When did you realize you weren't quite like everybody else?

Too weird for the normal people; too normal for the weird people...

I'm the opposite. I realized everybody is really similar at its core. We all have struggles, even though it doesn't look like it on the outside. Also I did a personality test few years ago, and with just answering 52 questions a computer could write a 2 page assay about what I was like. What things I find difficult, what thing I find easy. How I feel about myself. It shocked me how accurate it was. Now I realise that it is only possible if big groups of people are similar.

Probably somewhere around the age of 14 when most of my friends started doing "adult stuff" and I still prefered the things I had been doing up untill that point and now at over 30 I still prefer that over adulting.

I don't know if I'm actually that different from other people but I sure do feel like it. I'm quite independent. I like solitude and I tend to form my own opinions on stuff instead of adopting what people around me think.

I'm probably on the autistic spectrum somewhere and I don't think of myself as very nice person. I mean I don't treat people badly ever but I'm not much of a people pleaser either and can be quite blunt from time to time. Surprisingly many people still seem to like me so I don't know what's wrong with them.

Somewhere early In primary school. I was always the weird one, the different one, the one who doesn’t get other people’s jokes, and laughs at my own. I would do what people said, not what they meant, and I’d always get in trouble for talking them too literally.

Over fifty years later, with similar problems throughout my working life, I’ve finally come to realise in the last few months that I’m probably autistic.

When my teacher took me aside after a lesson, and told me I need to "tone down the Kyle (my name)". Basically, "stop being yourself, you're annoying everyone". Has a different flavour now, over 10 years later, with me discovering recently I might be autistic.

Since I can remember. My two older brothers, primarily the oldest one, made sure that I knew I wasn't as good as everyone else, as soon as I was able to talk.... or at least it seems that way to me. He would mock or belittle any accomplishment I made, regularly take my things, batter me for any and every reason under the sun, as long as my parents didn't see.... The abuse continued pretty much right up until adolescence. My parents divorced and I went with my dad, he went with my mom (more or less). I was still a juvenile at the time and he was old enough to decide for himself.

To give examples, if I "bragged" about anything I had accomplished, he would shut me down about how he either already did it, or does it better than I can, which was true at the time, since he was 5 years older than me, so he had easily twice as long to do things. He would make a mockery of any achievement that he couldn't say he had already done or done better. He would belittle everything I did and said, tease me to the point of blinding anger then beat me senseless exclaiming "he started it!".

I was never as good as he was. I could never measure up. But bluntly, it's hard to compare an 8 year old to a 13 year old.

I came to peace with all of this a long time ago, and I've come to realize that while many were bullied in their youth, and I was bullied too.... I lived with my bully. I've "gotten over it" (so to speak) and moved on with my life. I've realized that, compared to many, I seem to be intellectually superior, getting concepts faster than others, picking up on things more easily. Learning better and retaining knowledge more effectively.... Instead of lording that over anyone, like my oldest brother did to me, I instead try to enlighten anyone that's willing to learn, encouraging them in their own journey of knowledge. Lifting them up.

I'm secure in my knowledge, my person, my station, my sexuality.... Etc. I'm not threatened by someone smarter than I am, and I'm not in need of my ego being bolstered by putting others down.

I don't consider my parents first child to be my brother. He gave that up when he relentlessly bullied me for nearly two decades. I owe him nothing, and I want nothing from him. I do not forgive, I am unable to forget.

Around puberty. Somewhere around 12-13ish maybe.

I suddenly realized everyone has opinions about you. I suddenly became incredibly self conscious about the way I looked, what I said, and what sort of friends I had. At the same time, I really couldn't read people at all.

I stopped being able to talk to people, which further disconnected me from others. I was also sort of ostracized from this group I grew up with because they started to notice that I was weird and not as conventionally good looking.

Also...as everyone started to grow up around me, they started becoming interested in dating. People would occasionally ask me if I though X person or Y person was attractive. I was just confused by the whole thing and never understood what they were talking about. As I grew older, I began to understand what they meant, but I could never experience and feel what they feel. I'm not a late bloomer. I'm almost 30 and I'm still this way. I remember stumbling across the asexual community years back as an older teen and I still didn't identify with them either. Most of them to still have sexual urges and/or the ability to feel sexual pleasure. I'm the odd man out in even the asexual community.

I think something odd happened when my brain was developing that made me who I am. I'm not 100% sure why it happened, but it makes me different from others that can at times be very isolating and lonely. I know everyone has their struggles, and so humans are all similar on that front. But lacking certain key feelings that 99.999% of humans feel can sometimes make you feel like an alien.

I'm doing pretty well for myself otherwise though. I have a decent job and am able to support myself just fine. I adore most of my coworkers and really appreciate them in my life. They are the kind that makes anyone feel welcome, even an awkward weirdo like me. I'm far happier now than I was growing up in middle school and high school. It's just those occasional moments in time where I look at everything and realize that I can't be like the conventional human being. So it can be a bit depressing at times.

Watching Suits on Netflix, I’ve realized that not everyone remembers things the way I do. Mike Ross’s memory is like mine. If I read something and understand it, I never forget it. If I need to get new information about a past event, I can review the scene in my memory and look at the details I missed the first time.

With my sexuality: When talking to friends about masturbation as young lads who just discovered our bodies and being the only one who put things up their butt because it felt good.

With my nuerodivergence: Finding out that a lot of how my mind works is not normal except with other NDs. Only was a few years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD and BPD and told to get further testing for autism after talking to a lot of people online about the subject.

When I was in the shower in gym class.

Oh, that's a helluva question.

Knew I was gay at 14, knew I was different at 8ish.

Knew I wasn't social like other kids when I was 7 or 8.

Couple other ways I'll keep to myself, but give ya ages. 11, 13, 16, 21.

When I realized people generally don't point when laughing with you.

When I stopped being able to shop for pants in stores in my early teens. Being in the top half of the 99th percentile of height has its bonuses, but also has its drawbacks.

I realized this at a very young age when I learned that my schoolmates were meeting each other every day, while I was living far away, in a bubble, separated from the country and with inappropriate education.

When I started struggling through college and didn't understand why

Whenever puberty really started. I knew I wasn't a boy before then, but the testosterone ramping up made me realize how wrong all of that was. The disconnect between my brain and my body got worse and I couldn't really handle the changes that were happening

Recently. It’s been over 10 years since school. I actively chose to exclude myself from the people in my class. It seems like I should’ve tried to make friends. I didn’t even remember their names when graduating.

When I first attended school and wasn't treated like everyone else.