Hey Pandas, When Have You Been Singled Out For Being Different? (Closed)

i was in a government class at uni and the subject turned to the collapse of the soviet union, and the amount of people that turned to look directly at me was very uncomfortable. lmao i wasn’t even born when the USSR was still around 💀

every day. I am punk in a southern state

I grew up in a violent, dysfunctional family and learned to walk on eggshells and constantly be on "survival mode". Most of my reactions when interacting with others were trauma responses. I was isolated, gossiped and judged for that: "she's crazy and weird, didn't you see she talks all alone, we don't want her here".

So, I spent my free time alone and didn't get invited to any group activities. But I was asked to give money for other colleagues' birthday present, for example (because "it's common sense to do that"), while nobody bothered when my own birthday came.

All the time for ADHD. My friends can tell
When I didn’t take my meds. They joke and say “did you take your meds today?” But, I just embrace it. It’s part of me. So I joke back.

my now ex husband once told me i was an elitist...because i liked discussing history, politics, etc. with friends. he told me that was why i had such a small circle of friends and thought that i should want to have more friends than a handful of people. he then took it further and told me that i was both elitist and a snob because i didn't really get close to some of his friends. it really made me feel terrible and started doubting myself and my character. one day, i was discussing things with one of my professors (i was in college at the time) and somehow we started talking about social expectations. this professor was both my mentor and friend so i opened up about what my hubby had said and asked him if he thought i was an elitist/snob because i didn't reach out to a lot of people. he thought about it for a moment and then told me this: from the moment we enter social settings such as kindergarten we are told that we have to get along with others. we are given activities that are designed to have us do everything the same way - like making sure we all tap our drums with the same beat. some people will continue to make efforts to fit in for the rest of their lives while others are willing to step out of their comfort zones and discover. so, in his opinion, many people are social out of habit; i was social by choice. and that wasn't a bad thing. it made me realize that i had always been a bit of an outsider but as i got older i didn't care.

A lot of the time bc I'm a brown girl who wears a hijab. Sometimes it's harmless but a lot of the time it's really unwanted attention and singling out. But I won't complain, I haven't had it too bad compared to the horror stories I hear sometimes.

8th grade a few years ago because I was the new kid and socially awkward. Even worse is that I might be neurodivergent which would be part of why I’m weird.

But it’s also because I got bullied a lot (once by a friend) so I was closed off

Everyday. Other people avoid me, and I don’t easily make friends. It also doesn’t help that I’m the definition of the quiet kid in the corner.

Oh man, where do I begin. I've been singled out for a variety of reasons, in a variety of situations by different people, but the recurring ones were being targeted for being overweight (including boys asking me on dates/to prom as a cruel joke, having garbage thrown at me out of moving cars, men angrily yelling at me from their cars that I shouldn't wear something, etc.), or for my poor social skills (I was being emotionally, verbally and psychologically abused to within an inch of my life until I was 22, and had undiagnosed ADHD; as you can perhaps imagine, it really hurt my ability to relate to other people).

Not all of them were bad though. I was the only woman in the car repair and maintenance course I took in community college; most of the other students generally left me alone, and the ones that didn't were genuinely nice and helpful.

Public school

Being a secular home educated kid. It can suck sometimes. Couldn't fit in with the churchy home school crowd, or the non religious public schooled crowd.

-Being homeschooled, teachers at the local school pick on me when I go to football games. "Homeschool kids aren't supposed to come" or "Homeschool gets don't GET to do fun things" it's disgusting. Grow up, Karen. I bought my ticket and I'ma enjoy it without you coming to harass me. I don't even know your name and I hate you.

-Not being a member of LBGTQ+. I am on a website called Quotev and my account is reasonably popular due to the amount of content I've released. Well, more than once I've been messaged with massive rants about how I am a horrible awful person and I should die just because I'm not gay. I have nothing against gay people, but that ticks me off because the same people that leave me these rants are the ones demanding my respect. I'd be happy to respect everyone but I'd like to be respected back! It goes both ways!

-Drawing. I draw a LOT. I would prefer to sit in a dark room and draw or read than absolutely anything else. So people make a lot of Hitler jokes about "getting rejected from art school" and "leading the Germans."

-My face. I am ugly.

Sometimes I’m not taken seriously at my job/told I’m unable to work in other areas of the store (like running a register) because it’s too dangerous for me due to my autism and adhd diagnosis. I’ve been told that once this gets sorted out I can try again

I'm ASD and was only diagnosed about 3ya, so I've spent like over 45ya undiagnosed. I was bullied relentlessly at school, till I used a pair of scissors on one of my bullies. He got into s**t, not me. Because obviously as ASD I was also the class nerd. After school I couldn't date because of ASD etc etc. It took me till I was about 25. Everyone used to mock me etc. I've learnt to mask and manage though. Many people do not notice it till I drop my guard and speak for an hour non-stop on some obscure topic like astronomy, then they realise oh wait a minute.

I'm different in the sense that I'm way too introverted. I have set boundaries and that my idea of 'having fun' is very different from others' point of view. So it's a very common situation for me to be singled out. And I'm not complaining.