Now, is being okay a minimum, everything one could wish for, or perhaps only what is needed?

I’m currently sitting somewhere where I’m okay. With my parents. As a guest, as a son, as the-one-at-the-table-who-sits-and-takes-care-of-stuff. With my headphones, a full belly, and a focused gaze. With my autism, with a different place of residence, and with my divergent life choices. With my values and my interests and my quirks. With my social-battery indicator, little eye contact, and concentration difficulties.

As a child I already felt this. And even among other people and in other roles I was more often okay than not okay.

What is okay?

Being okay as a person is the intersection between all the peculiarities of oneself and all the peculiarities of the other person.
This intersection can easily become a wide overlap when one is more than just okay.

Perceiving someone as okay means understanding and acceptance.
These two things are valuable, but especially for a neurodivergent person who more often feels misunderstood than quite at home, infinitely precious.

Being okay means that someone believes in you and sees a benevolent person in you.
That includes growth, changes are also okay, and inadequacies can very well be okay too.

Who is okay?

In this environment I’m okay, in some others perhaps less so. But am I not the same person?

Well, as humans we have many roles, tied to our environment and to the people who shape that environment. We also have the option to use different masks to render a role more fitting at high or low cost.
In the end, it is our selves who fill these various roles, and we can be both okay and not okay in them.

It is a pleasant thing to be okay and to feel that. But if that isn’t the case, the question arises whether we should adapt to the role, or whether the role itself is adaptable.
If I don’t seem okay in my role as an employee, I can adapt to the requirements or the role will be adapted to me. Or perhaps the role of employee is not at all tied to the current workplace and I can better channel my potential somewhere else.
This applies to all group dynamics, teams, relationships, and configurations, even to a computer game that simply cannot make me feel okay. Another one surely will, if I cannot adapt my role to it.

Why is it important to be okay?

Whether you have an autistic brain or not: it feels good to be truly okay, wonderfully okay, calmly okay.

Because what makes neurotypical and neurodivergent people feel good in the same way is the security of being in their place, in their role, and as a genuine being who is okay.

And that is precisely the feeling that has visibly strengthened me as an autistic person, that has made a circle of friends into a real circle of friends, that makes love feel real, that turns an encounter into a beautiful memory: I was okay and so were the others.

That should encourage me to, with the strengths gained, empower all people to share in this experience over and over.

I’ve been on my own most of my life. Not everything I experienced alone, but I did travel by myself, went out to restaurants solo, visited extended family as a single member, attended concerts on my lonesome, I live in my own space, follow my own routines and pursue my own goals.

The things we go through together, great or small, good or bad, are elevated through their shared nature.
But what about the unshared moments?
Are those lesser parts of our lives?
Are there different types of solitude we can experience?

Certainly there are different ones and they do matter in their own way.

There is physical loneliness, which might be what first comes to mind. Being far from any other human body restricts and relieves our responsibility, but also our interactivity with our human network. It is a safe way to escape sensory phenomena and the human-like spontaneousness. Here’s where we recharge and reconnect with ourselves mostly. It is the kind that almost every person knows and can relate to. And most importantly, many are able to choose this kind of loneliness.

Less of a choice are conditions that single us out. Be it something we are born with, something that came or went within our life or just something we are experiencing differently. If we are (visibly or invisibly) outstanding in a given societal structure, our connections to the things people do or talk about are limited. The many efforts of accessibility and inclusion aim to fight this kind of loneliness with many weapons.
As a member of the autism community, I have felt this my whole life, but after the diagnosis, I also see more of it clearly and I am happy to have so many fruitful environments to connect and relate to.

There is also a kind of loneliness that is independent of human proximity. When you are amongst people, even if you interact with them and you are also part of their society, you can still be all alone, mentally.
When all the above doesn’t contribute to a sense of belonging and the struggles, thoughts and sensory input register so differently from the seemingly shared experience, one can be more alone than ever.
These moments are dark, but can serve as a turning point, so we seek more true connections to places, people and circles.
In those moments, if we are not connected to anything inside of us or if nobody is connected to our struggles, we can get lost easily. That makes educating and sharing our individual experiences so fundamental and a great place to start making things easier.

What we are connected to inside, independent of the ever-changing surrounding elements, still matters most and is a trustworthy fallback. Identity, self-worth, even the odd memory of a good experience can do the job.

And the best thing on the lonely road: It is okay to be lonely.

As soon as we understand why we are lonely at times and what it means to us personally (that it might not be a devastating situation to avoid) from loneliness will come solitude and from dread will come inner peace.