Not all belonging is good. Some communities build their coherence on shared contempt, on the exclusion of a common enemy, on the suppression of internal doubt. The belonging available in these tribes is real but costly — it requires the ongoing performance of certainty, the abandonment of complexity, the dehumanization of those outside. The person who notices the cost and names it is rarely welcomed; that moment of naming is also the beginning of leaving.
Each step builds on the last.