I wish I wasn't different

Sometimes I wish I was born a different person. Someone normal. Without autism or ADHD. Normal. Why? Because no matter how many times your football coach told you being normal sucks, it's better than being abnormal. Being abnormal makes life harder than it already is by a Longshot. Using myself as an example. I had a hell of a childhood. I'll be the first one to say it could've been worse, but alot of the bad parts really stick with me and still hurt me to this day. Constantly marginalized and mocked and laughed at by everyone around you. Imagine a school life where it was rare for anyone to be even remotely nice to you. When they were, it was out of pity rather than actual kindness. Imagine growing up through that and life getting harder in different ways. Being unable to read body language, understand jokes or sarcasm. Hard time with empathy.  Hard time understanding emotion in general. Both yours and others'. Inability to read social situations and act accordingly. Ignorant of the hundreds of unspoken social laws, and practically no way to learn them. Opportunities withheld from you because of how you were born. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

It makes life really fucking hard. I had to study comedy and sarcasm for years just to understand when people are telling jokes and when they are being serious, and I still can't fucking tell half the time. I've had to work harder just to be able to socialize competently than most people do for anything their entire fucking lives and still people wonder why I'm lazy. 

Getting a girlfriend? Hell you'll be lucky to have friends and keep them. Is it impossible? No. I was a decently popular guy in highschool and had a girlfriend. I still have quite a few friends and am dating a girl now. But it's hard. Really fucking hard. Because you can't be yourself. You have to fit in. And you don't. How do I say this? When do I say this? Is it right for me to say? What repercussions could I suffer? It's a matter of constantly walking on eggshells. Regular social anxiety is bad but anybody with anxiety, imagine also having autism and all of the absolutely fucking great things that come with that. Sometimes just having a conversation with a friend is enough to give you a bloody heart attack.

People like to sit there and act like they're not the norm. "Oh I'm so quirky" "oh I'm so weird" "oh I'm so different"
Shut up. Fuck off. You have no fucking idea what it's like to be different. You are the textbook definition of the status quo in this country. You are the norm. You wanna know how I know that? Because you are cruising through life. You have a ton of friends and no problem finding a partner. You go to tons of social events. You're constantly texting and snapping people. You aren't outside of the norm, you fucks. And while I'm at it, neither are you hippies. Just because you reject the mainstream doesn't mean you aren't still normal. It just means you have different interests than most people. Being truly abnormal is lonely. Because there AREN'T people like you out there. Not many anyways. Society rejects you and you can't do anything about it except pretend to be one of them. Hope they won't notice how different you are from them. Hope they won't act like the rest and kick you to the curb if they ever find out. That's what being truly different is really like. So stop romanticizing the concept of abnormality. You don't want to be different. Take it from someone who is. Take it from someone who wishes he wasn't.