You ever feel like you don't belong?

Have you ever felt like you just don't belong?

I fight those kind of feelings probably on an hourly basis, and on reflection I think I have fought those feelings for most of my life.

My therapist called it 'imposter syndrome'

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which one doubts one's accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud".

Now, I'm not sure I am concerned about being 'exposed as a fraud', I actually often pride myself on being totally genuine and transparent - which consequently also often gets me into trouble. But I've always said at least I can never be accused of lying. Even if the person didn't like my transparency.

So going back to not feeling like you belong.

I have never truly felt like I had a place on this earth, a purpose, a reason to be here. I'm not one of these girls that has ever dreamt of babies and white weddings. I love climbing the career ladder and all the nice commodities that come with a good salary. But I'm not money hungry or money driven. I have always felt that my place if any, was just to help those in need.

A long time ago I was stuck in a relationship that I felt I couldn't leave. We had a house together, all my belongings were there, I had a strained relationship with my family, and I remember countless times walking out and just driving to a quiet hillside car park and just sitting there wondering if I should just sleep in my car because I had nowhere else to go.

I had friends that were in stable relationships that had spare rooms in their houses and it always upset me that the offer to escape to them was never there.

So I made it my purpose once I finally walked away from that relationship that I would have a house always with at least 1 empty spare room so that any friend of mine in that very position could feel safe, unjudged and free to just have somewhere to go.

Years later my best friend left her husband one day and turned up at my door with her suitcase, she moved in there and then and I had absolutely no problem with it. But I did assure her that if it was going to be permanent we'd have to move and get a 3 bed place because we needed to have a spare room.

In fact this life requirement has now gone as far as me refusing to sell my house so that my boyfriend and I can have a deposit to get a bigger, joint house. Instead I will put myself through the pain of saving again so that I can keep my house for emergencies and pass it off as an 'investment'! (Lucky I know he won't bother to read these blogs!).

Anyway, I digress again.

Aside from that, I have never felt any other purpose in life. Sounds quite sad doesn't it.

I thought maybe I would once I finally settled down. 'Settled' is apparently not something I think fits into my life unfortunately. Fate seems to have other plans for me.

For as long as I remember I have always said to friends that I don't think i'll ever be a Mum because I think I'll die young.

When my head goes to the dark places, I often think about that statement.

I always used to think that having my dogs depend on me was what kept me alive, that that was my purpose. As they get older I have panic sometimes that I need to get a 3rd dog just so that when 1 inevitably passes away, I don't feel that I need to join them because of this needing a purpose feeling.

So feeling like I don't belong in general, on this planet, is something I fight on the reg. I also fight that feeling when I am in various situations - jobs, social events, sat in my house, sat in my boyfriend's house etc etc - the list goes on.

And I'm not entirely sure I'm explaining it properly or just waffling in this blog - but I guess the purpose of this is a) for me to mind dump and b) to just try and normalise that feeling.

When I feel that I don't belong, it makes me not want to exist.

Whilst I wouldn't want to be ok with that feeling, or for it to become 'normal', at the same time I guess I just hope I can help someone reading this that might just feel the same.

Like offering a virtual spare room I guess. A safe space to escape to if you need it, to feel 'normal' about feeling like you don't belong.