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Life is an adventure but Life doesn't come with user manuals for everything. School subjects do little to prepare us. Its no wonder we all need helpful advice sometimes. Blessings to you!
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Can't get a group of friends like everyone else because I feel like everyone secretly hates me, even though a lot of people have told me they think I'm super nice or funny and shit. I just always feel out of place in high school (well it's a bit of a small school but still), or like I can't make friends with people even though I know it'd be pretty easy to. I feel stuck- I guess I'm only overthinking it, but I still feel that way. I don't want to be labelled as a specific kind of person in a specific group- but that's bull cuz I'm with the rejects a bit and I know I suck for saying that but I can kinda see why they are. They can be great friends sometimes but god sometimes even I question their actions. And to be honest, I kind of want to get away from them and make new friends. I'm a bit tired of seeing the same shit over and over again like I used to before I moved from that island. I just should socialize but it's hard to be good company when I'm feeling this weird or down. Teenage hormones?
You do say the words 'I feel" 3 times in here. I don't know if it will help at all, but I think it might help you if you understand how a person gets the 'feelings they have. A Feeling comes from your emotions. And our emotions are generated from our thoughts.
Lets stop there and go over what that means. Keep with me as I am sure this should help you at least a little. Here's a thing about emotions that most of us don't realize, I certainly didn't until somewhere in the last 10 years. Our subconscious mind is always awake, not just at night as most believe due to the fact the sub. mind generates dreams. So any real life experiences that you yourself go thru, something you watch happening to others or in a TV movie/show or read in a fiction novel, the subconscious mind will react to these things. If a sad movie, you might cry, if a horrible nasty character is being mean to another in a story, you might get really worked up, angry with adrenaline going as happened to me in a story I read. These emotions then help you to form thoughts. Heres an example. You try a new food you haven't had before. ITs terrific so you THINK you want to make it yourself. You ask what the ingrediants are since you want to try to make it at home. Once you have the list of ingrediants you FEEL eager to make it at home.
I am simply saying this so you can monitor yourself and see if your thoughts might be having some affect on how you feel. In psychology, there is such a thing as people having distorted thoughts, thoughts not based in reality in most cases. Everyone will have such odd thought occur to them daily if not weekly. The difference is when such a twisted negative thoughts hits our mind and we are aware of it, we have two choices, laugh at how silly it is and dismiss it or believe it and keep dwelling on it and then our emotions get involved.
Another thing you may want to know, your subconscious mind is like another person inside of you and I liken it to being connected to my inner child. Mostly I say that because the subconscious thinks a lot like a child would. Your subconscious wants to please you, make you happy. Unfortunately, in child like ways, it believes that what you concentrate most on, are the things most important to you, no matter if it is good stuff or bad stuff. It doesn't seem to see the difference between good and bad so it will do what it can to bring to you all the negative or distorted thoughts of even bad things, the things you fear, agonize over, etc. I myself am a good example. So I will tell you that story to help you understand what I am saying:
I was socially anxious as a child from as young as I could remember. You know how kids pick up things from watching their parents. I think perhaps my Mom being shy, quiet and introverted was the one I chose to model myself after. It wasn't until I was older in school and really suffering that I realized it was not normal and that other kids did not worry so much or had the same problems I did. It took until I was about to graduate HS when I realized I did not want to be like this anymore and wanted to do something about it. I wanted to model myself after my Dad who was outgoing, an extrovert, friendly and understanding but it was going to require some great changes in me. I had to get past fears, fears of what other people might think, fears of being expected to talk in conversation with people and so on. I won't go into how I followed a recipe to be healed of that and it worked. I wasn't don't yet. I still cared a bit about what others might think of me, only I no longer held back because of it. I had to get to a place in life where I didn't care what others were thinking when they heard me say or do something. I was no longer embarrassed easily. I found out that my worst enemy, Fear, combined with distorted thoughts was at the root of any troubles I had in my life. I also learned at least for myself, that the saying, "Take a leap of Faith" is a bunch of nonsense. If it really was up to faith ruling out fear, then it wouldn't be a big deal. The reason is that any change is always a "Leap of Fear". For me, I was still scared when taking each step to get over social anxiety. Once I mastered one step, I was no longer fearful of it but the next one was very scary, because it was a place I had not yet mastered. So I took my leap into what I knew I wanted to do, completely with shaking and numbing fear. However, it did not take much time after taking that leap that fear slowly faded away. Fear is like a Puffer fish, blowing itself up out of proportion to seem scary when there is usually nothing at all to be scared of.
In High school, kids haven't figured out much yet when it comes to making friends or dating. When it comes to relating socially with others, we tend to compare and see if there is somewhere we can fit in. Unfortunately, in order to be accepted in many cases, you either need a great self confidence or to be willing to change who you are to fit in to whatever it is they all huddle under as a label, like the popular kids, richy kids, misfits, nerds, emo's, goths, high achievers, trouble makers. I know its not a good way to go and understand how you do not like the labeling part. Neither do I. At this age, if you choose to be yourself and not try to change to fit a group, you may not find great numbers to be part of in a group. It was like that for me in HS. I had about 5 friends who were just friends and did not belong into any of the groups mentioned. There is a lot of bullying, shaming, ignoring, judgements made at this age and its not part of any group, other than being an issue all kids and teens face.
If curious, do search on the frontal cortex of brain in teens and you will get a good picture of how it affects teens and early twenties even, since this part of the brain isn't done growing until our mid twenties. Looking back, I know now that it was true. So I think in many cases, you really can't expect more of HS students. There will always be nice friendly people but not consistently yet, that comes in their twenties before they really learn. Yes, some people grow older and as older adults, never really grew up, something may be interfered with the growth of this part of brain, a head injury, drugs, and drinking can all affect this part of the brain so I am not saying you won't come across this later in life, but it just isn't as prevalent. Don't change who you are to fit in. Only change how you think about yourself or how others may see you. Its easier than you may think. At the first moment a thought enters your head that you know makes you feel down like 'You know she/he only invited you to her party because your mom knows her/his mom from the gardening club. This thought if you let it stay and dwell on it, can make you feel down or blue or worse. Deciding to not go, due to how you feel and even if the fact is that the inviter doesn't like you for sure and has many incidents that can truly back that up for sure, it is best to go. Once at the party, instead of spending all your time and energy to getting the gal to like you, focus instead on the dozen or more of attendees who may respond very favorably if you ignore thoughts on how this one girl/guy thinks of you and focus on being yourself, super sweet, nice and funny and allow the others to choose to want to be around you because they like what they see or can relate to you. You don't want false friends, neither have I ever in life. If anyone is pretending to be a friend but always, consistently treats you worse than garbage, then you need to drop them from your life.
Since you mention moving from an island, any move from one place to another, if not in the same city or state, can be like entering a strange country. People as a whole can sound different, dress different and act different depending on where they live or grew up. Different doesn't mean bad. If this is the only reason you feel like you don't fit, try to put others at ease first. Most people, adults included will not make the first move to speak, however 90 % of people are friendly when you speak first. THis is just an idea, to maybe share where you are from. Then ask people what they see in you that singles you out as not having grown up in their area. It is good to be aware of it, not to change it but just to know what people see. Adults have no problem accepting the differences but teens are still critical if left to their own distorted thoughts. But once they know that you may be different because of where you grew up, they can be accepting, they just need a little prod, by the way of information. Once you are able to share things about yourself and ask them to share things about their life growing up, you become a fellow human, classmate, friend rather than the strange person who came from an island.
(Rating: 5) It's like you paid attention to my every word in this- I'm glad. This really helped a lot, and for some reason you, a stranger, have given me better advice about this than anyone I've ever known for the 16 years of my life. Thanks again!