36
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Mental health and sense of belonging
I'm trying to find the root cause of my declining mental health. Maybe there isn't one. Maybe my brain is just physically broken and I have to deal with it.
But what I tend to think of recently is the concept of belongingness.
I rarely feel I have a sense of belonging anywhere. And my theory is that the constant otherness is what is causing the degradation.
So what i want to is, for those who experience frequent depressive cycles -- do you have a sense of belonging? Or do you too feel constantly othered?
(I hope this makes sense haha)
I have recovered from the serious depression I suffered when I was in my teens and twenties. However, social isolation is a huge problem right now for many many people. And being isolated and or disapproved of contributes to depression.
There are ways to try to find community, but it is difficult and harder for some than others. I don't know why you feel othered, but there are many groups of people who experience more rejection than most.
What helped you recover?
That is kind of a lot to dive into and analyze and remember and I'm spending short breaks on Tildes while working. It's been a long time since it was a problem.
At first recovery was very slow process. But over time, it happened for me. To first sum up the advice I would give, I would say find friends as best you can. Isolation is incredibly depressing and depression causes us to seek isolation and it becomes a spiral. Similarly find ways to contribute. If you can do nothing else, give advice online according to your interests. Even if its just suggesting a tv show or music you vibe with. Find ways to be helpful. Find hobbies and interests as best you can, and people who share them.
A few things I can immediately think of that changed for me between then and now include. 1. attitude that came partly from age. I give fewer fucks about what people think about me. I am more confident that I make the choices and decisions that are right for me and that my mistakes are honest ones. 2. I have made peace with making mistakes and with the opportunity costs that come from making choices. Each choice leaves roads not taken, there is no getting around it and worrying about what might have been better is useless. I have learned to look forward not back. 3. I am no longer in the incredibly painful career limbo and uncertainty that comes before entering the work world. 4. I have both successes and failures in my history and I have learned to live with both without obsessing about achievement or hating myself. 5. I have done therapy and come to terms with my past. I have done relationship therapy and resolved a few longstanding disputes with my husband. 6. I have made peace with how I feel about my parents and other family members. Some I like, some not. Both sets of feelings are ok. 7. Stoic philosophy, Victor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning, The book Flow about optimal experience. Finding the people who behave in ways I admire, cultivating a compassionate attitude. 8. A solid long term love relationship. 9. Finding people who share my interests and values however I can. Being online helps with that. So does joining local organizations I enjoy and or find useful and or believe in their mission.
It does affect for sure. But it really depends. What context are you asking this in? Do you have friends and a community but still feel alone? Or do you lack friends and a community and therefore feel alone?
I can actually relate. I've felt alone and like an other all my life. This is something I've been working on with my Therapist for some time. And I've been going through health problems recently so the feeling that nobody understands is high.
The thing is, I do actually have friends and a community. I've just not been letting anyone help or truly tell people what's been going on. Especially when it's something I need now. So I have been learning to ask for help and I've been having more support than I thought. I feel lucky.
But did that truly stop the deep sense of isolation? No. Not really. It's still there. While having a community and a needy cat has alleviated a lot of it, sometimes it's really just your thing.
Sometimes it's something we have to figure out about ourselves. Why do we believe so deeply in something and why is that true to us? Other people definitely help, but sometimes only you can figure you out.
I'm not saying this makes the sense of isolation any lesser. It does not. It just means it runs a lot deeper than you think and requires a different line of thinking.
And sometimes the situation you're in is itself an isolating experience, like being sick in a way others don't understand. Then that's a different kind of community to seek out, but even then you unique situation could still be actually isolating. Again, community helps. But only by so much.
But however, if your question was because you do not have a community. Then yes. Seek them out. It helps a lot. But know they are not the only answer. They are just a part of it.
Im in a similar situation where i do have good relationships with friends & family. And it's not like i am actively being othered by them, i just am an other. I inhabit a different kind of mental space. I am hyper self-aware. I think about different things. I can't care about the same things they do all the time, and likewise. And I've grown to be quite apathetic because of the lack of reciprocation of care. And ive just grown tired.
I say this as modestly as possible but it's the depression that comes with heightened awareness and intelligence. At least in comparison with those around me.
It sounds possible then that you need to find another extra different community that think similarly as you. What kind of things do you care about that others don't? What kind of social connection are you seeking? Have you found it online? Does that help or is a physical presence important to you?
Sometimes there's no single community to belong to. There's no one person who can fit everything about you. You are a complex human being with various interests and needs.
I am in several communities for different aspects of me. They fulfil different needs. I have friends who struggle within their current community who I would then introduce them to my other friends with a similar lifestyle.
I have an environmentally conscious, animal loving, vegan friend who constantly feels alone and other because nobody understands her or why she gets so upset about wastage. Even her husband doesn't understand. Her husband has learned to accept and modify his lifestyle to fit hers a little, but it's because it's for her and not because he cares for the environment like her. People also constantly question her veganism.
She has been really jaded about life and angry that no one cares. She was incredibly depressed. Had to seek medical help kind of depressed.
I for some reason, am surrounded by environmentally conscious people without looking for them. I don't know why. They just appear. Even random colleagues. So I introduced her to the people I know. They are not close to her emotionally. Her husband and other family and friends are there for that. But they fill that other hole for that important part of her.
Sometimes it's things like that that helps.
I won't say that would completely stop the othering.
Not saying that you do this, but my therapist pointed out that sometimes there's no reason to be an other but I actively other myself. I find ways to somehow think I'm different even when I'm not really. Sometimes when others connect with me, I reject it and look for what's different and somehow that becomes the focus.
These days I try to instead focus on what's similar and accept that there will always be differences.
I won't say that works all the time because I still have deep issues that I think not many people understand and I am still an other. I'm working on that.
I know it's cliché to say, try therapy. But it sounds like it's something that might help you as it has helped me. But maybe you don't need to. We're not the same people.
This is very helpful thank you. No one person or community will be a one size fits all. i'll have to keep searching for the small amounts of belonging i can find with people and collect and hold onto them.
Yes therapy, though reluctantly will try it.
I wish you all the best!
Feeling isolated and an like an other isn't fun. I hope you find something that somewhat works for you. It doesn't have to be perfect. Nothing will be! The feeling might never completely go away, and that's okay. Many people feel a little different, it's just the severity of it and whether it affects your life that matters.
Your tactics to handle it will change over time and that's fine too. Life changes and you'll grow and adapt with it.
I can sympathize. After thinking about your questions, though, I'd make a bit of a distinction between community-finding vs. otherness-feeling (not that they're necessarily unconnected). You can be around others and still feel alone; and you can have only a few connections and not feel othered.
In terms of community: I've sometimes struggled to find a sense of community in my own journey. In my case, my current living situation has left me feeling more physically isolated than I'd like, but I recognize this is due to my circumstances and priorities.
Also, community can come in many flavours so short of changing that situation, I resolve this in part by building connections and finding community where I can: at work, in online communities, via chats with friends, and then cherishing the in-person moments when Im able. I've also accepted I'm often the one who has to reach out because my availability is erratic. A couple thoughts I dont know how to tie in:
I know some people separate work from 'life', but my take is I spend 1/3 of my weekdays at work (even if remote). Im friendly with most of my coworkers, and have become friends with a few Ive come to trust. I dont see how this is hugely different from younger people making friends at school, so long as it's approached with some initial caution.
Almost everywhere I've lived, I've become friendly/friends with my neighbours. Friendship is often a result of proximity and I do my best to find at least some common ground with most people. Not everyone needs to be a best friend, or a life long friend, to still have meaning.
I have a longterm partner who provides a sense of belonging. I don't believe it's absolutely necessary to feeling belonging, but it's a part if my mine. When they aren't around, I find myself leaning more into reaching out to friends to fill that sense of connection.
In terms of otherness: The other part to my (growing) sense of content is related to your last question about feeling 'othered'. For me, I think Ive diminished this feeling by becoming more assured in who I am, and also realizing none of my individual attributes are particularly unique, and we've all got our own internal lives going on (I dont mean I think we're all the same, just that we're all going through some Human Experience, and likely have some common ground).
As a result of my self-assuredness, I don't rely on others' acceptance of me to feel a sense of worth. I understand my values, I do my best to be a 'good' person and kind to others according to those values, I enjoy the things I like. This doesnt mean I dont try to self-improve, just that I give myself grace for who I am.
And, in recognizing that others have similar internal complexities, I'm able to give others grace and the benefit of the doubt, and it helps me feel like I can be more open to reaching out and building connections (to be clear, Im not suggesting to, like, accept bigoted or harmful bullshit, or be a doormat to bad behaviour).
I'm not sure how to wrap this up. Hopefully something here was of value to anyone who got this far :)
Appreciate the thorough response --
On community. I have communities i could be more engaged in (i.e. work or volunteering) but I think i am self-othering. First is due to just introversion. And i only like having meaningful conversation which Im not good at initiating. I just simply can not relate to some people. Conversations can be so banal, its tiring to engage. But you're making me realize that i think im just grumbling and need an attitude change.
I do consider myself self-assured. I'm high-functioning externally despite my mental health decline internally. But that doesn't mean i feel a sense of belonging. Belonging to me cannot be achieved with yourself. It helps. But its the relationship with others that defines belongingness.
The otherness comes from the awareness of things that others cannot see. Or the differences in what we care about. Which is something i cannot exactly do anything about. Except try to keep finding people who have aligned cares & awareness.
This may seem like an off the wall suggestion. But when I was an introverted, eccentric, intellectual, nerd of a teenager in public school, the novel Watership Down and the physically weak mystic character Fiver, provided me a model for how someone who is atypical, rejected, bullied can become a valued member of a team, share companionship and cameraderie and use unique skills to contribute to the group. That book and that example helped me maintain self esteem and hope in spite of being isolated and deeply depressed.
Edit the film the Breakfast Club also helped
This is my personal take only, so I hope it doesn't come across as a critique. Just want to share my perspective.
I also tend toward being introverted (I often enjoy socializing for a bit, but then hit a hard energy wall and need to exit). I also converse much better in one on one or small group scenarios (vs large groups), and appreciate in depth conversations.
But, I've grown fond of small talk, and feel like I've come round to seeing its value. For me, it's because it can take me a while to warm up to new people and trust them enough for me to feel like I can have those more in depth conversations. That takes both time and effort in sending out social 'feelers'. I find small-talk serves well as those feelers, and can be a bridge between 'total stranger' and 'getting to know you'.
Again, not saying this is the way you need to feel about it, just something that's helped me.
As an edit - I hope you're able to find your way through. I know suggesting therapy may be a privileged suggestion and almost cliché, but speaking to a therapist has really helped me understand myself and my values, and find strategies that don't betray those values. I wish you all the best :)
That is a better mindset to have about small talk. It'll make life a whole lot more pleasant if i can adopt it lol.
But seriously thanks for your input
I know people don't like armchair dxing, but it honestly sounds like autism..... even among other autistics I felt "other" until I got diagnosed, and started understanding where the walls I'd built were and how to start dismantling them. Browse through r/aspergirls and see how you feel, I'll bet you have a lightbulb moment (or three).
This is actually relatable and I forgot about this. I do feel an affinity towards autism. But not quite fit the clear bounds for it. Could you elaborate on how you felt othered among autistics and how you were still avle to be diagnosed?
Most of my autistic friends and their friend groups are very tech/programming/sciency types, areas in which I'm wildly out of my element. They're gamers, I'm not. They have always been extremely warm and welcoming, but my personal trauma meant I didn't believe it or know what to do with it, I guess. I still believed I was fundamentally broken/wrong, and that they were kind because they knew how that felt, not because I was actually "one of them," if that makes sense. When I found out we were actually cut from similar cloth, I felt more ok following my social instincts; which were suddenly not wrong lol. I could sit weird, I could dress weird, I could infodump one day and be silent the next and they were all just fine with it, because they get it, and they're the same.
So that little bit of comfort led to being more willing to ask questions and participate with their interests, and as it turns out my more creative bent has been enthusiastically embraced and encouraged in ways it never was, even when it's not a special interest of theirs.
So, normal, healthy friend stuff that I just never had as an undiagnosed autistic kid in a family full of undiagnosed autistic people who have spent their whole lives cosplaying NT (and collecting trauma and mental illness from doing it badly).
Idk if that helps any? Psych in general has always been a special interest, with the focus lately being autism, so I'm always happy to answer questions or discuss it if you're interested.
Personally I think a lot of self-diagnosed autists are really schizotypes, who may be 5% of the population. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypy
I got an eval for autism and turned out to be just slightly deviant from normal on that scale, also was normal when it came to ADHD. It was years later, when I quit taking antidepressants, my evil twin came out and caused me trouble I was fortunately able to get out of, it was a year later when I discovered the secret I'd always been hiding.
It's the reverse, actually; having a neurodivergent foundation is what causes trauma to develop into personality disorders. PDs are just coping mechanisms, formed in childhood, that become maladaptive and inconvenient to society in adulthood. That's why PDs often seem to have a genetic component.... it's the autism that's genetic, so you have an autistic child learning coping strategies from a traumatized, maladjusted autistic parent.
That’s the misconception.
Schizotypy starts out as a neurodivergence, some difference in how the nervous system processes information, but it usually is associated with negative social learning that happens because of bad experiences caused by the underlying neurodivergence. See
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-18077-000
(I have plenty of problems with that guy too, he believes schizotypy is purely a negative and denies that you can make something positive about it, develop superpowers based on it, etc.)
I know my parents didn’t have a lot of friends outside the house and my dad definitely drank too much, but the real trauma for me started when I showed up in school and my schizotypy made me a bully magnet and, from my point of the view, the entire school was complicit in it. I was already inclined to think people were out to get me but they showed me not told me that they really were.
I wound up graduating from elementary school the same way Ender Wiggin did.
I got a few psych eval in my life (in fact I’ve been told I had exceptionally good psych evals in the 1970s) and recently I copied them and marked them up with a yellow marker where schizotypy signs and symptoms appeared, there were always quite a few in the first paragraph and even the the first sentence. By 1970 all the information existed in the literature.
I managed to live most of my productive life with this condition, even though my own conception of myself was very close to being a schizotype, but always got limited help from therapists who sometimes saw one or two important aspects of my condition but never saw the whole picture, seeded me with wrong ideas like “it was the fault of my parent’s behavior” instead of their genes and certainly gave me plenty of bad advice mixed in with the good.
I see it as very political as “autism awareness” has promoted a lot of the flocking behavior that has always had me asking “how many neurotypicals can dance on the head of a pin?” and from my point of view “autism awareness” and the pill-pushing ADHD business erases people like me,
That is, there are a lot of neurodivergent people who don’t fit the autism and ADHD syndromes, I think many of them are schizotypes, schizotypy can cause many symptoms and signs that look like autism and ADHD and I think many people who even have a diagnosis have a wrong diagnosis. For that matter I think a lot of general mental illness such as depression, OCD and anxiety disorders may be really rooted in schizotypy.
On bad days I can feel really angry about this, how a common condition can be hidden in plain sight, not to mind the fact that there is a huge literature on schizotypy that treats us as lab rats or only interesting insofar as a small portion of us have our condition progress to schizophrenia and almost nothing that is clinically oriented or about what we and the people who love us can do to live better.
Personally I thought everything was fine until I entered school, the events that happened then put a lot of stress on my parents and they behaved worse after it. Therapists always blamed my parents for what happened in school and I know today that what I believed instinctually was right, many schizotypes get along fine until they get to school.
And I know school could have been different because I managed to get one year in a private school where I was treated like a human being and have friends but for me bullying was part of the curriculum in the public school. Autists can get special treatment today but they should have taken me away from Weston Elementary and never sent me back, one reason schizotypy is denied is that the schools wouldn’t want to create another protected class that is perceived to drain resources from neurotypical.
Insofar as the “neurodiversity movement” supports the autism-industrial complex, supports the prescription of dangerous addictive stimulants, and encourages schizotypes to self-diagnose with other conditions I see the current neurodiversity movement as part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Oh, as for "fitting clear bounds...." if you're AFAB, yeah, you almost certainly won't from a surface level look. Those bounds are quite rigid (and outdated) indeed, often even for AMAB folks.
I was seeing a therapist for general stuff, and it was becoming clear after a year that she didn't have much more she could offer.... I said offhandedly "lol maybe I'm just autistic," and she stared at me for a good minute before giving me tons of resources and a "I'm not qualified to say, but these folks are, good luck."
The eval with the autism specialist started with a massive 600+ question personality test, and when I asked about the results she said "you failed! You pinged for pretty much every mental illness there is, BPD, NPD, Bipolar, schizophrenia.... too many to reasonably exist in one person, so the test gets marked invalid. Pretty common for autistic people, I'm really not surprised." She had me pegged the moment I walked in, actually, with my "heavy gait," the way I held the pencil, the way I sat and that I was "more comfortable looking into the middle distance over her left shoulder" while I was speaking. I picked her brain a bunch afterwards, and she asked when I was going back to school for a psych PhD (not because plans, because special interest haha).
It's similar for me. I had many sessions with my Therapist and she said my childhood sounds like someone struggling with autism. And I said that I don't have those issues anymore. I socialise easily now and I fit none of the other typical autism traits.
She then told me that just because you have autism, doesn't mean you can't learn. And also that a lot of typical autism traits were based on the male representation of it and many people go undiagnosed.
Then she gave me many resources to read and it was quite eye opening and explained some of my other issues.
It's so strange how enthusiastically some professionals will just dismiss the idea that we can learn! You can make eye contact and have friends? You can't be autistic!
Like, what? The issue is not that I can't do your silly NT dance, it's that I had to make a conscious effort to learn the steps. My gearshift is manual, it takes more effort and it always will, don't handwave away the fact that you can't always hear the gears grinding or smell the clutch, because that is also an intentional choice. I keep that shit as private as I can to keep myself safe.
This has gotten me thinking -- have I been doing a 'silly NT dance' all my life?
Have I been unconsciously masking to 'fit in'? Is this the basis of my imposter syndrome?
What are some of the resources your therapist gave you?
In retrospect, I'm not sure how any challenges during childhood would have been explained by autism. There are also too many factors involved.
But would you care to share in more detail of how you still fit into the autism narrative despite not fitting the typical traits?
As a kid, my parents kept saying I was in my own world. I basically just ignored other people and just played around and did my own thing.
They did try to get me diagnosed as a child. But this was many decades ago. The doctor just said I was developing differently. But still normal.
I was also very blunt and that angered my parents a lot. But I've learned to be very socially tactful now.
I also often didn't understand people or why they did what they did. Like in school, the teacher would give a vague instruction and the kids would all know what to do but I'd be confused. Like how do you know to put the stuff there? He never specified?? But apparently group think just happens sometimes and you're supposed to follow it.
I've learned to deal with that now though. I usually either ask for a specific location, or place it somewhere and announce it. "Hey! I've placed it here." if it's unacceptable they'll tell me to move it. If it is fine, they'll just give a quick affirmative. If they ignore my announcement, their loss.
But I'll always be alert to see if anyone is looking for the thing I've placed somewhere and can't find it.
I also watch where other people have decided to put the stuff and follow suit.
I was obsessed with cats. I mean, I'm still very into cats. But I was very obsessed. At some point I wrote a short story about cats for school and the teacher told the class I did a good job and for them to read it and learn from it.
And some kid piped up and said "But all she ever writes or talk about is cats!"
For a few years after that, I carefully avoided writing or talking about cats. When I got more comfortable with myself and learned how to be people, I started talking about cats again.
But at an acceptable cat person level. Kind of helps that they're popular online now.
I also shook my leg a lot. My classmate next to me was constantly annoyed and asked me to stop it. I would always try to stop it but it'll happen without thinking again.
It took quite a while but I don't do it anymore though. I've learned not to. But I doodle a lot in meetings instead. I listen better when my hands are moving. My job is in design/art though. So it's very acceptable for me to doodle. I look like I'm thinking hard and ideating. Such an artist. Wow.
And when it comes to conversations, I had a tree of responses and would prep answers and follow the response tree when I talk to people. I learned from watching people and also from television and books.
I think the game changer for me was Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. At some point it mentioned that people like to point out the obvious. Or something like that. It was supposed to be satirical. But I took that to heart and it worked! For most people. It backfires sometimes.
It can be something banal like "Oh wow. An orange chair" and some conversation will somehow happen.
But it happens quite naturally for me now, so I don't remember my conversation tree anymore.
My therapist says the way I manage my friends and relationships also sounds very black and white and exhausting. There's just so much calculating and over thinking that goes behind all the social maintenance. She says not many people do that.
But it works. I thought it was normal.
I'm basically seemingly social and inoffensive as a human being now and can socialise quite easily. So nobody will believe me if I say I may be somewhat autistic.
That's why I just say neurodivergent at most.
Although I do slip up from time to time for something incredibly basic and I'd be so angry at myself for it.
I appreciate you actually following up on this!!
Thanks for sharing.
No problem! Hope it helped somewhat.
Hey! I do want to reply, but it's going to take a while. So know that you're not being ignored!
No worries! Appreciate the follow up :)
Right now I can't write a very long post, perhaps later, so for now I'll write a short one.
I've also recently been climbing out of serious deep depression. At the depth of it, I noticed that even my color perception was suppressed: the world seemed literally dimmed and desaturated. It was so strange.
Anyway, I find that it helps to attend to one's psychobiological needs first, since those tend to be the first things that go out the window when depressed.
I struggle with depression and belonging too. It's seductive to seek just a single key cause, but that may not be helpful. Modern living and mental health are incredibly complex, it's likely many interacting causes that aren't easy to untangle. You might feel like you have an epiphany and believe something is The Crux of The Problem, but there may be other underlying problems that you end up overlooking or ignoring because you attribute everything to and focus your efforts on that one cause. The process of identifying and untangling problems and making changes is slow and not something that can or should be rushed.
Getting your body in better physical condition seems to help universally. That means getting good sleep, eating well, staying hydrated, keeping active and sharp. For me, environment greatly influences many of these physical issues. After I moved around 2 years ago, I started sleeping better and my executive function difficulties started improving.
Even if they're not ultimate causes, dealing with them removes confounding problems and helps you to eventually identify and address deeper issues.
The problems may not be solely with you either. Modern societies have developed in many ways that are incongruous with healthy living.
More specifically about belonging:
The following is personal, biased and may end up rambly and fragmented and maybe not properly address your post. Sorry about being selfish here.
Trauma breaks the sense of belonging. It distorts your "authentic" self. That's a vague term. To me, it's not some ideal, innate state of being. It's your personality, inclinations, preferences, actions, etc shaped gradually and naturally by experiences and actions aligned with your values. And vice-versa too, your values should evolve as you express and explore them more. Trauma distorts that alignment, the clear recognition and expression of your values, and consequently their evolution. When you chronically suppress your expression of your values for fear of transgressing on those of other people, you lose clear sight of them. The mask you wear continually feels uncomfortable and wrong and you'll never find a good fit. You're no longer sure who you should be, and neither will you belong, only perhaps pretend that you do.
Depending on where you are, there may ultimately be no sense of belonging to be found in the people immediately around you, if your values are very different from those of your communities and society. I've always felt like an outsider in mine, connection has always been limited.
If you can't find people that you have a connection with near you, you have to look further. The Internet lets us do that at low cost, even if it can't accommodate every aspect of social interaction.
Humour helps with connection (when it's not dismissive or deprecating). Small talk and and a lot of the verbal one-upsmanship you find online makes me feel more out of place. Common interests and values help too, the folks I connect with the most nowadays are other gardeners.
Talking about things that are meaningful to me helps. (Tildes is turning out to be a good avenue!) Like another poster mentioned, I find giving advice helps too. You might find that there are other people that your advice resonates with. Even if you're only sure it works for yourself, you can still preface your advice with e.g. "This is just what works for me:" Volunteering and offering help can be a form of connection too, but be wary of people who take advantage of you.
I realized lately that many of my friends were not actually good friends and listeners. One of them who I opened up to about my past. He's responded to none of the things that are important to me, either being silent or steering conversation towards "constructive" topics. (In quotes, because it's not truly constructive when one is pushing one's values while ignoring the other person's.) Another was trying to push religion onto me. (One incident, he took advantage of a moment of vulnerability when I told him something about my past. "These people who have hurt you have moved on with their lives. Relying on your own strength is tiring. You need God's strength.")
These were actually unsafe people. I'm on the spectrum. I have a very hard time with this kind of subtle social bullshit. Often I'm too nice, I try to be the "bigger person". In the demands of the moment, responding to such personal boundary trespasses in real-time is difficult, the easiest thing to do is to accept them and focus on with what's at hand. But that seems to have invited more and more trespasses. It took me months (in the case of another relationship, years) before I finally realized what was happening.
When I finally brought up all this to the respective people, I was usually met with silence. Sometimes, "I don't know how to respond to this" and the like. A few outright excuses and lies.
These incidents stay in my mind because I don't truly feel they're minor and can be overlooked. Trying to "belong" by being the bigger person and being nice only reduced my agency.
Thank you for this thread, this was a good writing impetus.
I'm ok in the sense that I'm carrying on (albeit not smoothly). But I'm really not ok. I haven't been ok the last few months, though I'm still doing much better than I was 2 years ago.
I just wanted to suggest getting Self-Therapy via Audible, they're always handing out free trials with like 2 free books. Work on it an hour a day , do the exercises, learn how your parts work.
Concerning possible causes
What life changes have you had? Have you moved recently? Changed jobs? Had a change in family? Lost a friend? Also think about your age. Maybe you've hit a new chapter in life and you're trying to cope with the changes that come with it.
Also, you used the word "cycles". You should consider seeing a psychiatrist (note: that is different than a psychologist). Some people have bipolar, or even cyclothymia (a much milder form) and don't realize it. If/when you do see a doctor, try and bring someone who knows you really well. Someone who lives with you if possible. When you've lived with something for a long time things feel "normal" to you and having that outsider perspective is immensely helpful.
Helpful tips
Finding small online communities (like here at tildes) has really helped me to have a sense of belonging. I came back here after being gone for a full year, and people remembered me and said they were happy I was back. I cried a little that day. I'm not saying online is a sufficient replacement for in person interaction, but for me it's helped a lot.
Finally, some hobbies lend themselves to in person community. Table Top RPGs, collectable card games, bowling, and many more are great connection points. Meetup.com is a great way to find local groups to connect with.