I was lucky that I always had a best friend and a little gang of co-conspirators at school. It was the adults around me who were bullying and rejecting.
My adoptive father tried to force me into his mould, and when I couldn’t fit, he first wanted to send me away to boarding school, and later to dispose of me altogether via the Court system to some sort of reform school or junior borstal. His brother’s family refused to visit us in case I corrupted their own little girl (also adopted, who later went to Australia and never came back). My rumbustious energy and complete lack of enthusiasm for work that was boring got me into trouble at school and there were threats of expulsion. And my adoptive mother, while not actively rejecting me, gave me no support whatever. All I got from her was "After all we’ve done for you....." "What have we done to deserve this......" and "Whatever will the neighbours think .......".
Don’t think that because my teachers were nuns, they never bullied the pupils. I suffered a lot at the hands of one particular woman, and she would set the whole class against me. For an interesting article on the subject, read Dr. Allen McEvoy's article Teachers who bully students.
Once I left home, I felt I was on the right road: I had some sensitive counselling and support from an extraordinary man (a Church of England minister), I met a partner I loved very much, and we had our own home.
Even so. When I was in my late thirties I started to get mildly paranoid. Part of me knew that my "enemies" were probably imaginary, but I was beginning to feel that nobody liked me, and starting to believe that people were laughing at me and persecuting me in various small ways.
I got myself out of this by going to encounter groups (popular at the time) and gaining more insight into what
made people tick. I also on a few occasions confronted my friends with my imagined "wrongs" and was brought up
short by their amazement at my accusations, and by their continuing support and friendship in spite of it.....
I learned how to get closer to people.
Being misunderstood to the point where you feel your true self is invisible is simply insupportable, and the worst sort of loneliness. You can grow up feeling that no one cares for you. You are a misfit in your (adoptive) family, and always in the wrong.
As an adult you might establish friendships with people who are more like you, and who can relate to you as the sort of person you really are. But it is all too easy to transfer to these later relationships the familiar childhood feeling that that you are not liked, you don’t fit in, and people are trying to upset you. And you feel you must somehow deserve it.
Another of my childhood mottoes was "If you can’t have friends, you might as well have enemies". If you have an enemy, it does at least feel as though you have relationship with someone, and that is better than being alone, invisible and unappreciated.
MIND have published a booklet (on line) about self esteem. Click on this
link.
