Why can't I just be normal?

People have always asked me to stop being myself

Even if I was just being happy hurting no one

This had always ended up making me want to hurt or even kill myself

I must be doing and even being something wrong

Finding out I'm autistic and there are other people like me In the world has really helped me

But a life time of of cruelty and abuse doesn't go away over night

People saying I can't be myself or show my feelings always saying I'm lazy even as I clean up after them calling me useless has made me long for death for most of my life

I have started to understand that these people do not care about me even if they are "family" they are not good or safe people

If I am not me then I am dead

I have wasted so much of my life trying and failing to change everything thing about myself

Even if I could manage to do as I have been told it is never good enough for people

I can grow and change slowly but I am not good at making myself to the point that people are "ok with me"

I can pretend to be happy and hide that I'm in pain sometimes

But I can't fully mask the way some autistic people can.

And if I have a blank expression and tone people often try to impose a reflection of their own feelings or the feelings that they anticipate that I might be having rather than paying attention to what I actually feel or my words or actions

People that have claimed to love me seem to want me to change everything thing about myself

So who do they love?

Because them wanting me to change everything thing about me has made me want to die

I know that I'm not the only autistic person to feel these kinds of things or to be mistreated by people that claim to love them

And I know that many autistic people have it way worse than I do

But I hope that with more knowledge about autism and other autistic people sharing what it is and feels like being autistic things will get better for us and the people around us too