was worried about making friends in college.  I told him, it's New York City, there are 9 million people there, out of all those people there will be some like you.  And there were.  It was not easy, but he collected other fine people like himself and created a really good circle where he can belong and still be himself.  He had to be very, very brave but he did it.

Boy, it's getting late and this is addictive.  Better go.

Pennyplant

[write]

I tend to believe that the finer you are, the less likely you are to "belong".

Hi P/P & welcome.

That's a good way to put it!!!

[write]

So I said to myself, ministers come and ministers go, but this is the right community for me. Over the years, that's helped.

When I was going through all the traumas at the UU church one older lady said that to me, and that whoever came no ones pushing her out now!
But I don't know if I can switch off. Part of the bipolar illness is this repetetive thought thing, where I just can't get rid of thoughts about something which is bothering me unless I get out of the situation. I can tell myself over and over it doesn't matter but it becomes like a 'cognitive itch' and increases my obsession with something, even if it's unhealthy.
I will try in any situation to go into it eyes wide open and slowly, though I am by nature very passionate (  ) and impulsive.

I looked at the churches you mention also a humanist group.
Thank you for your kind words.