When You Don't Belong

Making sense of outside and inside

Photo cred: Pooja Lakshmin, Orsa Maggiore Hostel Rome

In the summer of 2016, I graduated psychiatry residency from George Washington University and got a job offer to join the faculty as a supervisor in the Five Trimesters Perinatal Psychiatry Clinic and as Associate Program Director of the Psychiatry Residency Program. It was, in essence, my dream job.

In academics, there really is no such thing as negotiating salary. But, I took a risk and I asked to start my job a month late— in August instead of July.

I spent the month of July living in Rome at a hostel inside the city and in an AirBnb on the outskirts. As a newly minted faculty, it was a daring act to tell my department that I would be off for the busiest month of the academic year (July in medicine is when all of the new residents start) and take this sabbatical. I took an Italian language class (sadly, I did not hold on to a lick…), tried to write, and made my rounds to all the tourist sights.

But, something strange kept happening. Every time I’d pick out a nice-ish restaurant from my Lonely Planet, and show up at dinner time asking for a table of one, I’d get turned away. It was a little weird, but I chalked it up to the fact that maybe it was not worth it to seat one person alone at a restaurant.

Then towards the end of my trip, I was at the market near my Airbnb, where I had previously chatted with some of the store owners. I was strolling the stalls when someone started aggressively shooing me away. Quickly, one of the shopkeepers I had met came up behind me and shouted “No no — don’t worry, she’s American.”

I was still confused. I vividly remember calling my partner, J, and telling him what happened. “They thought you were Roma” he explained. “Be careful.”

After I got back to DC, I had lunch with my former supervisor from The McClendon Center, a community psychiatry clinic in Washington. I told him about what happened, and he said, “They didn’t see you as a doctor. They saw you as a young, brown woman.”

I chose to be a psychiatrist because I wanted to help others carry the burden of being on the outside - whether their outsider status was because of how their brains worked, their circumstances, their gender, their skin color, or some combination of these factors.

But, how much of what I’ve set out to achieve in the world is to make up for the belonging I was not afforded from the get go?

I don’t share this because it’s particularly terrible in the grand scheme of all the ways one can be othered, or ostracized, or cast out. And, I recognize and appreciate how I can easily pass in my social and professional circles. I share this story because belonging— who gets to belong — is at the core of what a women’s mental health community (or, any community) must think about, talk about, address, and grapple with if it is to be putting good out into the world.

And, as I’m coming up on the eve of launching my first book into the world, I’m thinking about where I fit, who I sit with, and what my book means in the larger scheme of my identity and my values.

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Your Therapy Takeaway:

This week, I’m sharing some questions that will push you to think more deeply about the spaces in which you feel a natural and easy sense of belonging, and the spaces in which you do not.

Think of a time you felt different, other, or on the outside. What did feeling the outsider status bring up in you? Did you react with anger, sadness, shame? Did the lack of belonging occur to you immediately or did it take time to sink in?

How has the experience of feeling or being on the outside impacted your sense of self? No matter your identity or background, I believe that every one of us has at least one small experience of being on the outside. The degree to which those experiences shape us depends, in some part, on our place and status in society. Were your experiences of being on the outside formative? If so, how have they stuck with you?

Was the choice to be an insider or an outsider available to you? The ability to “pass” is a privilege. Has there ever been a moment in which you could not pass as part of the in-group, no matter how you performed or contorted?

Ultimately, we can’t control the perceptions and beliefs of those around us. We can, however, engage in different conversations with ourselves and others. I hope these questions help you interrogate your understanding of what it means to belong and, perhaps, open up space for you to extend belonging to others in unexpected ways.

xo,

Pooja

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Odds and Ends

• This Friday 2/10 is the last day to enter the GoodReads giveaway of REAL SELF-CARE. Enter here for the chance to win a free advance copy of the book ahead of launch!

• Tomorrow night at 8pm ET Kali will be speaking at “Being a Better Ally — A Call To Action”, a virtual event hosted by the American Medical Women’s Association and Physician Just Equity. You can sign up for free here.

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