Being the different one in a small town is loud. Keep going; the city you’re headed to has a whole crowd of different.

Standing out where everyone knows everyone means your difference gets discussed rather than overlooked. That is a fact about sample size, not about you, and it says more about how small places run on familiarity than about whether your way of being works. Bigger rooms exist where your version of normal is simply one of many.

Find your people in the meantime, even at a distance: a club two towns over, a forum, one person at school who is also slightly off-pattern. Keep something of your own that the place does not get to vote on. Distance is a thing you can wait out.