The weirdos I love hate themselves

 

For context, my dad is autistic (diagnosed at the time as childhood schizophrenia) and my mom is ADHD. I'm apparently neither, as of now. But I grew up in a family of weird people with quirks, sensibilities, limitations and self-hating thoughts. They need structure and stable lowkey jobs. Most don't have any friends except for other relatives and church acquaintances. And they are all very religious.

Here comes me. I was always very emotional, very empathetic and would defend my family and my beliefs with claws and fangs. Naturally, I grew up with an inherent attraction to weirdos. I always looked forward to making what I considered fun friends instead of boring ones. To other people, what I considered “fun” was actually just weird. But I didn’t care. 

Now, am I weird? I might not be diagnosed autistic or ADHD, I might not need to mask constantly, but I am. I am weird. The interesting part is that I can fake not being weird fairly well, and I could potentially only mingle with normal people, conservatives, people that don't scratch beyond the surface, people who rarely have existential crises, or who think faking it is necessary for society to run smoothly. But I never cared for those people, they are boring.

Some of my friends were: Lumi. She was awkward and had funny interests. Patricia was a 9-year-old atheist and feminist. Barbara was shy and didn't like people pointing at her, she was also obsessed with elephants. Thalita had a fairy-like persona and was always very hopeful. Nina was a weed addict and a sweetheart. Luisa was a bipolar artist. Arthur was an autistic nerdy kid. Putri was a depressed bisexual extremely reserved woman. Tuga was a sweet confused lovely autistic person. Loops is an autistic nerdy girl who would do anything to change her life, except y'know, actually changing it. And there’s also Wero, my newest friend, who is an autistic lesbian who loves hamsters and was desperate to be one of the popular kids as a teen.

I love complicated people. I love the people that define themselves as friendless, unbearable, too much and, although it's not a dealbreaker that they hate themselves, it has been a while I haven't met someone who likes, or even loves, being weird. As a kid, I had plenty of fun friends that loved themselves In my adolescence, they started getting depressed and now... holy shit. They all hate themselves.

Trigger warning: social rejection, depression, abuse.

There are many reasons for that self-hatred. I'll number a few.

1. We notice people hate us

Even though I fucking love the weirdos, I know that most people are not into them. I experience this as a normal-for-pay person. When I act like myself, people find it disturbing, awkward and cringey.

On the most superficial level, people often use the word "weird" to refer to suspicious or red-flag behavior. To the point that anything considered remotely weird by them is suspicious enough to avoid the person entirely. So, if you’re off-putting, before you even meet someone, your demeanor can be enough for you to be rejected.

If the weird person somehow breaks that glass and they get to the colleague stage, their sincerity about their faults and imperfections is seen as a problem to normal society. They don't know they have to fake being busy, intelligent, beautiful, emotionally mature, regulated, friendly and desired. The problem is: normal people think we should all be lying and posing in order to keep business running as usual. But a good chunk of weirdos can't fake it. They genuinely think that everybody else is busy, happy, desired, etc. They believe normal people! They fall for the lie! And I think the reason they do is exactly because they are being sincere about their lives and they expect people to also be telling the truth (many of them are also autistic and don't realize people might not be literal, AKA truthful).

Now, if the freak (c'est chic) manages to walk through those stages successfully, they might get abused. Unconventional people usually get bullied by everyone. And when I say everyone, it doesn't just mean classmates. It means teachers, siblings and even parents. It means friends and partners. Weirdos often date abusive people and accept egregious behavior because they think they deserve it, they think it's expected. Frequently, abusive men look for depressed, bpd, autistic, anxious girls to abuse. Their logic goes: "If everybody hates this woman, nobody will protect her". It's no surprise freaks and weirdos feel like shit after growing up.

What comes from these social experiences is the belief that "everyone is doing well except me". And the reason (they are told by family and "friends") is their weirdness pushes potential friends, partners and jobs away. So naturally, as they grow up and their peers pose more and more fake happiness and stability, they develop hate for themselves and their unconventional personalities.

2. Capitalism makes us feel useless.

I'll start this item argument with a rhetorical question: why are we on this Earth? Religious people say it's in order to be tested. Capitalism says it's to work and make money. On the other hand, nature says it was because the conditions were good for that to happen. 

Now, if you're a weird person, you probably grew up socially stunted, believing you can't do many things, and that everybody around you is more capable to do essentially any job. Additionally, if you are autistic and have physical and mental limitations to the 8-hour work load, it becomes a perfect storm. Being bad at your job makes you feel even worse about yourself. Going on interviews and being rejected over and over is a trigger for your social rejection trauma. It's a lot of emotional work to look for a job, and getting the job is not a relief. The work becomes an unbearable weight, where you believe – often correctly – that normal people will clock and fire you.

I remember when I lied in my last job about being diagnosed autistic. It was a bit of a social experiment (I wanted to see how people would treat me), and never in my life was I treated with such disdain. I remember this specific moment when my boss was talking to the secretary about a friend's kid becoming autistic because she watched too many videos on the IPad. Now, if you believed I was truly autistic, why the fuck would you talk about my condition in such terms right in front of me?

In this job, people would often tell me to follow rules that were not being followed by anyone else. They faked being organized, they faked following many rules. They watched my classes on the camera and would give me excessive feedback when I was obviously doing well. They told me how to dress, what shoes to wear (we all wore casual clothes under the work vest) and they talked shit about me when I wasn't there. They fired me after a month.

If you end up subscribing to the capitalist view of work as the purpose of life, of course being incapable of holding a job will be a moral and personal fault.

The solution for that, in my opinion, is realizing that we're here to live and to die. Working is a part of it, but not the meat and potatoes of life. And if Capitalism was a people-first system instead of a money-first system, we would let autistic people work however they like and they wouldn't feel the fear of homelessness breathing down their necks. 

3. Social conventions suck ass

The story goes: you are born, you study, you get a job, you get married, you have children and you die.

Actually... it's not just that, is it? No, you have to be born healthy, you study what they want you to study, you get a respectable job, you get married to someone that is equally respected as you (and of the opposite gender), you have biological children and then you die old.

Mind you, not only are all of these already too controlling, this is also the simplified version. There is a plan for you on a year by year basis if you're normal and conservative enough.

Anything could break that little tale: being gay, being trans, being disabled, having a shitty job, studying the “wrong” subjects, being unmarried, not having children or even dying young. Anyone could break that little tale if they only choose one thing different from it. But let's be honest, most normal people don't care too much if you break one or two of these. For them, the problem is when you're uninterested in following the recipe, or when you don't follow too many of these steps. Suddenly, the suspicion arises, and again, you're isolated.

To TERFs, it was a big surprise that trans people were more often autistic than the cisgender population. And expectedly, they rubbed their slimy little hands to use ableism and transphobia together as one powerful oppression tool. To me, however, it was expected that trans people were often autistic. Same as anyone who isn't interested in the normal tale of life. 

In 2025, I removed my uterus. It was a big and very easy decision. I have endometriosis and cramps were making me anemic and disabled. I went through chronic daily pain. I still do, but it's not the level 8-9 pain that I went through before the surgery. Naturally, I desired to remove my stupid little uterus. 

In true neurotypical fashion, I lied to my family. I knew they were too religious to care for my chronic pain, so I told them the hysterectomy was necessary and recommended by a doctor (I was the one looking for a surgeon to remove that bitch). My family members genuinely, whole-heartedly, grieved my fertility. I could see in their faces the sadness and confusion. They wanted me to follow the tale of life, and they know I won't be able to. And that's advantageous for me. It's less awful to be forced to lose your fertility than to choose to lose it, in my family's mind. 

As time passes, more conflict will arise from my choices regarding the tale of life. I'm a lesbian and one day I hope to have a long term partnership with a weird woman, and I know that when my family meets her, the tale of life will come to the surface and they will have to decide if my choice is acceptable or not. Will I care? Not at all, it's truly none of my business. 

This story is frequent with weird people, though. With time, we feel more isolated due to our unconventional choices. It usually gets bad when we're teens but after a while, we get to choose if we love ourselves or not. Then, some of us start looking for weird people to be friends with, to partner with. Sometimes we get weirder. We go poly, we become furries, we get into weird fun kinks. We explore different drugs, therapies, family organizations, religions, philosophies. And why the hell shouldn't we? 

I’m in a phase of my life where most weirdos are still going through it. Statistically, I know some of them won’t survive. Many autistics are suicidal and most of my friends are too. But since I’m in a happier, more cheerful phase, I think I can offer them the help and love they always deserved. I was lucky enough to make my own business and survive without depending on the good will of a boss that had the sweet little heart to like me, but I know most weirdos don’t have that luck. I wish to be that rock for my friends and hopefully make them realize they deserve good things, and that being weird is not a bad thing. It’s our strength.