The rantings of a Broken machine

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Good day ya'll, i'm very new to this forum and as an introduction i'll state my general information and share some of my experience to see if some of us resonate and maybe some advice here and there.

I'm Romano, 22 living in the Netherlands.
i'm an electrician by occupation but i prefer to just not talk about that stuff.

i often go hiking where i can and i've been spending a lot of the past year in the woods.

now you may be asking why i named this post "the rantings of a broken machine"?
because i'm fairly certain 80% of us have felt or do feel this way. even though we aren't broken. matter of fact, to us the world might seem broken and corrupted.
i have often found myself wondering how i fit into this world? why am i me. why would we all have the attributes we do?
how is this and why?
i can certainly tell you how and maybe even why (from my own experience of course).

how:
it all starts in the beginning as all stories do, i grew up moving from town to village and back, being able to make friends and all that while coping with the huge changes. this all took place ages 8 - 12. around the latter part of those years kids start to develop a herd mentality, where you either fit in or you don't. and coincidentally, i did not fit in. all of a sudden you're shunned, cast aside and wondering why people think you're weird. you're just doing the things the way your body thinks they should be done. but according to others you're not one of them. you weren't born the same way. you don't think the same way. and thus, you begin feeling like a broken machine. yearning to be accepted.

the luckier ones (as was i) are caught early on, and they get labelled. you're autistic, or you're hyper active and can't sit still.
often times teachers don't know what to do with this, as do other kids. so you begin a downward spiral, a life of trying to cope with high fast paced movements that your brain resists with every inch of its being, because it knows it was not meant for you.
while all this is going on and you're increasingly becoming aware of this, the growing resentment forms. you've got your diagnosis, that's atleast something right?
ages 12 - 18.

oh boy, you've just started realising the world may not be the most suitable place for you, but that's alright. from the beginning of time as you can remember your dad and uncles are trying to pressure you into liking and going after girls, you yourself feel this urge too but have no desire to be put in the spotlights. after all, why would you? you've been shunned your whole life ever since you grew self awareness. anxiety grows.
you finally work up the courage to try it out, not understanding a single bit of how to approach women. you try, and stumble. words don't come out, your eyes turn away, your face grows increasingly red and your brain can only enter flight, fight or freeze. so thus, you freeze. like a deer in the headlights, you took the spotlight. and got a little more than you bargained for.

i can keep going like this, but out of all the things i've struggled with in my life. love and everything around it has hurt me the most.
it's slightly some ramblings and i changed perspective mid writing, but this is just one perspective out of just one subject in an autistic life. if i was to lay out all my struggles we'd be here all day, as yours probably do too.

my biggest annoyance about this world, is that people want to include us into normal life with stupid stuff like cop cars with big bright bold lettering saying "autism speaks" while 75% of us hate that organisation. this all, is to show how shallow the people are that try to bring us in. it might be coming from a good place but no one stops to check on us how we think about such things or what would actually help us.
teachers shunning ADHD or autistic kids for wanting a little more control.

often times i wish there were autistic only places, or some more accomedations that actually help us.

socially i struggle a lot with the opposite sex thanks due to (what i think is CPTSD).
but what i've always found is that when i talk to someone who's on the spectrum too, it doesn't matter if they're male or female. we're direct, don't beat around the bush and that i find very comforting. but there's just not a lot out there for us over here.
sometimes i wished there was a dating app purely for us, but i think that's quite a shallow way of solving the issue.

anyways, if you found this at all a little bit interesting or helpful. than i didn't spend the past 30 minutes writing this for nothing. and to any parent who has an autistic child, don't be too hard on them. they themselves know what's best most of the time.

Greetings!

This. Tho I felt and still feel the opposite; that everyone but me went "faulty" lol. Though I didn't accept my viewpoint for years ('cause yeah, somehow everyone is wrong but not me... Feels unreasonable) but every time I re-thought it and/or talked someone 'bout some situation I deemed stupid I always came to that conclusion. Somebody on this forum once nicely wrote that "normal" people seem unfit to their own world, and I think that's true asf.


The problem is there's no single way to "approach women" as everyone is different and flirting is a big matter on it's own already. I personally just don't care and talk with girls same way I'd with other boys, and that approach so far works for me. IMO if something is to come out of relationship, it will.


Thankfully I have no idea what that organization is.

I started out not realizing I was different. Then realized I was being treated differently (not in a nice way) for no reason I could fathom. That lead me to wonder if something was wrong with me, but the only thing I could think of was that I was more intelligent than most people (I later joined Mensa). Finally, though, I did come to the realization that it was everyone else that was wrong, even though they could physically dominate me. Much later I learned that I had a congenital heart valve problem that would've put me at a physical disadvantage. Finding out about the Autism came later—and I don't think it is a flaw but the World believes it is so and treats me accordingly and that was incredibly inconvenient.

Sheer coincidence... I suspect this article might explain how Allistics could've accomplished so much...

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

I can relate a lot to most of what you wrote. On my side of the Atlantic there are seemingly a lot more neurodivergence-centered organizations but it's still really hard to meet people who are like me. I've always felt like the whole world has lost its mind, and at my most cynical times I've definitely felt like autists are the only sane people (generally however I can see that many non-autists are also sane, just not enough to make a difference).

Welcome to Wrong Planet!