Year One Post: A Sense of Belonging
As far as I can remember, I’ve been told on many occasions about the differences between high school and college. Easily, people have always thrown in the fun moments and wild details of their own experiences, mentioned what to expect when I first start, and other things that seemed to be common knowledge. Thankfully, with all these preparation talks with my family members and friends, my transition to college hasn’t seemed overwhelming at all. I found myself enjoying the change instead of dreading it. I’m already making friends, eating good food every day and overall feel like I’m flourishing, but I made the mistake and assumed everyone feels the same way as I do.
As I talked with some of my classmates within the first week, so many of them told me how stressed and anxious they were about starting college. I’m not unaware of college anxiety and I understand anxiety comes when starting something new, but the way my classmates explained how they were feeling dumbfounded me. So many of them mentioned how they’ve been having anxiety attacks, panic episodes, underestimating their own skills and overall feeling as if they don’t belong. This was surprising to me at first, but later a realization. Since so many people basically said the same things and related to feeling as if they don’t belong, I realized that we are alike in those feelings of doubt and insecurity, but why? Why do we have those feelings?
Hearing and realizing this took me way back to my 9th grade memories. When the word “belonging,” casually popped into our discussion, it struck me the hardest. I remember starting high school and having the overwhelming feeling of being uncomfortable and insecure throughout the year. Everyone seemed to know what was going on and then there I was, sticking out like a sore thumb. It wasn’t just a feeling either. People would point it out and would even bluntly say the rudest things, then call my oblivious when I chose to ignore it. I’d purposely be left out of things, be the butt of every joke and called “ugly” or “anorexic” in the midst of laughter, and basically be treated as if I were dumb and didn’t understand anything. I wouldn’t show it, but behind closed doors I was truly miserable during that time. Looking back as I’m writing this, I could’ve done more in those moments for myself. Strangely enough though, I’m thankful for those times because they gave me confidence or, “backbone,” as I like to call it. I see now that everything happens for a reason.
I truly believe you are supposed take your experiences and learn from them. Looking back, I often wonder who I was trying so hard for and why. I’ve come to realize that yes, maybe I don’t belong in a certain place but actually somewhere else. There’s always going to be group or people who like me for just being me, not only in relationships but also here in college. Even speaking besides belonging with a group, I’ve come to know that everything takes time. So yes, if I were to feel like I didn’t belong in college because of stress, I know my fear would eventually subside and to not put too much pressure on myself because nothing is truly ever that serious.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that once you’re genuinely yourself and take your own time to get into the swing of things, everything eventually turns out okay. I’m sure we all have experiences in the past where we’ve made a bigger fuss about something more than necessary. As humans we tend to do that, so we should take that into consideration and really contemplate if a situation is truly that serious and if it should take so much power and energy to address. A sense of belonging is important, but what’s more important is addressing the situation
