different.

“You wake up but not really. In the bedroom you grew up in. It's the only place on this entire planet that is yours. The only place on the planet that understands you. It understands the way your nerves flare everytime you think about talking to anyone, scared into shyness at the thought of opening your mouth but the way you are the best hypocrite around when you're in front of a microphone. It knows what turns that switch on and off and on again. It understands the way when you don't have a smile on your face everyone only spits: 'what's wrong's and 'you look tired's. So the way you keep it on your face just wide enough to avoid questions. It understands how neurotic you have become, the way you treat your flaws like old friends.” 

~ Peter Wentz

I've always embraced being an anomaly.  It was never an issue for me.  In fact I rather enjoyed it.  I have always had a lucid understanding that my upbringing was certainly not what most would consider the "standard childhood."  This however has never been a crutch.  It has never been an excuse to treat people without respect. Certainly never a justification to act as though anything that happened to me in the past somehow gave me the right to be maladjusted as an adult.  Despite all this, I've historically had a rather utopian view on life, but life seems determined to break it.  Especially recently, my departure from the norm has become grossly evident.   The world isn't the happy-go-lucky place that exists in my mind.  People aren't necessarily as kind and considerate as I wish they were, and not everyone is deserving of your time and friendship.  It is a perilous place for one to wear one's heart on their sleeve and blind trust tends to end more often in heartbreak than in bliss. 

So does one lose hope?

... of course not.  You just become a little more cautious, a little more wary ... and hope that the next experience is a little more gentle than the last.

Live and Learn.