fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2244 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2244 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I guess that's as fitting a title as I can think. Anoning bc I'm not proud.

I come from a sort of universally shitty background. I've had a hard time adjusting to a better life, even though I've fought really hard to get here and keep climbing.

I don't want really want to get into details because it'll just sound like I'm trying out for the Martyrdom Triathlon. But just in general, I've tried really hard to pass off as something I never was before, and some of the times it just really hits me how completely different I am from the people around me, and what I've just sort of lived in before I got here. The way that people think of the type of people I am is really incredibly disheartening.

And a lot of the times I find that I still mentally categorize myself with the whole group I've left behind. It's alarmingly easy. It's not even recognition or empathizing-- that would mean being able to have an objective view. A lot of the times, I'll just catch myself thinking like I'm back where I came from.

I feel like an impostor, wearing the knowledge and education I have like a disguise.

I'm sorry, this sounds really stupid. I just wish somebody could know what I meant.

You are not alone dear.

I even carry my family name, a name that is known where I come from as not the best family on earth. Where I live now on the other hand, no one knows whom my family is.

I don't know if I do know what you mean, but what you're saying sounds a bit like my experiences.

Nobody ever warned me that through higher education I'd suddenly be confronted with awareness of my own indelible working-class roots at the same moment that I'd realise I'd gained a new mask I couldn't take off.

Education makes those of us from non-traditional backgrounds into strange mules. Still a horse to the donkeys, and now a donkey to the horses.

ayrt

This is largely along the lines of what I meant, yeah, and that's a fantastically poetic way of putting it.

I guess I feel like the stigma of where I grew up-- not just working class, but more like underclass-- is something I can't divulge, because as off center as I seem now, it would be supremely weirder.

I mean there really is no good way to contextualize the sort of casual, ingrained systemic abuse of humanity. The rampant drug abuse, the people with minimal education, the domestic abuse, just fucking endless and to me just a feature of where I grew up. I didn't know how fucked it was til I got more education.

But there's no way, or no good way, to keep your face as this successful, smart, articulate person when you become something that most people just see in documentaries. You become that Other, and Ive tried really damn hard not to seem one.

I understand, OP. Though I can't say our experiences have been the same, I'm a country girl in a crowd of people in which I can hear myself being different. I have an accent, I use particular turn of phrases without thinking that really mark me as being from a different background, and I feel like I'm just not the same.

However, I've chosen to feel proud of where I am and of where I'm from. I've worked to be where I am now and it's not a disguise, I own it. Moreover, talking to people around me, I discovered that some of the people who seemed so above me were not so different and had incredibly tough lives.

OP, I hope that you'll manage to come to terms with it. Your education and knowledge are part of who you are, they're not a disguise. *hugs*

ayrt

I guess to some extent it's good to be proud of coming from somewhere different, but I feel like there's a whole lot more shame and judgment tied to more specific aspects of what it was like living there.

You're right in that I probably ought to start feeling like I should and can incorporate my life now into my identity.

I guess it's just kind of difficult. I feel like I'll always, in essence, be different in a way that isn't good, or acceptable, or compatible with the society I've moved into.

Like... absolutely no one I know in this social circle carries a knife. I still do.

ayrt

*hugs*

You're not alone in this, and it's not stupid. I haven't experienced it personally, but my mother and her brothers did and the lesson they always gave us is to never, ever forget our roots, because we need to know where we came from to appreciate how far we've come.

It sucks to be an Other, because there will be people who will judge you for it. But the people that should matter to you are the ones who don't .

I can definitely appreciate that. If I didn't keep perspective about where I came from, I might not be so keen on climbing like a motherfucker. Or keeping what I otherwise might be away from the society I've moved into.

To some extent, I really don't give a fuck what they might think of me as a person; I've climbed too far, too long to be able to care what some asshole may think of me. I'm just worried that where I came from might color their perception of me in any way. Even their pity or sympathy would suck, because I don't want it. It's how I grew up, and I don't feel bad about it, it's just the way it is.

It's more of an internal struggle trying to learn how to accept who I am and what I'm becoming. The edges don't fit yet.

[ SECRET POST #2244 ]

Becoming something else

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