Full Circle - Friday, November 8, 2024

My body is burning with the shame of not belonging. - Warsan Shire.

A year ago I got off my first day of training at my very first job. As I sat in my older sister's passenger car seat, the void of loneliness that began a few hours ago grew larger, opening a cold, bottomless pit in my stomach. The tears I held back as the shift ended finally began to slide silently down my cheeks. Why? I thought hopelessly, watching the night pass by through watery eyes, why can't I function like everyone else? What is wrong with me?

The whole shift beforehand I stood isolated from every other teen there, quietly folding t-shirts, as I listened to the other kids — the better kids — talk easily to each other, laugh and gossip, as I stood invisible. Even my own sister was able to make a friend while I couldn't even muster a word to anyone. I felt marked: the outcast, the weird, quiet kid.

As we passed the suburban houses into the naked trees of small rural town, a thought popped into my head and wouldn't leave: There is something fundamentally wrong with me to where I can't function like other people. At home, I even wrote that phrase down into my journal as I wiped away the tears. At night, I continued to cry silently as I listened to Mechanical Animals, my new musical obsession. The feeling just wouldn't leave: there is something wrong with me. I am going to be alone forever. I am broken, defective.

It would be several more weeks until I finally received my autism diagnosis — that along with one for major depressive disorder — thus confirming what I had already suspected. Yet the autism diagnosis only provided an explanation, not a cure. Still I wouldn't have imagined I would remain the outcast, the weird-lonely-quiet kid, a year later.

November 4, 2024: the night before the presidential election: This time I was sitting — alone — in the second floor of my college as a watch party ensued. The tv in front of me played CNN, showing the early result of the voting: Trump won Kentucky; Harris won Vermont. As I sat with my journal open, my fountain pen flowing across the page, in front and around me, people were talking easily to each other, laughing in loud peals, as I sat invisible, my shame bottled in my hunched form.

I thought I would belong here, here in the honor society I joined, I earned. Yet the group was established, the clique formed: I didn't belong. How could I? I am the outcast, the weird kid. Six years old, sixteen, seventeen — it didn't matter how old I got. You can't change what is neurologically ingrained. The familiar void opened up, my stomach once again became a black hole, sucking up any light, the day's previous joy. My heart stopped, became a heavy block of ice.

I left the party early, silently slipping away as the remaining partygoers stared at their phones and laptops. I texted my mom to pick me up.

As the night passed my window, as I sat in the passenger seat, as we exited the suburban houses into the trees of our rural town, as the moon's mournful face reflected my own, I cried quietly, hoping my mom wouldn't notice, praying she would. Postpunk and darkwave slipped over my aching soul like an ointment, but did little to ease my tears. Will I ever belong? Why do I still not belong? I realized I didn't really change, not even in a year. I am who I will remain, now and forever.