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Discussion
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It’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time. I still struggle to this day. I find my mind and heart wandering to it often.
Some back story on me; I was raised by my grandmother. I had a grandfather too, but he was a drunk and a drain on everyone around him. I don’t count him as having raised me. He died when I was 17 and I don’t miss him. He was… Unpleasant.
My grandparents are definitely white. My grandmother has pale skin, grey eyes, and her hair was blond. My grandfather had pale skin, brown hair, and I don’t recall his eye color. I want to say brown, but they could have been blue or hazel.
My cousins are all pale skinned with blond or light brown hair and grey/blue eyes except for a few who have brown eyes.
I am a little different. I could always tan very well. I get dark. Dark enough for people to ask me where I’m from. I got this from my father.
Now, some backstory on my father; he was adopted by white parents. They were not kind to him. He father died when he was young and he was supposed to receive a check due to this. His mother always kept the money. He was forced to work on an orange orchard and if he misbehaved, he was hit with orange tree branches. If you have never seen an orange tree, their branches are spiny. He was never legally adopted (paperwork and all). His SSN name does not match his birth certificate name. Apparently, you could just wander up and get a SSN during his time. His adoptive mother knew his bio mother, apparently, and told him when she passed on. She told him his bio mother was a Native American woman. This made sense to him because his hair was black, he tanned like I do, and he has brown eyes. I got his genes in the tanning department. My hair is lighter than his and my eyes are about the same.
I have tried to trace my lineage, but his adoptive family finds a way to stop me at every turn. They are hiding something.
I have reached out to Native communities for help but was ignored. I feel like I’m not wanted.
I could do a DNA kit, but what’s the point? If no one wants me, what’s the point?
White people point out how I’m different. Everyone else ignores me.
I’ve been delving into my Appalachian heritage, but recently, even that has come into question because I’m not deep enough in the hills, even though my family practiced many Appalachian traditions.
I’m just kinda feeling lost. I have no culture, apparently. I’m just… Here.
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Does Anyone Else Ever Feel Like They Don’t “Belong” Anywhere?
updated 1 year ago
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Hey-
Can’t remember the exact %, but we all have something like 98% DNA similarities to like a rooster, or a tadpole, or whatever. Not ‘knowing’ your heritage doesn’t mean you don’t have one, it just means you can go Ala Carte and pick your favorite parts of all- literally grow your own roots.
I didn’t find out I was ‘jewish’ until my kid used my great grandmother’s name on a field trip- to Ellis Island, lol.
Turns out the ‘potato pancakes’ I’ve been making my entire life are actually ‘latkes.’
And my kid is currently in her room filming a TikTok to Kayne.
No confirmed heritage? No set boundaries.
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I always felt alone and like I didn’t really belong anywhere, even with my family sometimes.
Turns out I had undiagnosed Autism, ADHD and a higher than average intellect. Not relatable to those around me apparently.
In combination with childhood trauma and CPTSD, I have attatchement issues and find it very difficult to find people who I feel get me and who I find interesting as well.What has helped is therapy, doing my own research about my mental health, finding other neurodiverse people and finding online communities that are uplifting and accepting.
I hope you find answers one day, but it sounds to me like you are ready to switch to a new chapter and move your focus towards something that will be more helpful for you. Something that lets you explore who you are without your family being the main focus. Finding your values, your skills and interests and meeting like-minded people.
If you feel like there is toxic stuff in your family or childhood, it can be very important to explore that in order to reconnect with your true self and find your roots. -
I don’t know where belonging comes from, but I don’t know it is necessarily “blood” or genetics or family. I was raised by a loving family I greatly resemble (in appearance), yet was always a lonely child. I had a large group of friends, but always felt I was on the outside looking in. Now with my own family, I’m afraid of not having a connection with them as they grow.
I have a place, yet am somehow just here at the same time. I don’t know if this will change as I get older, but I am at least more at peace with it now; maybe some of us are meant to float a little longer until we land.
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I’m responding only to say you’re not alone. Same. So much same fellow witch.
Witchy vibes to you. Hope that maybe you get some nights by a campfire to toast marshmallows and make s’mores and remind yourself that one of your ancestors would be inordinately pleased to know you, even if you never met them.
And hopefully your one day found family – friends/community/people who adopt you/people you adopt – can help you feel some sense of belonging some day.
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Yes, for so many reasons. I look more Polish than anything else in my genes, am an Army brat (moved at least once every two years), have a few letters of the alphabet covered for LGBT+, am so ambidextrous that I don’t even have a dominant eye and an odd way of looking at life that makes people love or hate me. There’s more, but it’d end up a novel.
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Hi, I found a place where I belong, after 48 years on the planet, which is in Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional families (A.C.A) meetings (online). Along with a bunch of other mismatched people of all ages, who experience the world in the same way I do, feel feelings in the same way I do and listen without comment. I highly recommend trying a group.
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It’s funny to not know where you belong. I was raised alongside my Father’s side of the family, but I was not naturally sporty, and they did little to accommodate that I was the youngest on this particular branch of the tree. I was almost 30 before my Aunt’s second husband took the time to show me how to swing a cricket bat, and suddenly, all those stressful Sundays growing up made a lot more sense. My Grandfather knew, my Father knew, all my cousins and my Sister knew, and nobody could take the time to give *me* a 10-second demonstration? That was the role I was assigned, see. A cruel game for fuck knows why that hass been toppling dominoes ever since. So now I don’t have much to do with sports, and as much as I know about that part of my ancestry, it is not *mine*. That much was made clear when I was a child.
To be denied a place within your own circle is a special kind of different. I can identify with other parts of my family tree, and I do. I have far more in common with my maternal Grandfather, who died before I was born, right down to personal taste and sense of humour. I am comfortable with who I am becoming and discovering just who and what I really am underneath all of the noise that defined my early childhood. But I do not *belong* in my own skin, and that has followed me all of my days. It is about more than just what I choose. For me, it is something learned that may always be as it is.
I know this feeling, intimately. Even without the missing history and culture (and there is plenty enough of both of those). I was writing and singing about it almost from the moment I learned how to do both. But, the thing is: if this is something I learned, and not something which I am, then I can learn better skills. But, ‘fitting in’ is not on anybody’s curriculum anywhere as far as I can see.
If nothing else: you’re not alone. Different lyrics. Same tune. Truth is, everyone’s a misfit somehow. We just know it a lot better than most.
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I’m from Spain, here we got the names of father and mother lines (the mother one usually get lost when you have children so they gain theirs mother’s one, but of course, you can change them or choose new one (well and that is for “average” people, nobles can got a ton of names cause those incestuous mfs accumulated them over generations), but it’s not the them now). Also I’m from South and during centuries, this land was ruled by North African people and some aspects of culture and language remains through time. We (my family) are whites too, but same as you, we get tan in summer and when growing up, I’ve been told many times I got Egyptians facial similarities and things like that; this mean it’s very likely that south Spain people got some North African blood but any name related has been lost through time (not only because of the mother’s name getting lost but also because of racism)
So over time I got some curiosity and one day I decided to investigate my names (internet search, nothing so serious). Turned out they’re both related to cities, one of them is not clear if it’s from a Portugal or France city and in top of that, usually these kind of name where gave/took by people who emigrated from those cities and can even been faked cause the kind of people who usually emigrated to this land were criminals and so… XDD
I just want to say, it doesn’t matter at all. All that matters it’s the name you made to yourself by relationships with others. You want to know more about Appalachian culture or identify with them? Go learn/do it, but cause you want, not cause you feel the need or obligation cause you think you got some blood relation. I feel that is some US culture aspect related to racism and I don’t say say this to blame you in any way, just pointing is something too impregnated in the social mind that can be so hard to ignore it.
I think I’m losing the point again so just gonna repeat, find and make yourself as you want, you don’t need blood nor other stuff to add or feeling part of differents cultures to your life, you can even create them if you feel it! We are all here!
