The Outsider

An account of my journey to self-acceptance

I’m not the most ‘normal’ person.
I’ve always been ‘different’.
I have spent most of my life as a social outcast.
Searching for somewhere to fit in, failing.

This has of course led to depression, anxiety, and some seriously bad mental breakdowns.
Some of which came close to killing me.

It can be difficult, living life on the outside.
Looking in on all of the relatively happy people going about their lives, in relative ease.

How do they do it?
What is their secret?
Perhaps everybody suffers just as much as I do, but no one is expressing it…
Are they all just putting on a brave face?
The fact remains, they succeed in areas that I cannot.
So what does that make me?
A defective product of humanity?
An inconsequential blip in the vast jungle of society?.
I think of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, survival of the fittest.
Am I simply not fit enough to survive in this world?

You can see how these trains of thought may have led me down some dark paths.
Amongst a parade of complex questions, there was one simple question that stood out, one of basic human necessity.

Where do I fit in?

I had a simple question, and no one was giving me an answer.
Friends, family, therapists… strangers on internet chat rooms…
I even turned to God (but as you can imagine, the line was busy)

Of course it’s not that no one had anything at all to say.
Most of the suggestions I received from people involved changing core aspects of who I am, in order to be a better fit.
This was simply unacceptable to me.

I realised that I was asking the wrong people.
I eventually resorted to going about trying to work out the answer myself, from scratch.

This was a huge undertaking.
If you imagine the problem as an extremely complex mathematical equation, my task was to solve the equation, armed only with knowledge of basic arithmetic.

Through a tedious process of trial and error, challenging myself with thought experiments, delving deep within my psyche, throwing myself into challenging situations, observing my thoughts, feelings, observing the reactions of others, observing the consequences of varying types of behaviour, Looking for patterns, shapes, colours, textures… anything that would help me to make sense of it all.

I eventually came to a point of deep understanding, and even appreciation of who I am.
And I came to a place of similar understanding and appreciation of others.

But still, I did not fit in.
I had two sides of an equation, but there was no perceivable connection to balance them.

Then, one day, during… let’s call it an ‘existential crisis’, it hit me.
The answer I had been seeking for so long, was right in front of me all along, hiding in plain sight.

Where do I fit in?
On the outside!

I’m not like everyone else. I am an outside-of-the-box thinker.
I play my own game. I have different core values, different metrics of success, I do things in my own way, for my own reasons.

I often don’t understand why people do certain things, but my inability to blindly accept and follow prescribed systems incites me to challenge what is.
I offer a fresh perspective. And though I do not always see the things that are plain to others, I see many things that others do not.

And society needs that.
Diversity is essential to the continuation of humanity.

Going back to evolution, the clue is in its name. The point is not for us to settle on being one thing.
Survival of the fittest is a game of numbers, yes, and the majority often has a clear advantage.
But if we were all perfectly normal, if we were all cookie-cutter replications of an idealised standard, then our race would not be equipped with the tools that it needs to adapt and survive.

And nor would life be particularly interesting.

So I, for one, am happy to embrace being strange.
Any disapproval from others just goes to further cement my resolve, that I am performing my function, that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing and that I am where I am supposed to be.

No longer do I need to worry about fitting in.
My concern is simply just to do the things that I am inclined to do.

And I have utmost faith in that
whatever I do,

Whether others like it or not,
Whether it benefits me or not,

Whatever I do,
is the right thing to do.