Do I Belong?
Have you ever had the feeling that you don’t quite belong? That you are on the outside looking in? A spectator rather than a participant. Feeling like this is not unusual. The need for belonging is deeply human. We are not meant to be alone.
Thousands of years ago, being cast out of your tribe or village would mean isolation and could lead to certain death. It was an innate fear and that instinct has not gone away. In fact, it is stronger than ever. Psychologist Abraham Maslow placed it at the centre of his hierarchy of needs because it is so foundational to everything else. When we feel alienated, we have three choices, withdraw and protect ourselves, change – shedding parts of our identity to fit in or accept ourselves as we are. For many, that last one is the hardest choice of all.
I know these feelings well. I have carried them for most of my life. And so did my parents.
How to Belong as an Immigrant
They moved to London from Sri Lanka in 1956. It wasn’t a good time to turn up in a sari even though they both spoke perfect English. It was a time of intense racism, and I cannot imagine how scared they were or how much it affected them to be alone in an unfamiliar and unfriendly city like London. They never wanted to talk about it.
By the time I was born in 1967 it was the era of teddy boys, and skinheads and punks came soon after and they were not a welcoming bunch. So, my parents made, what must have been a devastating choice. They chose not to hand down their culture, traditions or religion to me or my brother. I know they wanted to save us the pain of not belonging. I know they did it out of love. But it didn’t work because we were still brown. The result was I grew up in a multi-cultural home being ashamed of my Sri Lankan culture.
I don’t remember when I first realised that I was different, but it was glaringly obvious by the time we moved from London to Abingdon, a small town near Oxford when I was 10. London – even almost 50 years ago- was reasonably multicultural, but Abingdon? It was white middle-class suburbia. The kind of place that would turn up in an episode of Miss Marple.
When I started school, I was the only brown person in a school of 600 children.
Just let that sink in for a moment.
How I Coped With Being Different
Every day I went into school wishing the ground would swallow me up – I wanted to be invisible. But I was brown, had glasses, braces and gangly legs and kids can be cruel. They had plenty of ammunition and I experienced bullying, teasing and physical violence from both boys and girls. But mostly, I was excluded, alienated. And that was far worse. Because more than anything, I wanted to belong. I wanted it so badly I decided to do anything I could to fit in.
I copied the way other girls dressed.
Mimicked the way they spoke and laughed.
I pretended to like what they liked.
I tried to walk like them, flick my hair like them….
I wanted to be like the other girls. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be anyone but Me.
The Pressure to Fit In
I know many children feel different at school – for lots of different reasons and it is much harder today than it was back then. I only had to deal with the kids in my school. But children and teens today must deal with everyone. The pressure of social media is unyielding and despite being more “connected” than ever, people today can feel the lack of belonging even more acutely that we did growing up.
For the first half of my life I felt the question of why I didn’t belong was written on my skin; visible, external and impossible to ignore. So I tried to fit in.
I continued to twist myself into a pretzel to please people and hoped they would accept the “palatable” version of brown that I presented to the world. And when we came to Christchurch it got worse.
Belonging in Christchurch, NZ
I love Christchurch, but it’s honestly a bit like being back in Abingdon – in the circles I move in, I am almost always the only person of colour in the room. I always felt different and the comments some people made, made me feel uncomfortable. But after my divorce, when I had to find my own way forward, I realised that part of the issue was not my environment – but the way I felt about myself.
Multicultural but With No Culture
Growing up without a culture has been confusing. I am multicultural- it is clear to everyone who meets me, but I have been ignorant and ashamed of that culture for most of my life. I tried to ignore it and focus instead on how English I am. And I am terribly English – through and through, even after 30 years in NZ. But when people first met me – they didn’t see a typical English Rose. Back then they saw someone that didn’t like herself very much because that is what I was. I was an apologetic version of myself. I was more focussed on fitting in than being myself.
Brene Brown says that “fitting in is the enemy of belonging.” Fitting in says I’ll change so you accept me.” But belonging says “I’m here as I am and I am enough”.
