Unlike You, I Don't Have to Say I'm Strange on the Internet, It's Very Clear

When I was in the 7th grade my mother called everyone she knew asking them to pray for me because I kept writing "Barty Crouch Jr" as my name in my books at school and pretending I had his tongue twitch. Like she honestly thought I was possessed or something. I was possessed, possessed by hyper-fixation on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Hyper-fixation is a common side effect of high functioning neurodivergence. I am autistic. I suffer greatly from elevated IQ, extraordinary memory, alarming musical ability, and social incompetence. Luckily, my family afforded me an academic prep school for my formative years. I was surrounded by people similar to me at all times. I never felt out of place there. I feel out of place in the real world though.

I am odd. I suppose. My good friend Ashley once warned her ex boyfriend that he should be aware that I "don't post like a normal person" when he followed me on Instagram. I asked her what she meant by that. I wasn't offended, just curious. I'd never thought of the way I post on Instagram before. She explained that I "post for myself" and "don't care how others perceive it." She was right another that. Why would I care about what other people think of my Instagram? They don't pay me to look at it! To me though, my Instagram is like the Instagram of most of my friends. It's all things that we think are funny. Because...we're all neurodivergent. Neurotypicals often can't keep up with the neurodivergent mind and because of that, they can't keep up with our humor. It is often too dry, layered, and witty for them. It requires vast knowledge, memory recall, and pattern recognition. From the outside looking in, it's very strange.

I did all of the above character building because I want you to understand why it really irks me to see people running about pretending to be weird or mentally ill. They wouldn't know mental illness or strangeness if it punched them in the face. We, strange, neurodivergent people have suffered enough! We are ACTUALLY all suffering from mental illness at any given moment thanks to our intellects and it's frankly rude for these phonies to post a picture taken in .5 (the lens for neurodivergent people) and costume around as one of us. Stop! You aren't mentally ill or even weird, you just don't have a real job yet because you aren't driven to success, so you're bored. My friend Teddy once said "I can't stand people who pretend to be artsy for views. Always posting to sound deep and shit. Artists are like...like-okay. Iman. You know? Iman doesn't have to tell anyone she's an artist. It's obvious because she's so weird. Hahah. Love you, girl. Bring it in."