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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Christ_empowered on October 12, 2010, at 22:06:22
So, I moved a few months ago. Before, I'd been *the* outcast in my small town. Crazy, unemployed, unattractive, drug-addled...I was all around stigmatized and an outcast.
Now, I'm healthier (I got older, but I look younger...weird, huh?), less crazy, and no one knows me, so I'm no longer an outcast. I don't know how to deal with it, though.
I'm so used to having people avoid me, even going so far as to cross the street to avoid me...so used to having people I know (people I work with, even) act like they don't see me in public...that now, now that I'm treated just like anybody else, I don't know quite what to make of it.
Its not like I get treated amazingly well here, either. I'm still a little overweight and I dress in Goodwill clothes (looking for a job AND on a juice fast at the moment), so its not like I get points for being uber-hot or well-dressed. But I'm treated, like I said...just like anybody else. The sad thing is, I'm so used to be treated like crap that I don't know what to make of this. Today, in the grocery store, a store attendant said "thanks, hon"--nothing major--and I burst into a big smile. I was sooo *happy* to be treated with just a little bit of kindness, I didn't know what to do.
Anyone ever experienced this?
Posted by vwoolf on October 14, 2010, at 9:33:09
In reply to no longer a pariah, posted by Christ_empowered on October 12, 2010, at 22:06:22
Your post really touched me - I felt very moved by it.
I'm glad that you have been able to get away from a place where you were considered an outcast and pariah. It must have been terrible to live there. I can only begin to imagine how awful.
It sounds as if you are beginning to think that maybe you are worth something after all, in spite of what happened in that small town, but it also sounds as if you're not quite sure.
Perhaps that's why it feels so strange - that you still feel like the same person, but people are reacting differently to you now. It sounds as if you like the new treatment, but that you don't quite believe it's real. That if they only knew... But I'm sure that they are reacting to something real in you, something that has always been there perhaps, or perhaps something that has changed. It sounds like you really need to nurture it carefully.
I've always felt like a fake, that if only people knew what was really going on inside me, they would call me mad and would ostracise me. So I've always kept up a very good facade, and hardly anyone knows about my time in hospital or my madness.
Only recently have I started 'coming out' to select people. Most of them have handled it well, but a few can't deal with it. My ex-husband was one.
I hope that things keep going well for you, and that it time you will feel confident enough as a person to be able to tell close friends about the awful things you have been through.
Posted by Christ_empowered on October 14, 2010, at 22:39:23
In reply to Re: no longer a pariah, posted by vwoolf on October 14, 2010, at 9:33:09
Thanks for your response; it really means a lot to me. Living as an outcast for an extended period of time really did a number on my overall psychological well-being. Social isolation plus low self-esteem plus the usual ill-effects of un(der)treated mental illness all combined to produce what was, for a while (too long) sheer hell.
Now, its over, but I sometimes can't quite believe that this town will be any different. I'm determined to build a better life for myself here, and I'm sure I'll overcome everything that I'm dealing with.
Thanks again for you post.
Posted by Verne on November 11, 2010, at 5:49:29
In reply to no longer a pariah, posted by Christ_empowered on October 12, 2010, at 22:06:22
Hang in there. I'm thinking of donning overalls. Actually, I think women look good in overalls - no kidding. Covers any weight concerns and who cares anyway.
Overalls say: I'm here!
Posted by Solstice on November 11, 2010, at 8:09:19
In reply to no longer a pariah, posted by Christ_empowered on October 12, 2010, at 22:06:22
Hi -
I haven't had your exact circumstances, but I can relate to the self-experience you describe.
It is very, very weird to experience other people treaingt you differently than you expect to be treated - especially when your expectation is based on a long-term history that has pretty much 'told' you who you are. It can happen, for example, to someone who has been in a long term abusive relationship when they they leave it and are in their first non-abusive relationship. A relatively briefer experience (than yours) for me was when I went from four years of an intense and toxic therapeutic relationship that left me feeling bad about myself, faulted for everything, disempowered and therapeutically hopeless.. to a therapeutic relationship where my thoughts counted.. where I wasn't blamed.. where I could *be* in error about something but not feel shamed.. where my vulnerability was held as if it was gold in caring hands - rather than unrecognized and mowed over. I didn't know what to make of it. I didn't know whether it was 'real.' I was very afraid to believe it would be there the next time.
Probably the important things are to: one, be aware of yourself so that you don't sabatoge it with the expectations you've learned to have making you react to situations as if you anticipate being rejected and treated as an outcast. Two, let it just exist. Let yourself just experience it, like you did in the grocery store. Don't try to *make* those better social experiences come to you, but take care not to push them away out of fear of believing they are real. Over time, after repeated experiences of being treated like everyone else, they will become your new normal. As they become your new normal, you'll begin adopting the same patterns of social behavior - which will increase those experiences. It kind of builds itself on itself or something.
Those are my thoughts on it. I know you originally wrote this a month ago.. and I hope you have continued to have those weird experiences!
Solstice
> So, I moved a few months ago. Before, I'd been *the* outcast in my small town. Crazy, unemployed, unattractive, drug-addled...I was all around stigmatized and an outcast.
>
> Now, I'm healthier (I got older, but I look younger...weird, huh?), less crazy, and no one knows me, so I'm no longer an outcast. I don't know how to deal with it, though.
>
> I'm so used to having people avoid me, even going so far as to cross the street to avoid me...so used to having people I know (people I work with, even) act like they don't see me in public...that now, now that I'm treated just like anybody else, I don't know quite what to make of it.
>
> Its not like I get treated amazingly well here, either. I'm still a little overweight and I dress in Goodwill clothes (looking for a job AND on a juice fast at the moment), so its not like I get points for being uber-hot or well-dressed. But I'm treated, like I said...just like anybody else. The sad thing is, I'm so used to be treated like crap that I don't know what to make of this. Today, in the grocery store, a store attendant said "thanks, hon"--nothing major--and I burst into a big smile. I was sooo *happy* to be treated with just a little bit of kindness, I didn't know what to do.
>
> Anyone ever experienced this?
>
>
Posted by Dr. Bob on November 12, 2010, at 1:04:23
In reply to Re: no longer a pariah, posted by Verne on November 11, 2010, at 5:49:29
> I'm here!
Welcome back,
Bob
This is the end of the thread.
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