Category: Trauma and recovery

Is it safer to fit in or stand out?

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Do you want to be different or do you want to fit in?

When I was a teenager, with undiagnosed AuDHD and cPTSD, I desperately wanted to fit in, be accepted, be loved for who I was. I also wanted to express myself through what I wore and I had all kinds of ideas of the outfits I would put together to give space to this self-expression, but I didn’t let myself. I couldn’t. The need to fit in, not be ridiculed, and the desire to feel safe were stronger than the courage needed to stand out and be different.

photo shows a caterpillar with orange and yellow fur sticking on a green leaf

The need to fit in kept winning until the night of a fancy dress disco held at the only nightclub in the small town where I lived. My friends and I had been planning to go for a while and I had no idea what to go as, so I asked my mum to recreate a costume she made for me when I was 8 years old: a harem girl outfit with see through trousers that flowed from the hips, a bikini top and a yashmak to cover my face and hair.

photo shows a black spiky caterpillar on a green leaf

Looking back, it’s easy to see how problematic the harem costume was, not only as a 17 year old in the 1980s, but especially as an 8 year old in the 1970s. What the actual fuck?! I was a Brownie and our Brown Owl dressed up as a sheikh, and all of us girls were ‘his’ harem. Why on earth was this thought to be okay?!

photo shows a brown caterpillar with red stripes and short spikes on a green leaf

Moving on from the unconscious internalised sexism that seemingly made the sexualisation of 8 year old girls okay, on the night of the fancy dress ball, 17 year old me got ready and then freaked out at the sudden realisation that I would be nearly naked in front of a bunch of people I barely knew. I donned a long raincoat over my outfit, which I buttoned up to my neck, and headed to the club with my friends. Intrigued by my mac, several people asked whether I was going to take it off, which made me want to button it up even more.

photo shows a caterpillar with two protruding spiky tufts at either end of its short body and smaller spiky tufts along the bottom length of its body and looking like its wearing a vest of green with a circle cut out on the back on a green leaf

Eventually, as the club filled, the temperature rose and, after a few drinks, I undid the coat and draped it over a chair. My friends gasped and strangers came over to offer their praise for how I looked. So many people congratulated me that I could no longer fully believe I was an ugly duckling. The evidence was overwhelming that I was more than presentable. Again, it’s problematic because the outfit was adhering to sexist notions of the use of women’s bodies as sexual objects (to say nothing of cultural appropriation). However, it did wonders for my self-esteem, to a degree (it would take years of coaching, art, and therapy to get to a place of internal self acceptance and there are still parts of me that I am working on connecting with so that we can relate at a deep level).

photo shows a red background, a green leaf with a caterpillar that looks like a bunch of abstract brown, blonde and red shapes

The outfit was so different to anything that anyone else was wearing and it was celebrated by everyone who spoke to me about it. The night was a turning point for me and I began to let my ‘weird’ out by putting outfits together that looked highly unusual compared to the white mini skirts, black tights and white stilettos that most girls wore to the only nightclub in town in the 1980s. I’d turn up in a black lycra mini dress with a small ruffle at the top and hem, a man’s waistcoat, black over-the-knee socks with ruffles at the top, and black DMs. To paraphrase Sesame Street: one of these kids was doing her own thing. My mum frequently told me I’d get beaten up looking like that but I needed to express myself no matter how ridiculous she thought I looked.

photo shows a close up of a caterpillar from the front with spikes growing from its head and red balls on its face, on a green leaf

Imagine a world where weird is wonderful! I actually believe this is true and I’m frequently fascinated by other-than-human nature – the colours, shapes, movements and totally bizarre-looking ways of being to be found in environments that seem out of this world, but are very much in the world. In these places the beings just be their weird selves, as they are, responding to their environment as it responds to them.

photo shows a caterpillar on a stalk. It has 8 legs holding onto the stalk and two long spindly growths from its behind that curve over towards its body. It's face is huge, has a red circle with black inner circle and two black dots above the red circle.

For a long time I wanted to be ‘normal’, to fit in and belong to society. I saw myself as different / odd and that it was the fault of the effects of childhood sexual, emotional and physical trauma I’d experienced. Later, when I’d done a lot of healing and realised I was still ‘odd’ (using societal norms as a benchmark), I thought it was being AuDHD that made me so. Then I spent time considering that actually it’s society that is broken and labels of “disabled” are necessary in such a system so that some people might get the help they need in order to live in this system (not every person gets the help they need though).

photo shows black caterpillar with white long hair sprouting outwards from its sides

Lately, I’ve been seeing it differently. What if ‘normal’ is a coping mechanism designed to protect people from facing intergenerational trauma? Spending energy on fitting into the norms of society might be a good way of avoiding the painful truth that ‘normal’ doesn’t even exist. I’ve never met a person who is ‘normal’, have you?

photo shows caterpillar on a leaf. Its head looks like a snake. It is orange with black eyes.

Every human I’ve come across is weird and wonderful if I’m in the mindset to receive them as such. Similarly, every human is annoying as fuck if I am in that kind of a mindset. We are society. All of us. We are part of it even when we feel othered by it. Our differences could be as celebrated as the similarities. It can be hard to go against the grain of ‘normal’, to stand out and be different, strange, weird even.

photo shows caterpillar hanging upside down on a stalk. It has long growths that look like roots

Some people don’t get the choice to hide difference – gender, skin colour, ability, for example, are often on show. Some aspects of difference can be seen in behaviours and for ND people, social norms around etiquette, for example, can be a source of pain through not being privy to them. 

photo shows a caterpillar on a stalk that has lots of pastel colours on it and growths that look like roots

What I’ve noticed, as I’ve gotten older, grown in experience and through doing shit loads of inner work, is I now have many friends I can totally be myself with. I hardly ever spend loads of energy trying to fit into social circles that feel yucky. The times when I do mask to fit in socially are when I go to functions where I don’t know people. I’ve spent years unravelling who I am to get to this point and I’m grateful for the help I’ve received along the way. It’s ongoing and the work to re-member myself will probably be my life’s work. It’s hard sometimes, and exhausting, but often it’s fun and it’s always full of love.

photo shows a caterpillar on a leaf that has spiky tufts growing at intervals along its body and bright green and black and red markings along the centre line of its body

I’m writing this to celebrate difference. Without it, we are lost; with it, we thrive. Diversity is everything.

I’m Julia Fry. I’m a Creative Psychotherapist and Coach for Neurodivergent Folx. If you’d like to have a chat about working with me, feel free to reach out.

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I’m also an Artist, a Poet and a Writer. My book, SHINE How to Overcome the Trauma of Living and Feel Our Way to Authenticity is available in paperback or eBook from various locations.

Thousand Yard Stare

When you looked like that,

Your eyes seeing another time and place,

I knew.

Soft brown somehow turned black,

Pupils blown,

And I knew.

Something had to give,

To pay for your service to the Queen,

When you weren’t seen.

The troubles affected your mind;

I knew you would turn to me.

I’d listen for the creak in the hallway,

Late at night,

When all were asleep,

‘Cept you and me,

Though I pretended to be,

Arms pinned rigidly either side of my body,

Duvet trapped,

As I barely breathed,

Heart thumping in my ears,

Fears rising so high they might shatter into shards in the next moment.

Fists clenched tight against my thighs,

Tense stillness mixing hope and listening, 

Listening…

For your almost silent footfall.

Mouth arid but a desperate swallow,

Frightening in the sound it makes because

Any

Tiny

Noise

Could cause you to attack.

But it wasn’t that, was it?

Not me,

Not my body’s natural urges to move, no.

It was you,

What happened to you,

What they did to you,

What you didn’t express.

Couldn’t.

What you couldn’t express.

Othering Me, Othering You

Image shows strands of finger knitted wool of differing lengths arranged in a circle with the ends at the centre in a spiral. The wool is multi-coloured.
Othering Me, Othering You, 2023, Wool

I created this piece using wool. The wool came from a cardigan I made where I found the seams to be too irritating so I unpicked it. I am very sensitive to seams and labels in clothing. I was left with lots of small balls of wool in varying sizes and I followed an intuitive prod to finger knit each ball into a long strand. This took a few months and during this time I was working on my dissertation for my creative psychotherapy master’s, which was a heuristic inquiry into the experience of othering people different from me.

This piece is a creative synthesis of what I found out about myself in the research. It became clear to me that othering people, for me, is a somatic response to being triggered by people that somehow remind me of the people that abused me in childhood. The somatic response of a tightening in my solar plexus then kicks off anxious thoughts that circle in my head. I came to this awareness through creative workshops that I held for myself in which I followed intuitive urges to move, be still, make things, or write. I sometimes found myself walking in a spiral and coming to stillness in the centre, where I would feel and notice.

The space created to feel and notice is depicted in the spiral of wool at the centre of the image. Othering happens regardless of whether I want it to, but I have space to observe, rather than act on it.

When I Write About Rape

Poem and call and response song

When I write about rape

It takes its toll on my body

As pain, grief, rage spiral

Threatening to pull me apart

With the tension of

Wanting to stay

And wanting to run.

Thinking she knew when I was 9

How could she not?

How could she not?

I saw the signs…

His body tightly sprung,

Ever more so as the day wore on.

How could she not?

How could she not?

As bedtime drew close

And I’m sick on the floor,

Begging to extend my time with the telly

In the relative safety of the lounge,

But no,

Disgusted by my plea,

She sent me to bed.

How could she not?

How could she not?

I hate bedtime even now,

40 years on.

It’s okay for him.

He’s dead and gone,

But I’m still here

With a tightly wound body

That remembers what my mind forgot.

Only now, I’m not losing the plot.

I’m seeing clearly how we forgot

Our connection to Earth

And the object projection that entails

The lack of relationship with

Our Great Mother,

Makes it necessary to treat one another

As things to conquer, to control,

But actually all we need,

As 4 young men once said, is love.

Reciprocal love that comes by

Singing and listening

To the animism present in everything,

Which makes things beings.

Alive! 

The chair you sit on.

The shoes that got you here.

The trees, oh, the trees with

Whom songs appear

When we listen.

Othering Me, Othering You Is This The Best We Can Do?

I completed my MSc Counselling and Psychotherapy – Contemporary Creative Approaches in August 2023 with a research project called Othering Me, Othering You – My Living Experience of Internalised Patriarchy. I’m going to share the following sections from my dissertation in this post: definition of terms, introduction, and conclusion. If you’d like me to send you the dissertation or have a conversation about setting up creative workshops to uncover hidden biases with compassion, please email me.

image shows a wall with 2 canvas paintings and 8 pieces of paper with drawings on them: a heart with 2 people inside, a person with their head inside a cloud with the word "worry" in it and the word "othering" written on the paper, a large multi coloured heart, two spirals - red and blue, a series of black circles, a pink triangle, a red circle with black spikes surrounding it with yellow outside of the black and green in the corners of the image, a diagram with colour coded lines leading to bits of paper, a collage with the words "would I have known where to start without this?" written on.

Some of my creative outputs from my research that I analysed for themes

Continue reading “Othering Me, Othering You Is This The Best We Can Do?”

So Much More

I wish I fitted into my brown trousers comfortably.

But I don’t.

I wish I could love this fat body.

But I don’t.

And who is the I in this case?

Small I soaked in patriarchal values.

Sexist.

Racist.

Ableist.

All the ists exist in this I

That has narrow eyes,

Pursed lips,

Calculates and demands,

Constructs beliefs from spurious evidence

So it can fold in on itself with narcissistic glee.

A smirk twitches the corner of its lips

As it caves into itself with denigration.

The other I watches,

Curious,

Loving,

And sees without judgement

The games played,

The means manipulated,

And utters a simple phrase,

“That makes sense,”

As her gaze

Casts wider 

Into the contexts

That pattern themselves restrictive

For all involved.

She breathes deep and long,

Appreciates the battles

With self,

With others,

With the world,

Feels the sharp sadness spike her heart,

Sheds soft, soft tears

That roll and tickle their way

To her throat

Where a hatch opens,

A tiny hand reaches out

To catch the rain,

So beautiful in the sunlight

That dapples into the darkness,

Touches the pipes

That begin to warm

So she can make the sounds of love.

She sings

Of warmth

And beauty 

And rage

And soon the I’s are soothed into remembering:

There is more than this.

Always.

So much more.

Locus of Evaluation Part 2

In Locus of Evaluation Part 1 I wrote about how I believed my art teacher, Mr Yates, when he told me I wasn’t good enough to do art at ‘O’ Level (equivalent to GCSE), and my journey to becoming an artist in adulthood despite that. In this post I’m going to write about why I believed Mr Yates so readily, and it may (or may not) relate to your own story about locus of evaluation.

Continue reading “Locus of Evaluation Part 2”