I was told to make an introduction.
People often misinterpret my ... natural state of being ... my personality type ... as a sign of something sinister. "He's evil. He's heartless. He's violent. Something's wrong with him. He must be depressed. Something's not right with him." Nothing is wrong with me. Yet I have to bend over backwards to convince people of that, all because my personality isn't like theirs. I am content with my life, and who I am. It's everyone else who isn't content with who I am ... I've never broken a law, I have no intention of ever breaking one. I abide by society's rules. And yet, still, because my personality isn't like theirs, I'm a monster. Though no one believes it, there are people I care about. People that I want to be happy. But they never believe me. And because of who I am, they always end up scared of me ... or if I unintentionally hurt their feelings ... end up hating me. Because I don't care about things, like they do.
If I speak my mind, I say things that scare them, things that suggest I don't have some visceral disdain for things like other people do. I don't want to give examples. I know if I listed some of the things I think about stuff ... there would be people here who would hate me too... and I'd likely be banned.
I feel like I'm an alien around other humans... like they're speaking some other language and acting in odd ways, and I have to do so much research, and so much calculation, just to try to mimic what they do, constantly fearing that they can see through it, that they know I'm just acting like them, that I'm not like them. People are so foreign to me, but because they rule the world, I have to behave like them, and when I see myself doing the things they do ... I feel foreign to myself.
My voice doesn't have inflections like other people, it doesn't modulate like theirs, I don't get excited for everything like them. I don't move my face around in ways other people do ... so when other students threaten violence in a joking way, it's fodder ... but when I do it, it's an emergency. I joked to a friend at 17, and he reported me. I explained to the principle; people can't tell when I'm being facetious. She called a bunch of people, I had a bunch of meetings with them, I made the mistake of just being myself ... they were scared. Disgusted. I saw it in their eyes and faces, to all my answers. To them, I was a monster. My answers were honest ... that I didn't care about certain things, that things didn't concern me. What's the sin in that? At our last meeting they showed me a picture of someone suffering in a war zone and asked me how I felt about it. I told them that I felt like it was a picture of a man holding someone who is dying. They insisted in knowing how it made me "feel." I told them the truth: that I didn't understand the question. I could have lied, and told them the "correct" answer ... that I felt sad, horrified by the suffering in the picture. But I wanted to just be honest. It's not like the suffering made me happy. But my personality, my answers, scared them ... it made them psychologically uncomfortable ... which, to me, sounds like a personal mental problem of theirs ... perhaps they should go see a psychologist? No, you see ... because THEY feel bad around me, I'M the one, somehow, who needs to go see a psychologist.
They told me I wasn't allowed back in the school until I saw a psychologist. I learned from them. I learned that I can never be myself with people. What comes natural to them, has to be calculated by me, has to be forced. So I forced it. I sat down with the psychologist, and acted like they do. I smiled when she smiled. When she said something intended to be funny, I made sure to laugh. When she told me a sad story, I'd say something like "oh no" or "that's horrible" and I'd say it in their kind of voice. Emotional. I didn't sit too still, because I know that makes them feel uncomfortable. I moved my hands around when I talked. I reminded myself to put inflections in my voice. I projected the image of one of them. And she bought it. She okayed me, and I went back to school.
Since then, I realize the only way to get by with people is to walk around eggshells with them. To continue with the farce, so as to make sure to never make them feel uncomfortable. Every day, from the moment I wake up to the moment to the moment I fall asleep, I have to pretend to be like them, or they will punish me. So I do. Up to this day.
And I am exhausted by it. I am tired by it. I'm constantly an actor on stage, and it never ends. It never will.
Today, I'm free from academic authorities requiring compliance, mandating I go see some deified psychologist with a piece of paper on her wall and, thus, the authority to determine who is okay and who deserves to be rendered "abnormal" and not okay.
I've never met another person like me. Hiding in plain sight like me. I'd like to meet someone like me. So I found this site, and here I am.
And that's my introduction.