Hi guys,

So after all the self-discovery I have been through the past year, months of agonizing over things that went wrong in the past and analyzing what my role in it was, and finally getting over not being able to have a relationship with a person that I wanted to, I began to think - what’s the point of it all?

Briefly, last year was a revelation for me - I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder as many of you may know, after 24 years of not understanding why my life seemed to be the disaster it was, why everyone rejected me, and why I seemed to be an involuntary observer rather than an active participant in life. Over several months, I began to put the pieces together, all the bad experiences I had up until then, and finally what they all meant in the context of having autism.

I also figured out why, for example, I can’t seem to start or have relationships, whether romantic or just a friendship, with people. It comes down to the lack of my ability to show empathy. I finally figured out that was the reason my romantic interest mentioned earlier (and that some of you know about) never materialized into a relationship with that person. She obviously felt rejected by me and wasn't impressed with me no-selling her romantic signals, which I by now figured out she was doing initially (until she got fed up of being ignored obviously and felt rejected by me).

The thing is though, I know now that I acted like a jerk to many people - very cold and unresponsive, lacking compassion and empathy in every day encounters with others, and believe me, for that I feel sorry and extremely guilty. I accept that it was ME that did put out that message and I don’t blame normal people for being pissed with me, I really don't. I understand that they don't understand, because I didn't even understand, if you know what I mean.

The thing is, I don’t know if anyone here (diagnosed with autism in adulthood) has ever had this experience, but have you ever tried explaining to normal people that you now know what you did and you feel bad about it, but that it really wasn't intentional, and that you didn't even understand what was going on and what you were doing? That you are not heartless, cold or compassion-less, but simply can’t show it? They totally IGNORE you and CONTINUE to believe their own analysis of you. I already feel so enormously guilty and ashamed for the mere fact that I portrayed such a horrible false persona of myself, but I mean, I didn't know I was doing it. Now that I wish to explain, people convey to me in a non-verbal manner that I must leave them alone forever for being such a jerk (yes, it was her that did it). They firmly believe I am a psychopath or some narcissistic jerk who has not an ounce of compassion for any living person. In other words, I am some kind of monster. The worst thing is, they treat you like this so much that you begin to believe it yourself.

So, when I really think about it, I mean what's the difference, right? To a normal person, an autistic person and a psychopath boils down to the same thing - a person to avoid, a monster that you must keep out of your life at all costs.

Furthermore, if you really think about it, why should they care anyway, right? Statistics say that 2 to 3 people out of 1000 people of the population are autistic. So, I mean that's at most 1 person in about 330. Let's just imagine you've got a normal person and in their life they have at a given time about 100 in total of a mixture of friends, acquaintances, love interests and colleagues. Let’s say 1 of those 100 people is autistic. I truly believe that it becomes a case of “cut your losses” for these people (of course they'll never say that because you are technically a “human” and they should never be so callous as to reduce it all to a numbers game and see you as just a number - yeah, whatever) or the investment is greater than the reward. They just look at us and say “it's just too much effort to try and understand this person” and then they decide to just discard us, because let's face it - they've still got 99 other normal people to play with. I mean, I am yet to meet a farmer who will look at a crate of 99 green apples with 1 red one who says: “I'm not going to throw out this 1 red apple, I am going to throw out the other 99 green ones.” It just doesn't happen.

People just ignore autists because it's the obvious thing to do with the least amount of effort. Those other 99 normal friends or whatever constitutes less effort and more reward to the person.

So, at the end of the day, what’s the difference? We, as autists, expend substantial effort and spend so much time analyzing our condition, trying to accept ourselves, trying to get over a life of hurt and rejection, trying to improve the way we present ourselves, trying to show empathy (even though I have no clue what I'm doing) trying to see things from another, normal person's perspective. And, from their side, they just simply can't give a flying *****. In their eyes you’re just a freak, a weirdo, and a psycho - it doesn't matter that I have autism, because in their eyes it might as well be schizophrenia, psychopathy, or even f*cking rabies.

Now, these people are telling me I must take pills to make myself happy, that I have depression and who knows what. All I keep hearing is I must go onto medication. I don't need medication dammit, I need to be accepted just like everyone else gets accepted by default, with no effort simply because they are lucky enough to be born normal. What do they expect? All I know is a lifetime of rejection, false assumptions about me and projection of their fears onto me, and I'm going to just ignore all of that and smile and be happy about it? I must go onto medication? I know why they say that. They're tired of looking into my expressionless face. The fact that I'm unhappy is tiring to THEM. They don't like this unhappy person in their midst. Well boo-hoo, try walking in my boots for a day. As usual, it's all about them, the normals. Then, they have the audacity to tell me it's because they want me to be happy and they care about me. They only want me happy so that they have one less unconventional or uncommon problem/thing to deal with. They want everything to be easy, uncomplicated, and in a form they can solve with no effort on their part. They just want that luxury of being able to continue rejecting me, but now with a clear conscience, because, "Hey, the asshole is happy now because he's on happy pills, so nothing needs to change."

And then they call me narcissistic, a compassion-less monster. Whatever.