DAPPLED
LIGHT

Then I remembered my doctor told me about this female-only autistic support group.

I don't know...asking a person with severe social anxiety to go to a strange place and talk to a group of strangers for one and a half hours...doesn't sound very appealing to me. But I decided to go anyway. I need to know I'm not alone.

So here I am, in this tiny, empty conference room. There is a long table in the middle that can probably fit eight to ten people. I walk straight to the chair all the way at the back, as usual.

6:00pm, people start coming in. They are gathering around the table, and they seem happy to see each other. I'm glad the seat next to mine is empty, then it hits me, “Oh crap! I'm the only newbie here.”

That fear of being an outsider feels all too familiar. “Why did I sit so far away from the door?” As I'm planning my escape, a girl my age appears by the door,

“Sorry!” She's drenched from head to toe. “It's pouring outside and I forgot my umbrella!”

She dashes in and sits down right next to me, dammit.

After the awkward introduction, the group shares a recent event in their lives. There are women in their twenties to sixties; some are students, some are working, some are married, some have kids.

I look around the room; they are just like me. What's even better, people are fidgeting, rocking back and forth, or staring at the wall, and nobody bats an eye. There are no judgments; everyone seems comfortable in this room. I think to myself, "You can do that? This is amazing! I've found my people!"

I relaxed a little. Still, I'm too timid to share, so I mainly listen. Surprisingly, a lot of the women there are artists. When they can't communicate through words, they use art. And I realize, me too, I've been using art to talk this whole time!

I am not particularly into rabbits, but for some reason, I draw a lot of bunnies whenever I'm down. There was an assignment in school called Noir. I drew a girl alone in a dark room. Tears streamed down her face while she hammered a bunny doll on the wall. Then in the following picture, she stood in front of a mirror, put on a bunny suit, and became the soulless bunny herself. There's another drawing where this girl in the bunny suit turned into a stuffed toy. She leaned against the wall and ate the fluffy cotton candy stuffing from her body. I couldn't explain why I drew them or what they meant at that time. Now I finally understand-

the feeling of emptiness, pretending to be something I am not, hating what's inside me to the point I tried to kill it

-that girl was me. I was telling the world how I felt while acting like everything was ok.

"So that's why I drew all these creepy bunnies and creepy kids!" I nod to myself. "Yeah, that makes sense."

The meeting ended sooner than I expected. As I am walking out of the room thinking about what to eat for dinner, I hear,

"Hey, I got my diagnosis last week too! I totally get it when you said you were so relieved to have an answer!"

It's the girl who sat next to me.

"Oh, that's cool..." I smile politely, hoping she would leave me alone.

The girl follows me to the elevator all the way to the street. It's raining outside. We look at each other; her hair is still partially wet. So I offer to share my umbrella with her, and we head to the subway station together.

We are walking and chatting, and we find out we have a lot of things in common. She says she has trouble making eye contact, so she would look at people's eyebrows instead. I exclaim, "Me too! I look at their noses!" She says she always lies down on the bathroom floor when she's overwhelmed. I throw up my hands, "I go to the kitchen!" And then we cry out at the same time, "Because the tiles are colder!"

We get on the same train together. The girl tells me about her anxiety, how she always feels like a misfit, and what prompted her to get an evaluation. I tell her about my depression, how I used to think I'm broken, and how I always feel like an alien in a human shell. I've never told anyone any of these before, but somehow, I know she would understand. We keep talking and laughing until it's her stop, and she gets off.

On the remaining ride home, I kept replaying our conversation with a smile on my face. For the first time in a long time, I don't feel the need to hide behind a mask. That girl trusted me. She reached out to me and shared a part of herself with me. And because of that, I felt safe opening up to her.

I've never seen her again. I don't remember her name or what she looked like - because we agreed eye contact is painful and decided not to look at each other. But I will never forget how she made me feel.

She showed me it's ok to not mask. I am not a repulsive alien. People would not run away if I reveal the side of me hiding in the shadow. She taught me to be brave. If I want to understand and be understood, I need to take a leap of faith and allow my vulnerabilities to show through.

The world is so much bigger than a box we all try to squeeze in. I'm more than a "good girl", a "failing student", a "depressed artist", or an "autistic woman". I am a complex, messy, beautiful human being.

And so are you.

Alice
Spring, 2021