I can't even begin to explain how beneficial this thread has been to me right now. This forum is incredible and I couldn't have discovered it at a better point in my life.
My entire life I've felt weird, different, and alone. I tried to have friends, but I never felt like I "belonged" with them. I always felt so angry and frustrated that I couldn't find anyone who was "like me". I wasn't even sure what that meant. I just knew that everyone else was NOT like me, and it made me feel terrible.
I can completely identify with so many of the posts in this thread- especially the lost feeling, as though you're dreaming or watching yourself live in your environment from the outside, as though you'll wake up at some point and all of it will disappear. To this day I get this feeling. I'll be out shopping or sitting at my desk and suddenly I'll go, "Hey, here's that feeling again, that this isn't real." It always creeped me out and not being able to find anyone else who felt it made it worse.
I remember shortly before marrying my husband, I had a terrible lonely episode. I cried and cried, telling him how alone I felt in the world, even when he was with me. No matter who I talked to at work or where I went to try and make friends, the alone feeling never went away. I, too, felt like I "got" everyone around me but they simply didn't have the ability to get me. Part of my developing an eating disorder surely had to do with stuffing down emotions that no one could help me validate, to try and blend into the landscape around me and reduce the pain of never feeling quite right.
Being in my eating disorder treatment program helped me to find several people I could identify with (one being a fellow INFJ) and it has made a huge difference. But I still have that aimless, floating, lonely feeling as though something huge is missing from my life, and I'm still frustrated because I don't know what it is.
I'm glad I'm not the only one.
My entire life I've felt weird, different, and alone. I tried to have friends, but I never felt like I "belonged" with them. I always felt so angry and frustrated that I couldn't find anyone who was "like me". I wasn't even sure what that meant. I just knew that everyone else was NOT like me, and it made me feel terrible.
I can completely identify with so many of the posts in this thread- especially the lost feeling, as though you're dreaming or watching yourself live in your environment from the outside, as though you'll wake up at some point and all of it will disappear. To this day I get this feeling. I'll be out shopping or sitting at my desk and suddenly I'll go, "Hey, here's that feeling again, that this isn't real." It always creeped me out and not being able to find anyone else who felt it made it worse.
I remember shortly before marrying my husband, I had a terrible lonely episode. I cried and cried, telling him how alone I felt in the world, even when he was with me. No matter who I talked to at work or where I went to try and make friends, the alone feeling never went away. I, too, felt like I "got" everyone around me but they simply didn't have the ability to get me. Part of my developing an eating disorder surely had to do with stuffing down emotions that no one could help me validate, to try and blend into the landscape around me and reduce the pain of never feeling quite right.
Being in my eating disorder treatment program helped me to find several people I could identify with (one being a fellow INFJ) and it has made a huge difference. But I still have that aimless, floating, lonely feeling as though something huge is missing from my life, and I'm still frustrated because I don't know what it is.
I'm glad I'm not the only one.
