i'll always grieve the life i could've had if i were only born normal

im feeling a bit melancholic these days as it finally, fully dawned upon me that i am indeed neurodivergent (autistic specifically), im not being ableist with any of these sentences i will write as a small disclaimer.

but, now that i finally came to terms with my autism it's like my life has gotten 10x more depressing. usually when people come to a self-realization about themselves, they always seem at peace afterwards but that didn't happen to me apparently. it's just, how do i put? being autistic is an isolating experience, i went my whole life wondering why everyone avoided me, why they always looked at me like i was weird and it always seemed like people just knew how to connect. everyone except me.

for neurotypical people, if you want to know what being neurodivergent actually feels like think of it as this: imagine you have a group of friends, and one day they suddenly have some inside joke that they laugh about and you don't understand anything they're talking about. you try to include yourself in it, but it doesn't work out because they all stare at you like you're weird. you try to get them to explain, but they refuse. so you go out your whole life with the said friend group never fully understanding them.

that's basically how it feels like for me. it just feels isolating like i said before, sure people are nice to me but i can tell that they look at me like they think something is wrong with me. masking is exhausting, doing anything is actually insanely exhausting. i really dont want to live like this, why wasn't i just born normal man