Being different

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The redefining of ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ as a danger to ‘American values’ by the coterie running the USA has troubled many around the world, not just those directly affected. The US administration’s cancellation of health research has been particularly upsetting for anyone concerned about improving research quality and applicability through identifying relevant variables. One article from Nature sums it up:

“Does it mean that we can no longer do rigorous science to really understand why the devastating burden of health disparities exist in this country and around the globe?”

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01538-6?

The current US administration are overt in their prejudice and determination to maintain power in the hands of those from their own demographic. Anyone who is not part of that demographic is likely to be feeling increasingly threatened and alienated. In-groups create out-groups: us versus them.

Photo of a single red tulip in a field of yellow tulips by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash

I’ve been reflecting on the experience of ‘feeling different’. Many of the clients and supervisees I’ve worked with have said at some point:

“The thing is, I always felt there was something wrong with me because I’m different from other people.”

When I talked to other therapists about this, the most frequent response was a look of surprise. Some shared my experience, but most shook their heads and said, “No, what I keep bumping into is people who feel not good enough”. Or “My most common theme is being treated badly by others.” Or, or, or ….

I started to suspect that either we view others through the lens of our own defining characteristic – or that we unconsciously attract clients with the issue we need to heal in ourselves.

Usually, there’s a physical or practical basis to this feeling different. I moved around a lot as a child, and apart from my first term at primary school and my first term in secondary education, I was regularly joining a group with established norms and pecking orders. I was the outsider at five of the seven schools I attended.

Other friends have had the experience of being different as an introvert in a world with expectations set by extraverts (who outnumber introverts 2 to 1 in most countries where English is the native language).

“What’s wrong with you? Why are you so antisocial?” has echoed in their ears throughout their lives.

Photo of statue of seated man in thinking pose by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Obviously, there are the more profound experiences of ‘otherness’ endured by people with minority status through disability, race or other protected characteristics. Try going shopping as a wheelchair user!

The hidden difference of being neuro-divergent or having mental health symptoms has received more coverage lately, partly through TV programmes by people who have named and explored their own concerns: Stephen Fry talked about being bipolar, Chris Packham had conversations with people who identify as ADHD or dyslexic etc.

When I was teaching the US president’s favourite subject (‘Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’) I asked students to identify as northerner/southerner; city-dweller or country-lover; owls or larks etc. I then asked whether they thought they were in a minority or majority for each. When they were separated into groups, looking at the size of ‘the others’ was surprisingly emotional for many students. And this was while exploring differences that most would consider insignificant and irrelevant.

The impact of ‘feeling different’ can be profound.

Initially, there is often an awareness of ‘not belonging’ – which can definitely be rooted in being made unwelcome. Andrea Levy’s stunning novel ‘Small Island’ described the experiences of Caribbean people who travelled to the UK in the early 1950s to be confronted with signs in lodging houses saying “No coloured, no Irish”. This is the reality of being excluded.

Other excluding behaviours are more subtle. As the child of civilian parents at an Army school I didn’t understand the Forces slang my peers used. I felt ignorant, that there was a whole field of knowledge completely opaque to me. Perhaps not surprising that one of the coping strategies I developed involved a never-ending quest for learning. The psychologist Alfred Adler pointed out that people often try to hide their inferiority complex by overcompensating.

https://dictionary.apa.org/inferiority-complex

Not belonging might lead to loneliness – which I converted to ‘being independent’ from a very young age. Others deal with outsider status by developing roles as a clown or performer or by pursuing excellence – academic, sporting or creative – as a way of being noticed for one’s valued attributes (more over-compensating). Still others adopt the strategy of ‘keep your head down and try to avoid notice’ – especially in environments as excluding as British boarding schools.

The awareness of being different can also lead to not trusting other people, not feeling safe around them, bracing oneself for the next taunt or rejection.

Jeanette Winterson’s wonderful memoir ‘Why be happy when you could be normal?’ really captures the isolation and self-doubt that can develop when you’re constantly told that who you are, and ‘how’ you are, are not just different, but wrong.

This sense that ‘there’s something fundamentally wrong with me’ is the root cause of the feeling of shame. Brené Brown describes it with her usual clarity:

“I believe that there is a profound difference between shame and guilt. I believe that guilt is adaptive and helpful—it’s holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feeling psychological discomfort.

I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.

I don’t believe shame is helpful or productive.”

https://brenebrown.com/articles/2013/01/15/shame-v-guilt/

In working with clients and supervisees I’ve learned that parts of ourselves which feel different AND INFERIOR are nothing of the sort. Some prejudiced people might have judged us as weird, strange or just plain wrong – but that is a reflection of their limited understanding, not an intrinsic fault in us.

Celebrate your areas of difference – after all, we can’t all be misogynist orange autocrats with inflated ideas of our own superiority.