What is it about 'groups'?

[Cammy]

I recently tried joining a support group at my church. Oh, the horror. Is it just me, or does being in a group of people just amplify all the internal triggers? When I get in a group, the first thing I want to do is find the nearest exit and bolt. Then the automatic thoughts start - stuff like 'I don't belong here', 'I feel like I'm on the outside looking in', 'i am unfit for human company', and lots of feelings of being out of step and out of place. I hate it. I am trying SO hard to try new things that push my envelope and take me beyond my comfort zones, but heck...it IS hard. 

I don't know if it is just me - I was very poorly socialized as a child. Yet I worked as part of a crew/team my entire career without any problems. It is when I am in a social setting that I start to dissemble into this self-doubting mess. 

I'm just wondering if it is me, or if it is a familiar experience among multiples. i intend to keep trying  to push myself into new territory, and hopefully become more comfortable with it as time goes on. I doubt I will ever get to the point where I totally trust others, or where I feel warm and fuzzy inside being around them, but I think that if I can even just get relatively comfortable with others in a group, that will be a big accompishment for me.

[nats]

social groups are hard. work groups are easier because you're all - in theory - working towards a particular goal but without that it's hard to know what to focus on.

still, if you don't feel like you fit in a particular support group it may just mean that this group isn't a good fit for you.

[Cammy]

Thank you for responding nats. I agree with you that it is always possible that a particular group isn't a good fit. My conundrum is that for me ALL groups feel this way, so I feel like I have to try and stick around and push through it to see if it is indeed me or I just don't fit in with that particular group's dynamics. It is hard for me to know which is which, and I am trying to be a bit more persistent in order to find out (as opposed to just leaving the first time and never coming back). For the group that I signed up with I was cautious - rather than make a commitment to a 3 month group I signed up for a shorter 4 week commitment to see how it goes. It is only once a week, so if worse come to worse I have only committed to 4 sessions. I figure that even I can muscle my way through four weeks. I think, for me, making sure that I don't bite off more than I can chew is going to be key in helping ease me into this whole group thing. For some reason I have this need to at least try. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. But, I do not intend to give up too easily, which is always tempting. As you suggested, I will simply try something else . . . like a book group that meets once a month at the library or something less threatening. 

Mind you, the last book group I tried ended up being quite intimidating. It was a group of women who were mostly lesbians, which is neither here nor there to me. I was simply interested in the book that they were reviewing and eager to discuss it with a group of intelligent people.  When they realized I wasn't gay, they weren't very pleased with me.  I honestly didn't think it mattered either way...it was a just a book group to me, therefore I could not understand how my sexual orientation mattered. Turns out it mattered quite a bit to them. Oops - my bad. I think the offense they felt was that they may have thought I was there because I perceived them to be a novelty, and i was possibly there as though watching a side show (nothing could have been farther from the truth in my case).  I DO understand how I would feel if a mono-mind i didn't know showed up at a meeting for multiples. I would definitely question their intentions for being there, so I should have known better.

At any rate, I intend to keep trying, and as you suggesed nats, I will try another group if things don't seem to be working out. To be perfectly honest, I think the neatest thing would be to meet with a group of multiples face to face from time to time. Somehow I think that I would have a pretty good comfort level there from the word go, but then again I am assuming a great deal. My therapist has offered to allow me to speak anonymously to another female multiple who is also married to a multiple with severe past abuse. Neither of us would know the identity of the other. Ever since my T has made this offer to me, I have been VERY intrigued with the idea, but I am also reluctant. If for whatever reason we don't 'click', I dread that horrendous awkward silence on the phone - I have this palpable dread of telephones in the first place, so I don't know if I'll take her up on the offer or not. For me, the best thing would be to be able to email this other person first to develop a kind of idea of where we are at in terms of each other, and then PERHAPS attempt the phone thing. Writing is definitely my comfort zone. 

Sorry nats .. . I am going on and on. Thank you so much for your reply and your thoughtful suggestion. 

[The People]

Never did well in groups unless I was facilitating. Everyone acts out and causes mayhem.

[MakersDozn]

We find it very uncomfortable to be in any group of more than five bodies, including our own body.

MDs

[Cammy]

Well I participated in a group tonight with just six people including myself, and it was the usual problem - I felt like I just couldn't connect with the people in the group and felt totally out of sync. As usual this left me feeling isolated and alienated and 'different'. A few of my comments raised a few eyebrows, and I'm sure that my out of the box ideas left the others thinking I was nuts. It's the same old, same old. I keep trying to learn to fit in by establishing common ground, but when you are a multiple in a room full of mono-minds, the bridge to common ground is far away. I always feel this way, but I keep trying.