While the world’s women are working on Self-Esteem, healing primal wounds, enrolled in groups to work on their victimization in abusive relationships, DA, NA, Weight Watchers, and a hundred more, there is little done with Fringe People. What do I mean by “fringe” person?
A wide definition is that it is someone who does not fit in a specific group. Connotations are varied. Because a person does not sit into the “normal” group, there is a feeling of not fully/wholly belonging. They do not feel “at home”. There is a longing for one’s own tribe, a familiarity, that ‘belonging’. To narrow it down, one may feel detached from their group/society and there is a separation between them and those most involved in their life; family, friends, community, culture, etc. They feel the ‘odd one out’ and are the silent and invisible pmes that may be discriminated upon, victimized, prey to predators, mistreated and/or bullied. The never feel ‘enough’, that they matter, that they have a common purpose and all of their life is colored with this ‘not belonging’.
My experience in life was one of being a Fringe Person came about from being given away by my mother. Although I was brought up by the most loving, good parents, I was still experiencing the plethora of deep inner feelings that led to problems for the majority of my life. At 76 years of age, I will still have moments of projections of that childhood and adulthood. Being ‘found’ in 2007 by my maternal family and then being found in 2020 by my paternal family, healed so much of that dark void in my soul, but, still, even yet, I will do something or have something happen that is a flashback to being a Fringe Person. I cannot be easily ‘pigeon-holed’ in life. In some ways, I choose to NOT fit in even when I could. I can say that I am no longer bullied, victimized, because of my differences. The long-term deep down effects from being given away/adopted/a fringe person are many and entwined throughout the four quadrants of ones life: physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. It is a bevy of things that are embedded in one’s whole psyche. When we do not realize, or know about, The Primal Wound, (The theory of The Primal Wound is that it happens when a mother and child are separated when the mother gives the baby away shortly after childbirth. That incredibly important bond being broken, affects the child, typically, for life. The child can forever feel as ‘the Other’, the one who does not quite fit in, The Fringe Person’.) There are many other reasons a person can be The Fringe Person. A disruption of physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual differences can happen due to other situations. But the projections can be the same.
There can be a history of depression/PTSD and other mental health disorders, including risks of substance abuse history. A Fringe Person can have deep-seated feelings of loss and grief that they might not recognize as such, or the reason why, but will have triggers that can cause these feelings to surface, strongly. Low self-esteem, self-confidence, and a sense of purpose can be part of one’s life. As well, the major sense of identity problems. They will have issues around rejection and abandonment. They will realize that they can walk away from relationships, have trouble bonding. They will feel an unnamed/unlabeled sense of guilt and shame. They will have intimacy problems. They will have control issues. They put themselves in positions to be victimized. Even when they are ‘found’, there is the deeply embedded fear of being rejected/abandoned again. It is at the moment of contact that can make or break the resulting future and could drive the wounding even more deeply. We cannot know who is, or who is not, one experiencing being a fringe person. We cannot say one thing is the cause. It becomes an enmeshment of life experiences and volition and inner strength of those who have experienced it and it is deeply personal and individualized.
A great deal of personal work and healing has to happen for the feeling of being a Fringe Person to be managed in all its many areas of projection. Being ‘The Outsider’ in a family, in a community, can cause you to be the target for many experiences of different kinds of abuse. No matter the healthy environment, no matter the loving and tender care, there is a hole in one’s soul and it is up to us to research, to seek, help, to consciously work on oneself to be able to survive, overcome and thrive.
I could write a whole other book about my life. I can say something that someone once said to me, “I have lived a life where Christ wept”. I could share stories of my eleven siblings. I could speak to the ‘politics’ of a family full of woundednesses. I think one thing that stood me good stead was that I saw my birth mother as some type of ‘Fairy Godmother’. (An inner dialogue of…” My REAL mother would not ____ “ when I was reprimanded for some small incident.) I grew up feeling that my birth mother had given me the ultimate gift of having a good mother and father, a good family, a good community. I held no animosity. It is innate that I would understand some of the WHYs of a birth mother’s reasonings to give a child away. I am my maternal mother. We have lived an inner life of similarities of experiences. I broke the cycle. I fought like a banshee to make sure I got my kids in the divorce. I make up for my projections by doing good for and to others. I make sure and really dig in to seek reasons for triggers. I spent a lifetime of asking and seeking my own WHYs. I spent most of my adulthood making sure that others felt that there was a good God in charge, rather than them having to feel the sense of abandonment of that very God like I did. It is complex. It is a lifetime of work to be done. Just know, if any of the sisterfriends have these issues, I am one of your tribe. None of us are alone. We can be healthy, happy, empowered Fringe People together.
©Carol Desjarlais 11.5.23
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