Comradeship // Freechat

I've always been a weird duck as we say in Dutch. Always had my own interests, my own way of doing things and never really got into the popular or mainstream crowds in school and outside of that. As a result high school was kinda tough. I was bullied for some time just for being different. Never got accepted by my football teams either for that matter. I was quite lonely for some years in my teens and it caused me to become quite insecure about who I was and why I was treated this way. I was not your typical manly guy because besides sports I also had other interests like music and dressing up in colors that are not black or blue. In my hometown, a rough working class town, this was frowned upon by most of my peers.

Being isolated drove me to some less than ideal relationship and even made me turn to criminal behavior. I struggled a lot with myself and found my coping strategies in drugs, alcohol and partying. Tried to end myself at one point too.

When I was around twenty, I think, I was told that when I was a kid I was diagnosed with autism and things started to make some more sense. My parents never really did anything with this diagnosis as they considered it a bit of bullshit so for my entire life up until that point I always felt so different and like I not belonged anywhere.

It wasn't until my early twenties when I found myself breaking free from my old surroundings. I moved to a bigger city with a lot more open minded people and slowly but surely I found my interests and started developing my own being. And this went on for a few years and only recently started to manifest into a more serious happiness and feeling content with myself because I was able to get therapy, which tackled my struggles from the past.

What I learned at therapy was that I am worth being myself and that I should not have to apologise for being myself or having different interests. Better yet, having my own interests and finding ways to express them helped me getting in contact with like minded people. My entire life I spent feeling ashamed of who I was but being your own quirky or weird self is not something to be ashamed about. Rather, it should be celebrated. Sadly not everyone will understand this and some people might even choose to not hang around with you for this but ultimately that's their decision and, also, their right. It sucks because it can cause periods of loneliness or even exclusion but I feel more happy embracing who I am than trying to mask and fitting in with people I don't get along with anyway.