Phantom of Me

Damn it, Rina Sawayama. This website is going to turn into a fan blog if you keep this up.

I was on my way to work, listening to her as per usual, when her song “Phantom” came on. I’d listened to it in passing, but I never really listened to it. The second verse just hit me like a truckload of turkeys.

If I could talk to you, I’d tell you not to rush
You’re good enough
You don’t have to lose, what makes you you
Still got some growing to do

When did we get so estranged
Haunted by the way I’ve changed
Claiming back the pieces of me that I’ve lost
Reaching in and hoping you’re still, waiting by the windowsill
I’d bring you back to us

I wasn’t a popular kid. Quite the opposite, actually. A lot of it, looking back, was because of my (finally freaking diagnosed) ADHD and (still freaking undiagnosed) autism. I was the weird kid who spun around in the back of the classroom and stimmed by making parakeet sounds. I had special interests like 8-track tapes and Bon Jovi, stuff “normal” kids thought were strange. I had sensory issues when it came to smell and gagged at the scent of ranch dressing, which my peers loved to torment me with. I had to eat lunch in the library to avoid being pelted with the stuff! And it’s so easy for me to forget that I used to come home from school crying every day because kids are so fucking cruel.

What changed?

In the autistic community, there’s a term called “masking.” You hide parts of yourself to fit in. You learn to “pass” as neurotypical, because there’s no other way for people to love you. When I got into middle school, something flipped. I methodically studied what the “cool kids” were wearing and doing, and made myself into a caricature of who I really was in order to be the “most popular” version of myself. I clipped my own colorful wings to become something I wasn’t, all for my peers’ approval. And it worked. By senior year, I was unrecognizable. By college, I was — dare I say — popular. But little Jess—

—that Jess was dead. And I killed her.

I’ve brought up getting a proper autism diagnosis to my therapists several times, and each time I get almost laughed out of the clinic. But you’re so popular, and social. You don’t look autistic, whatever that means. You don’t go on and on about your special interests — because I learned early on that talking about the color of Richie Sambora’s toothbrush would get me ostracized. You don’t stim — because making silly little sounds and moving my body in ways that make me feel good aren’t “socially acceptable.” You don’t have sensory issues — because I had to force myself to deal with things that made me really uncomfortable, because otherwise, no one would like me.

I broke my own bones to fit in someone else’s box, and left me with a phantom of myself.

I wish I could tell my younger self that she doesn’t need to change to fit in. That she doesn’t need to hide entire parts of herself. That she’s valuable the way she is, and doesn’t need to change. That’s why autism acceptable — not just awareness — is so important. Because somewhere, some little girl is feeling the exact way I felt back then. And I don’t want her to feel like she needs to kill her autistic self in order to be loved.

I hope she’s still there, waiting by the windowsill.