i want to be normal, but i’m also afraid of being normal.

given my physical shape and the way i carry myself, i certainly don’t look normal. but on the inside sometimes i do feel like i’m on a precipice. one step from that cruel fate.

one time i had a conversation with russula about how if i wanted to be a mathematician i would have to become / stay antisocial, because so many of the big historical mathematicians were neurodivergent like that. you said that was stupid, and that i was cherry picking those examples because they were counterintuitive. and yeah, i kind of agree. but also, it’s easy to say that when you’re already that way so naturally.

babies are usually born normal. at what point did i become unnormal? in the shaping of very early development, i guess, but middle school is when i started seeing that i could potentially be unnormal. it felt really good. i had no ability to socialize, but by being cool i could still thrive. i’m still kinda like this, except adults don’t care nearly as much about coolness and they care much more about basic social skills. oh well!

i’ve also realized that the set of people i get along with now is very small and very queer. in hindsight it has always been rather small. but now i find it unreasonably difficult to relate in any way to non queer people, which i hate. chrysanthemum feels similarly and helped put it into words for me.

what i often hear is that we should be proud of our differences. but pride is scary. feeling alone in my identity is scary. when not with people, i don’t have to think about my differences or my sames. when i’m in a closet, i don’t have to exist as an identity, and i am neither normal or unnormal. maybe this is why i’m a neet.

chrysanthemum seems to have a very solid conception of what normal is, and is proud of having recently become normal. at the same time, they’re still very online and… capable? of being not normal. chrysanthemum wants me to have community so that i can become normal.

freesia has a different conception of what normal is. sometimes i feel like she uses the word “neurodivergent” a bit aggressively. it almost makes me feel attacked, even though she means it in a positive way. as if she couldn’t believe that someone would see it as something to be ashamed of.