These are my feelings...

[lovely_darlingprettybaby]

I just want to be a normal person but I always felt I had to read others
I may not even be correct and I do not enjoy that life and want to be normal.
I do not know what normal us like but it is having normal thought patterns and interests.
And that is what I think somehow I will always be that becomes people will feel and expect it but I can never be that and it puts a lit of pressure on me all the time to be loving and generous as possible instead of just me.
I would like to talk about normal things
Without this mad disease
Then also people will expect me more to fit social norms and like talking about my talents constantly.
And be like you are so talented once they know you and it I got yo know some people maybe i would never tell them. But apparently they can read me as well and I cannot hide things but I hate being known as talented.
I just want to be me.

 

[Xinyta]

I feel this alot.

Something that needs to be accepted first in ourselves, as ASD folks, is that we will never fully assimilate to society's definition of socail norms.

Secondly. Normal is a subjective topic on the basis of personal belief and perception. Rarely would a group agree on one kind of 'normal'.

Ask yourself this: "What does normal mean to me?"

If your answer is about other's perceptions of you that you'd like or a overall standing as 'normal' by societital standards. You are cutting yourself short of your own self belief.

Make your own definition of normal instead. Embrace the weird. Your own brand of weird is not a bad thing. Letting others harm your sense of self, is the bad thing.

Does this mean you just stop living life? Of course not. It just means you have accepted that not everyone is going to see you, as you see yourself. And that is alright.

 

[lovely_darlingprettybaby]

You are right when I first discovered i was I think autistic I was like what are social norms do they even exist and I was like i do not get them.
But now I wonder if people judge a person because of their appearance and talents and expect them to act or behave a certain way.
Like that they would expect a person with good appearance to have loads of confidence or be really vain or really obsessed with clothes and looking really glamorous and pretty and a bit arrogant or self obsessed but I may not always be correct.
Or someone with talents to be confident or think themselves as lucky because also they cannot do that and do not have confidence in themselves to try and wow that is really lucky for having that talent and how blessed they are when they completely miserable and cursing that they were born with this
And that is why it is hard with people you do not know because you have no idea how they think before you meet them.
So in case they do not agree or think differently they should be really consciencely aware that you may not know it until you get to know them.
Because autistics can think really differently when people may just think you are making trouble or difficult.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

@lovely_darlingprettybaby , as you've suggested here, you just want to be you without this baggage of expectations of others. Is the same people in which you've complained about in other posts? The same people that seem to hold power over you?

At some point here, I hope you realize that you can't change other people. You have to change yourself, and hopefully into someone you can accept. Hopefully, this person you become has the confidence and strength to reject the toxicity and no longer allow people to hold power over you. I don't think it's the autism, per se, but rather how you've internalized it. NTs go through a lot of the same experiences with people like this (my sisters, two different men) and it is highly destructive.

Sometimes you must do things not because you feel like doing them, but because you have to. Now, I had the advantage of having parents that taught me how to do things for myself. As much as I didn't like it growing up, it was the best thing for me. No dependence upon anyone for anything. You start from nothing and build yourself up. If someone didn't teach you how to do something, you taught yourself. It doesn't sound like you've had this experience, but given your situation, you might find that you can do a lot more for yourself than what you think you can, if the will and the drive were there.

Now, you can sit here on the forums, every day, every other day, posting your feelings about the situation you're in, and have a few people click a few "red hearts" your way, OR are you going to get up one day, look in the mirror, and say to yourself "Enough is enough" "I am sick and tired of not living my life the way I want to live my life." "I am master and commander of this ship now, and this is what I am going to do." At some point, I am hoping you'll get your back straight, shoulders back, chin up, and start walking through life with a goal, driven, and with purpose. You have to take control.

As someone with autism, I can say for certain there are things that I cannot do, so I just do a little side step and keep moving forward. I don't even let it slow me down. If people or something stands in my way, I will either side step them or put my shoulders and head down and run right through them. You have to be a FORCE to be reckoned with. People don't give you things. You earn it or take it.

 

[Ken]

I just want to be a normal person but I always felt I had to read others
I may not even be correct and I do not enjoy that life and want to be normal.
I do not know what normal us like but it is having normal thought patterns and interests.
And that is what I think somehow I will always be that becomes people will feel and expect it but I can never be that and it puts a lit of pressure on me all the time to be loving and generous as possible instead of just me.
I would like to talk about normal things
Without this mad disease
Then also people will expect me more to fit social norms and like talking about my talents constantly.
And be like you are so talented once they know you and it I got yo know some people maybe i would never tell them. But apparently they can read me as well and I cannot hide things but I hate being known as talented.
I just want to be me.

I used to feel that way. But, decades of life has taught me a lot.

Now: I don't want to be "normal"; if normal is typical. To me, typical is nothing. typical is neutral = zero.
Now, after a few decades of learning, I want to be me. But me is not normal. But, that is OK because I no longer want to be normal anyway.

People criticize me and call me weird. OK, yes, I am weird. I am no-longer offended by their insults. Now I consider being called weird a compliment. I am different. In the ways that are important to me, I believe I am better than normal. I believe I am above zero. I do not mean to say I am better than others, just that I am not normal. I mean to say that I have learned to like the abnormal me. It is better for me. I am not a zero. In many ways, I am below normal. OK, I don't like that part of normal anyway, so I'm OK with not being that kind of normal.

I have learned that I am what I am. Like the laws of physics, it is what it is. I am what I'm supposed to be. I have learned that feeling bad because I'm not like other people is jealousy. I have learned that jealousy is self-shaming and destructive. Losing jealousy unveiled the real me. I have learned to appreciate the real me. I finally realize that is where I am the most comfortable. Much like a fish is more comfortable in the water as opposed to a desert and a Gila monster is more comfortable in the desert. I am more comfortable being me, safe in my haven.

It took many years to realize who I am. Learning who I am was a shocking surprise. Prior to that I always judged myself by others. I'm not others so I always seemed defective. Like a bulldozer is very different from a Corvette. Neither are defective, but a Corvette does not do well pushing huge mounds of dirt and a bulldozer does not do well cruising on a highway. I am different and finally I am proud of that because I am what I'm supposed to be. Now that I know that I'm me instead of the others I was comparing myself to, I realized that knowing who I am has put me in a very comfortable place.

I hope that someday you can eventually learn that the real you is uniquely beautiful and above normal; greater than zero, and something to be proud of.

 

[Atrapa Almas]

When I was in my teens I wanted to be normal. I did not realize that I actually I wanted to be loved. It seems that I thought that by being normal I would be loved too.

Most autists people have very few friends and believe it or not, most NT also have very few (if any) friends as autists understand friendship.

Most autist people struggle a lot to find love, and believe it or not, most NT also have problems to find love as autists understand it.

Most married people are unhappy and bored of that person in a few years. Do you know what kind of people can mantain special interests for their whole life? We do.

Our friendship last forever and our love last forever. We experience life in extremes, white or black. Love or hate.

NT way of being friend is more gray-ish, more like a temporal alliance, fluid, it may be there today and fail tomorrow.

NT way of loving is also like that. They percieve life as an scale of grays that hardly ever touches black or white.

Im now in my fourties. Most of my NT friends are married and no longer love their wifes. They do all kind of stuff to avoid being at home with their kids. They talk bad of other friends when they are away. They go with prostitutes every now and then. Their wifes doesnt care of them while they maintain the apparences. All of them love the same things: Football, Cars and Porn.

I do not want to be normal anymore. I dont want that fake life of apparences. I do love my wife and my daugther. I dont cheat. I have special interests that are trully mine. I do have a life of my own.

I have been part of help groups of listeners, and as soon as a NT reveals a different sexual prefference all their friends and family exclude them.

I understand that you want to be normal just as much as normal people want to be special. And I understand that you want to be loved and accepted.

Just be aware that most of those smilling people who seem to be happy, succesful and surrounded by friends are actually roleplaying, faking and pretendind. Most of them feel alone, unloved, stressed and unhappy with their lives.

Its perfectly fine that you feel that way.

 

[kenaij]

I have had some whiskey so take this with a grain of salt.

The word NORMAL is highly overrated. In my country and culture one of the basic sayings is: just act/be normal. Trust me. After 33/34 years I have come to realise that this forceful believe to be/act normal is what is destroying a lot of lives.

 

[Suzanne]

I am often told: what is normal? But, in truth, it is easy for neurotypicals to say that, because they are "normal" ie able to function and not have the same issues we face each day.

Sometimes I love being an aspie and other times, I find it a huge burden, because I live in a world of neurotypicals.

My husband who was there when I received my diagnosis, said just yesterday: why did you have a headache? I said: too much association and he looked at me quizzically. I explained that I went out for a group lunch, to help celebrate a couple's 50 wedding anniversary. Then, the following day, I went to a meeting and then, the next day, I had someone coming to me for us to have a bible study. He found it hard that I would feel overstimulated. But, did not argue the point; just accepted it and does try to work with me.

It is thanks to my diagnosis, that I can now discern what is causing overstimulation.

My friend said she was chatting with her daughter, who has ADHD and related how I have ASD and her daughter put her hands up in the air and said: hear, hear to neurodiverse ones!

I come here to breath, because it is the only place I can feel safe, from a world dominated by neurotypicals.

 

[bard]

So... I don't know about this. I know what it's like to get straight As and succeed in being jobless as well as succeed in homeless because I have a lack of something called soft skills and while the math is incredibly easy, impressively bad at budgeting.
All I know is just being you and trying to be nice is the best you can aim for... and getting a number 1 school early on or a doctorate in something with low soft skill expectations like mathematics so a severe lack of soft skills are tolerated. (I wish I knew this a little earlier... but anyways... )
It's okay to be yourself, that way no one is surprised at you later. They can't be mad at you for tricking them later, they just like you or do not like you, or they'll warm up to you and like you later.

 

[Outdated]

I never wanted to be normal. Plenty of people tried to force me to be normal and I always rejected it instinctively. I like who I am and I'm proud of what I'm capable of. No I don't fit in very often, but when I look back in hindsight at the sorry sadsacks that I grew up with I'm more than happy about that.

If you can not respect yourself then no one else will either.
If you can not love yourself then no one else will either.

Good advice from my grandfather: "Don't go dreaming in the realms of What If. You can get lost in there. You play with the cards you've been dealt.".

 

[kenaij]

I am often told: what is normal? But, in truth, it is easy for neurotypicals to say that, because they are "normal" ie able to function and not have the same issues we face each day.

Just as ND's are all very much different so are NT's. To assume it is easy for someone to be 'normal' just because they are NT is shortsighted.

There are a lot of reasons why someone that is not ND to not be 'normal'

- One might simply have a very low IQ. They will most likely not feel normal because to them it seems that everyone around them can do everything much easier.
- There might be a boy that likes to play with dolls. He might not feel normal because all other boys around him want to play football.
- Someone might really be into dungeons and dragons and loves to cosplay. They will not feel normal because people around them think they are a weird for wanting to wear chainmail.

These are just 3 simple examples that could very well be a possibility for someone that is NT.
ND people generally have a set of specific things where we are different from the people around us. But so do many other people.

 

[Ken]

When I was in my teens I wanted to be normal. I did not realize that I actually I wanted to be loved. It seems that I thought that by being normal I would be loved too.

Most autists people have very few friends and believe it or not, most NT also have very few (if any) friends as autists understand friendship.

Most autist people struggle a lot to find love, and believe it or not, most NT also have problems to find love as autists understand it.

Most married people are unhappy and bored of that person in a few years. Do you know what kind of people can mantain special interests for their whole life? We do.

Our friendship last forever and our love last forever. We experience life in extremes, white or black. Love or hate.

NT way of being friend is more gray-ish, more like a temporal alliance, fluid, it may be there today and fail tomorrow.

NT way of loving is also like that. They percieve life as an scale of grays that hardly ever touches black or white.

Im now in my fourties. Most of my NT friends are married and no longer love their wifes. They do all kind of stuff to avoid being at home with their kids. They talk bad of other friends when they are away. They go with prostitutes every now and then. Their wifes doesnt care of them while they maintain the apparences. All of them love the same things: Football, Cars and Porn.

I do not want to be normal anymore. I dont want that fake life of apparences. I do love my wife and my daugther. I dont cheat. I have special interests that are trully mine. I do have a life of my own.

I have been part of help groups of listeners, and as soon as a NT reveals a different sexual prefference all their friends and family exclude them.

I understand that you want to be normal just as much as normal people want to be special. And I understand that you want to be loved and accepted.

Just be aware that most of those smilling people who seem to be happy, succesful and surrounded by friends are actually roleplaying, faking and pretendind. Most of them feel alone, unloved, stressed and unhappy with their lives.

Its perfectly fine that you feel that way.

Very true and insightful. Thank you for that post.