I’ll be honest….

As someone who’s lived. I don’t feel like I’ve LIVED.

I’ve wanted to do music theater, but I feel like I’ve been denied opportunities to enjoy performing in music theater because of how I come across with autism . I don’t FIT into any particular character in stage and it makes me feel really miserable seeing kids in their 20’s who are neurotypical who DO fit.

The same, sadly, is said for opera. I’ve wanted to perform in major houses, but despite my experience and my professional capabilities I’ve been denied over and over and over and, I feel like my autism has something to do with it.

But beyond professional realms, I feel like my lack of friends has also presented a lack of opportunities to actually live a little with them. I don’t get to go to theme parks as frequently as other people, I don’t get to travel as much as I’d like, I don’t get to attend concerts, or raves, or other cool events with friends, and that’s what makes those events so much of a treasure. I’ve been sinking lately into videos of people at ski trappers doing tricks in the parks, people at amusement parks on roller coasters, people at fairs and festivals like krampus runs and weihnachtsmarkts, people enjoying moments with character performers at Disney parks, just people having FUN… together

and my problem is that as an autistic guy, I feel left out of the world, like it’s passing me by while I’m stuck in a Proverbial mire, when I’m not there with people doing stuff.

I feel like a glitch in a computer program. An object of a class in a program that does not belong, that no other part of the program wants to interact with. Like of the program was to run “Disney day at the beach, I’d be deliberately left out and unwelcome at any part of it. Games, music, luaus, parasailing/catamaraning, it’d all be inaccessible because of how left out of the group I feel as an autistic adult.

I wish there were events and get togethers organized for autistic adults, to interact with neurotypical people like we are on their level, events where we do things that EVERYONE can do. I feel like if a program just organized something for autistic adults, we’d be no different than a special education class taking a walk in between two neurotypical chaperones, objects of jarring distinction.

Do other neurodivergent people, high functioning or not, feel the same way? Like they aren’t part of a tribe of people?