Always feel like an outsider...can't fit in

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Hello everyone....I'm tired of never feeling like I fit in. I will go hang out at groups of "peers" but always feel like I'm never really part of them...like I'm just hanging on the perimeter of the group. I will watch people interact with each other and want to join in but not know how. It's frustrating and has done a lot of damage to my self esteem. I feel inferior and like something is wrong with me. I'm not like them. I can't be part of the group like everyone else seems to do so effortlessly. They comment that I'm quiet...I just smile and say nothing. How I wish that I could actually belong, how I wish that I knew what to say or do to join in with everyone else. I wish people would take time to get to know me. I feel like an alien watching these people..so badly wanting to be one of them but stuck on the outside looking it...only pretending to be normal. I would watch the popular girls and wish I could be like them....always chatting and laughing and gathering lots of friends like it was second nature. I would feel like I was stuck inside my own prison.....a person wanting to belong and be loved, yet not being able to get outside myself enough to know how to do that.

This is how I have felt for years...

I was just recently diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome but all that time I had no clue. Anyone else struggle with these feelings? Until I was diagnosed I thought I was the only one.

Hey, welcome to the group of people who don't fit in.

I experienced this today at work. Three co-workers were chatting about 15 feet from me, and another co-worker approached the group and joined in. I said to myself "I wouldn't be able to walk over there and join in naturally, I would feel out of place".

That is a phrase I have said to myself countless times in my life.

It is a confounding and perplexing condition but once you start to learn about it, find others who experience it, and start to accept it, it's not so bad.

I have had somewhat simular experience, however it hasn't just been limited to being unable to come out of my shell or whatever enough to join in or not being able to because of feeling so out of place....I actually have endured a lot of bullying and getting picked on over it as well, which has not helped my sense of self worth at all. I did not get diagnosed till a couple years ago and am now 25, so now I kind of have more understanding of what was different and why I found interaction in general difficult let alone actually interacting smoothly. Even so looking back at my childhood just makes me sad...doesn't matter if I understand now I still missed out, on really actually living my adolescent/teen years I more just trudged through it.

Also though while I did wish I was better at interacting and such as a kid, I didn't necessarily want to fit in with the popular crowd....but then part of why I had resentment was because they where jerks to me.

Yes its the same for me

Welcome to WrongPlanet!
This is officially a place for people who don't fit in
Hugs for you.

Glad you found this place because there are plenty of us here who feel like that at times.