Feeling Like You Don't Fit In

This is probably going to be quite a deep post as i’m listening to Nathan Sykes’ album.. damn you Nathan. However, this is going to be all about friendships and my life experience with having the worst friends and how i'm getting through it.

I’m not going to lie, I used to have loads of friends back in primary school but then when we moved off into secondary school. Me and my friends drifted apart and I was left alone and shy, not knowing how to make friends as I mainly kept the same friends from reception up to year 6. 

In secondary school, I was always the odd one out in my friendship group it was really odd I had no one else to turn to except this friendship group. I mean, I had different friends in some of my classes but I wasn't suddenly going to go and join their friendship groups. That wasnt me to tell people how I felt and I liked everyone to think that my life was perfect and I was really happy with my friends. But in all honestly I hated every minute with them and I would often skip school just so I wouldn't have to deal with them.

Friends are meant to make you feel happy and positive, but these just wouldn't make me feel like I was one of them. I was just the odd one that would follow them around at dinner and break times I hated it so much. I’m not going to go into detail but in year 10/11 I can't really remember, I went off and joined another friendship group who were friends from my science class. I didn't especially like these friends as they were the ‘chavs’ of the year whereas the other ‘friendship’ group were the sort of populars so it was a massive drop. Back then I really cared about who I was friends with like, did I really want to be seen hanging round with these when the people I used to hang round with were so cool?? But I had no other choice. 

Moving on from secondary school dilemmas i’m now in university and the past two years i’ve always had one main best friend from my course but never really hung out with anyone else. So last year when we got separated into different groups, I felt like I was back in secondary school again with no friends to turn to at dinner time as most of the class had gone into the new groups with their old friends..lucky for them right. This meant at dinner time they would go off and eat together at restaurants, leaving me to just walk home in the dinner hour thank god I lived only 10 minutes away from uni otherwise I literally don’t know what i’d do. 

It was a hard beginning of the year for me I even ended up going to see my tutor about it saying how upset I was and that I just wanted to move groups again because I just didn't fit in and I didn't have anyone. He wouldnt let me move telling me that it would be good for me and in the industry I wouldn't work with anyone I knew. But he didn't understand my past and I just hated having to cling onto people hoping they’d want to hang arround with me rather than having me forced onto them.

I did end up talking to some girls that I was friends with in first year but I mean I was only friends with them because we would speak over twitter we weren't bffs but I sat next to them in class and when we went to Paris I even hung around with them at times but I felt like I was still trying to fit in with there group just hoping that they would accept me. 

In this year, there are no groups we’re all in one big class. I now have two friendship groups where I'm rather close to all of them I would like to say. One of the friendship groups is the one from last year and I even went out for dinner/tea and some cocktails with them yesterday and I can honestly say it was one of the best days i’ve had in the last few years. I felt so included and it just made so happy that they actually wanted me there to celebrate one of their birthdays with them.

This might sound so weird to some people like, 'it was only for a day, she must be really weird not getting invited to anything much whats wrong with her?' I’ve thought all those things about myself too what is wrong with me that makes me feel that people don’t want to be my friend. I think because of back in year 10/11 I had such horrible things said to me from my ‘friends’ who I would hang around with since year 7 it’s so hard to trust and get close to people. If I hang around with people would they just get bored of me, do they even want me there, are they talking about me behind my back thinking of ways to get rid of me when i go the toilet? ALL of these go through my mind when i’m with a number of people, it’s so hard for me and I just wish I could just chill with people and not have to worry hopefully I will be able to one day.

This may be a bit rambling and deep, but felt like I just wanted to write all these down and some of you may be in these circumstances. It WILL get better. 

Storytime: Animal Abuse

Now this may be different to what I normally write. I normally try to be funny but sometimes you just have to get serious points across, and in life you can’t be funny ALL the time can you. However, I am really passionate about animal abuse. This isn't about animal testing or makeup etc this is just about humans deliberately hurting animals. 

This came about because in August, my own cat was horribly attacked and ended up with a fractured jaw. If you follow me on any social media you’re bound to know just how much I love my gorgeous Tilly (i’ve also wrote a blog post about my pets which she’s of course mentioned in) 

Anyway, whilst my mum and dad were away on holiday I noticed one day coming home from work that Tilly wasn't there to greet me. She's an outdoor cat, so her not being outside and waiting for me at the bottom of my path is really unusual she knows the sound of me coming and runs to meet me normally. I then started overthinking when i'd actually last seen her as i'd been working till late the previous days and so I started sensing something was seriously wrong!!! 

My brother told me that he was sure he’d seen her just 1 or 2 days before in the house, and I just couldn’t think straight. I KNEW something was wrong, it was like a mothers instinct had struck inside of me and I just had to find her. I started posting on social media asking if anyone in the area had seen her, it may have seemed sudden but I know Tilly and something was seriously wrong. 

I was doubting myself and thought maybe she's ran, maybe she’s seen the dogs and my parents leave and got stressed so just legged it. I then started thinking what if she’s just walked off to die like cats do, she’s not proper old but it was a possibility and it was running through my mind I just couldn’t cope. 

Someone actually commented on my post though giving me some advice on how to bring her back if she had gotten lost: 

"if a dog or cat has escaped from your home and has become lost, hang out clothes that you and your family have worn but not washed, along with their own bedding and bedding of other pets in your home. The scent will travel in the air, and they will hopefully be able to smell their way home." 

I did this immediately. Tilly doesn’t have any bedding as she used to just sleep wherever she wanted in the house or outside sometimes, so I hung my clothes up as she's always attached to me. No lie, about 15-30 minutes later she was in my front garden. I genuinely flew down my stairs. 

When I reached her I didn't even notice anything wrong with her until I placed her on the kitchen floor and realised her face was all mashed up. Tilly just wouldn’t eat and she couldn’t even drink, I thought she had no eyes and no teeth.. turns out she still has all her teeth and eyes but her jaw was fractured. 

Unfortunately I was having to leave for work but my brother came home and took her straight the vets where he got told they were doing x-rays and if there was nothing internal she’d make a full recovery once she’d had her mouth operated on.

It turns out she was kicked in the head and has just ran off somewhere where she lay in a bush obviously lost until she smelt my clothes. I like to think it was my smell that brought her back, we really do have a bond and this is why I never understand when people say dogs are better than cats they're just the same you don’t understand!! I’ve got both and seriously they both act the same around me, cats can still be as dependant and clingy as dogs.

I just don’t understand how anyone can go around kicking cats or any animal? Like Tilly was the most timid sweetest cat ever and now she's even more timid she's terrified of EVERYONE. I just hate people.

When inside with us she does still go into 'kitten mode', she's still got the metal bar in her jaw to keep it in line as we refused to get it taken out as it wouldn’t be fair to put her through another operation at her age and when she acts like it's not even there anyway?!

The good news though is that Tilly is perfectly healthy and if we’re lucky enough she’ll still have a good old few years left in her. If you have cats just make sure to keep them inside at night especially as its getting darker, you don’t know what kind of yobs are around these days. I live in a proper sneaky side road and this still happened, so don’t think because your roads hidden it wont happen because you just cant chance it.