On Not Fitting In With Mainstream Society...Ever
How my life of not following the crowd has led me here, now.
For as long as I can remember, (further back than I would like !) I have never fitted in. I was the daughter of a woman spurned by the village Mothers Union for being a divorcee, the girl that felt everything, deeply. The girl who had a legal name, one that was “not to be named” lest I channel the negative traits of the biological father, and the “known as” name, that had me last on the alphabetical register. I was the irritating teenager who passionately debated my parents’ friends and had very strong views and principles from an early age.
Then something changed - Secondary school and the feeding frenzy of teenage girls and boys and their tribal desire to eviscerate anyone who didn’t fit in. I detested secondary school. With a passion. I tried to fit in, really I did, but the more I tried the less it worked, and the more I was bullied. “The best days of your life”? My arse!
Sixth form college was moderately better, but it still sucked and I left with little more education than when I started!
Fast forward some shitty, and not so shitty, and some brilliant jobs, and a marriage, a move to France with three kids under 10, a divorce, another child and “widowhood” (we weren’t married but he died nonetheless) and here I am. Still not fitting in. But this time it’s by design. As an English woman in France, I will never fit in. And I’m good with that. Finally.
It’s taken me far too long to embrace my quirkyness, my “who gives a crap about fitting in-ness” and it’s really rather refreshing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve alienated quite a few people from my friends and family, especially in the last two years, but that’s okay. I accepted them, they couldn’t accept me, especially when I pointed out the stupidity of the pandemic response (not theirs but the overall stupidity). Cognitive dissonance is a pernicious fellow. We all have a cognitive bias, yet some of us try to confront it regardless and we all fall short, often, but the fact that we try has to count for something, doesn’t it?
So now I run a therapy business from a shed in my garden, helping people who have experienced trauma in their lives find a way to overcome it without it overcoming them. I help out in various groups on Telegram, where I find I fit in more than anywhere else in my life. I also do a little work online for a much beleaguered and persecuted gentleman who has been deciphering the Q phenomenon from a British point of view and has been de-platformed so many times it’s a wonder he still keeps going! I have embraced my non-conformity and I’m rocking it! The Black Sheep Community is full of magnificent misfits and we all fit together beautifully. I have long been wary of sticking my head above the parapet for fear of judgment, I read the responses to my client’s publications and some of them are quite horrid, but now is the time to stand up and be counted. I’m a misfit and I’m proud of it.
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Until next time.
À bientôt