The issue with addressing this fairly,
@voiceofnoreason, is that it is very difficult to disentangle any aspect of psychology from what we are dealing with in terms of the community. It is innately challenging and more challenging to give meaningful replies when someone has a diagnosis, and by no fault of their own or their doing. So this creates an instance where one has to ask really fundamental, truly basic questions about themselves. This is by no means to say they are unimportant, they are the basis after all, but it feels criminally small to start by asking questions about "Do I
believe myself to be this or
am I this?" and "Did I choose this or did it choose me?" to name a few primitive, core concepts. In this case, it needs to go even deeper still, posing questions and thought of the variety of, "Do I just feel as though I do not belong or do I feel like what I am or identify with or as does not belong?" This is, obviously, a difficult and complicated question to ask because it demands that the questioner sit down and sort out where each of their feelings and experiences lie.
I wish it were easy to say "Just do these things and the results will come." and then prescribe a list of activities to meet those ends. Unfortunately it is not so, so one really needs to start with themselves and then try to find who they gravitate towards and why. I myself am, at my truest of fibers, in everything but physicality, a beast of prey and a carnivore, a predatory cat, and I am woefully extinct - out of place and out of time. But it took the worst challenges and absolute destruction of a lifetime of false identity, playing at being a person to unearth what I knew was always there. I had to be so destroyed and brought down, humbled, to find the truth about myself I always knew and just denied because the world told me only the normalcy of humanity and the masses is all there is. As one can imagine, I did not gravitate towards anything, instead I tried to flee from it and escape it, and it has all cost me dearly in every sense. I bring this tale I touch upon up to denote something very, very crucial in this experience, that you have to go deep and really confront everything inside and ask all of what it is, just what it is, and why certain things or certain people or ideas or anything at all resonates as it does. That is challenging, that is difficult, but for someone who feels and experiences being apart from the world, I feel hopeful for you - you can see, can feel those bright spots that call to you. The rest of the mundane world, the normal person, has their vision clouded and muddied by everything, and it is hard to wipe that slate clean. You have the means to find these things out about yourself and ask these questions with clarity but always be honest with yourself in the end. Never force an answer or convince yourself something is true because you wish it to be, search for it and let what may come be.
