It feels depressing when your own team talks about you behind your back, when they only see your bad side and feel that you are just there to make work and life complicated for them. It becomes difficult when your team is not rowing in the same direction. Worse is when this is all an open secret, and everybody knows all this except you.
It's like body odor.
Everybody can smell it and they just laugh at you without you getting in on the joke. People make all sorts of memes and jokes and have fun at your expense, because nobody cared enough to take you aside and tell you what the problem was. Other people don't know how to tell you so you wouldn't get offended. Other people don't know how to tell you so you don't get hurt.
The truth hurts. You're not perfect. When you have a blank white page, the one that draws your attention is that tiny black dot - the imperfection.
All my life I had difficulty fitting in because I always felt like an ugly duckling. In high school I had to endure bullying and rumors about me because I was different and I came from another school. I know how it feels to be vulnerable, knowing that others had the power to hurt you. I know how it feels to be rejected, when you're always the last to be picked when joining teams.
The coping mechanism is to develop a hard shell to protect you from ever being hurt again. Or you can continue to risk yourself to vulnerability in the hopes of opening up to being accepted for your own true weird self.
Sometimes, it's not really about you. It maybe a reflection of who those other people truly are. Be kind to yourself. Life has a funny way of revealing the true colors of people.
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