where do I belong?

Basically after completing my "I'm a Scientist Too" post and feeling on top of the world, I was asked to stop using the lab space as an office and it opened up so many old scars about not fitting in and my general existence being a detriment to other people. I like working where I do because I get to talk to other people about their research, and felt like I was part of the scientific community. Now being pushed aside and toppled off my perch I just feel at a total loss for words and lack any motivation to complete my work. I never cried at uni until that afternoon when I had to quick as I could run to a bathroom stall because I could not for the life of me hold it in anymore. Contrary to popular belief, women don't cry in order to get attention or get their own way and I can never dispel the feeling of complete and utter shame when salty tears involuntarily roll down my cheeks. I'm sorry, I don't like to add to the noise of the Internet and generally avoid self-serving posts but I just feel like in order to create distance between myself and this sense of displacement they needed to exist in a place outside of my own head.

I didn't like the way in which I was asked, how I was spoken to but what hurt was the feeling that I didn't belong because I finally thought I had everything figured out. I would go on to do a PhD, continue doing work which I loved and felt passionate about which would be difficult but rewarding in the end. It never occurred to me that the work environment would suddenly become hostile or that my legitimacy would be questioned. Nor did I consider that in that situation I would be unable to do anything to help my situation or that it would totally change how I function and where I complete my work. There's not a lot I can do other than stay out of their way and at home, since I need the assistance of this person in my research and I'm going to have to complete field work with them. I'm just super bummed out about the whole situation and feel like in the workplace we are still subject to the same childish games we had to endure in high school and frankly it's a real let down. Maybe things never really get better, they just get different. 

1- Heavenly Creatures (1994), 2- The Virgin Suicides (1999), 3- Photography by Gregory Crewdson, 4, 5- days of sleep by somnials and staticpool modelling, 6, 8- Hilary Faye Sloane, 9- still from an Alfred Hitchcock film, 10- Style Rookie, 12 & 13- via Style Abuse. 7 & 11- source.

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