Does anyone get sad about never being normal sometimes?

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Yes, I do get really upset about having AS. Sometimes I want to be NT and have a bf and relationships like everyone else.

Once I even attempted suicide over it.

But I spose I gotta make the best of it.

Why would you want to be a mindless drone like everyone else? Sure its easier, but that doesn't mean its better.
While life can be tougher for us, we also get to see so many things that others don't, we aren't locked into rigid thinking based on social principles- we have freedom of mind.
We see the beauty in tragedy and the tragedy in beauty.

I feel sad about it sometimes. I feel that there's a glass wall between me and the rest of the social world. There's this one person at my Clubhouse who has problems of her own who only makes it worse. She doesn't like anybody who's different and she also has a Disability. She badmouthed me to herself for having fun with my friends ans talking about Austin Powers, for just being myself. I've dealt with a lot of those people and I deal with it under my own roof. That's why I keep busy with my hobbies and interests just to avoid the cold blooded people of the NT world.

I don't think that it is a sign of weakness or anything - sometimes it is just sad to realize how different you are . . . I mean, sometimes I just really wish I could have a normal relationship or something . . .

I totally understand what EGMaria2004 is saying - I'm bipolar and, trust me, to get really depressed and realize that you will never have a normal realationship - yeah, that's led me to both of my serious suicide attempts . . .

Sometimes I feel locked into an invisible cage with no way of getting out and no way of finding the key. Some days it is worse than others.

I get depressed sometimes about the fact that so many of the interactions I have with the world seem to be conspiring to tell me I'm worthless and ineffective. I can't remember where I read the phrase, but I remember one person talking about dealing with a society (and not just the "social skills" aspects of that society, but also the survival aspects and assorted other things) that seemed almost designed to shut them out. That's what it feels like sometimes, especially when the expectations for what a real person should be are in no way resembling the person I am.

...but I also tend to figure out eventually that it's a bunch of BS and that the world is seriously structured wrong if it's shutting people out this way.

I find the differences interesting, so no.

I feel sad right now that I'm not normal. It hurts to know I have no one to do something with this weekend.

Hmm, interesting. Personally I feel the opposite, I feel that the world is fine and that it's my problems that shut things out.

Except for the car, those are things I miss the most. I can drive actually, but if I get stressed out, I must pull over at a rest area and take a walk.

That's what most people who are not shut out by it tend to think (that it's fine how it is, they don't always notice how it shuts others out), and then transmit that sense of "this is how it should be" to those who are shut out by it.

It took a long time for people to recognize wheelchair access, for example, as a civil rights issue (many people still don't and view it merely as a "being nice to the poor pitiful disabled people" issue), but a lot of people do now recognize it as such and recognize that there are barriers (such as stairs) that need to either be removed or a decent alternative (such as elevators) found, in order to not shut a certain group of people out.

Unfortunately there are also still a lot of people who don't recognize this. But it's becoming less okay. One of the jokes I've heard from several disabled people involves a wheelchair user going to the post office, only to find a set of stairs. She calls the post office to complain, and they say "What do we need a ramp for? We never get anyone in a wheelchair in here!" The person in the post office views shutting certain people out as normal and okay. But people have been starting to recognize that shutting people out this way is not okay and says something really negative about a society that does it.

A similar thing was going on with voting, before women could vote in America (probably other countries too, but I'm not as familiar with other countries' history). People assumed that women would not want to vote, and that the reason that women did not and should not vote is because they are incapable of understanding politics (or may be morally sullied by it instead of being able to remain pristine and protected). Even many women thought this, who today would be outraged if suddenly not allowed to vote. Women's right to vote is much more accepted in society than any group of disabled people's right of access, but women were just as shut out of a lot of things (still are in some ways, but to nowhere near the degree) as disabled people of many kinds are today.

At the time, it seemed perfectly natural to shut women out that way. The women who pushed for the vote, even through extremely polite and nonviolent tactics, were seen as indecent, immoral, corrupted, and sometimes not really women at all. Some of them were imprisoned for their beliefs (I have a book by someone who was there, she said many of them were also force-fed and otherwise tortured). Today nearly anyone considers denying women the vote to be horrible. Back then, most people, including most women, considered women wanting to vote to be horrible.

There are much more subtle aspects of shutting out than denying the vote or denying access to a building, though. There are things being structured in such a way that certain kinds of people end up being near-universally regarded and treated as worthless, or kept out of jobs, or viewed as not being able to contribute to society, etc. There are things like things being set up not to shut out people who need help with automotive repairs, but being set up to definitely shut out people who can't cook for themselves. And so on.

Shutting out always appears natural and "the way things have to be" to the ones doing it, and those it is done to generally also pick up that same idea. I know that it's not just "the way things have to be" because within some of my relatives' lifetimes it was not considered natural for autistic people to be shut out in the societies they lived in (even if it was considered natural to shut other people out). I also know that it's not just the way things have to be because I have studied history and seen the tactics that were used to shut innumerable other groups of people out, being used to shut us out. I can't imagine that the people doing the shutting-out are suddenly right with us and never before.

I felt bad when I was about 12 and 13, but I don't anymore. No one is 'normal'. Now that I know about AS, I know why I am the way I am. I have identified what my problems are, and I am able to work on improving them. There is no purpose in feeling sad about it.

I never feel that normal is something I want to be, because consider what has been normal throughout history....

Recent Examples.

Nazi Germany - Normal to hate, or at least ignore what was happening to jewish people.

America, the Mcarthy era - Normal to denounce someone you didn't like as a COMMUNIST.

Today - Normal to hate arabs and claim they are terrorists (from what I have seen).

I spent a long time trying to fit in, make friends, and be normal (whatever that might be), and I became very depressed over the fact that Icouldn't do those things. Since I learned about AS, I feel better about it. All the time I thought I was defective, but now I just feel different. I've started to expect different things from life. I now feel that contentment is more important that anything else. If I am content with how things are, nothing else matters.

I usually build it up and have a blowout about once a month.

It really upsets my family because they don't know why i'm crying.

Sometimes at work, I notice how badly i'm different, and how I envy the people that are normal, and can hold a conversation without feeling nervous.

Do I feel that way? Every day, even though understanding why makes it a little easier.

I thought that understanding why would make things a lot better, more like normal, but it hasn't - it's only kept things from getting really bad like they used to.