As I grew older, my impression that there was a significant disconnect between the way that I and other people experienced things grew only stronger. It took all the energy I had to summon even the slightest sympathy for things that made other people happy or sad.
Why does that make them happy?
Why does that make them sad?
When everyone was excited, cheering for their friends in sports competitions, when they were depressed at losing a friend who transferred to another school, I felt as uncomfortable as if I were in a room full of foreigners with whom I shared no common language. I flinched away from them and felt sharp pains in my stomach. The crushing din of words that everyone spoke around me was utterly incomprehensible to me.
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One day, someone stuffed firecrackers into the mouth of our class rabbit, and it died a horrible death. While everyone else was sobbing, I felt ill at ease and stared at my fingers and tried to make myself very small.
Why? Because I didn’t feel the least bit sad about the rabbit’s death.
I remembered how charming the rabbit had been in life, and its soft fur. But try as I might to feel sad, my heart remained unmoved, and I was unable to shed so much as a single tear. Stealing a glance at the others, I saw that I was the only one not crying.
That made my neck flush bright red, a feeling of such shame and terror that my ears roared with pounding blood.
Why? Why were they all crying? I just couldn’t understand it. But it would be odd for one person to be unperturbed while the rest of them wept. I had to act like I was crying. My face was tense, so I couldn’t cry very convincingly. My cheeks burned. What would I do if someone realized I was faking my tears? I just wouldn’t lift my face. Hang your head and look upset. Ah, and now everyone’s guffawing. I wonder what’s so funny. I have no idea. But if I don’t do the same as everyone else, they’ll think I’m strange and cast me out.
Laugh. Laugh. Laugh. No, cry. Cry. No, laugh, you have to laugh.
If I can’t do such a simple thing, I am strange, a freak.
My stomach twisted itself into knots with the shame and fear I felt at being unable to share everyone else’s emotions. I imagined the cold stares they would give me when I was exposed.
I’m like the one black sheep born into a pure white flock.
Unable to enjoy the things my peers enjoyed, unable to grieve the things they grieved, unable to eat the things they ate—being born an ignoble black sheep, I didn’t understand the things my friends found pleasant, such as love, kindness, and sympathy. I simply dusted my dark wool in white powder and pretended I was a white sheep, too.
If my peers discovered that I was in fact a black sheep, they would gang up on me and stab me with their horns and trample me with their hooves. Please, please, don’t find out, don’t find out.
Each time the rain fell, each time the wind blew, I shuddered in anticipation of the white powder I’d used to cover myself falling off, of someone shouting, “Hey, he’s a black sheep!” and I had not a moment of ease in my heart. But there was nothing else I could do.
I did my best to smile pleasantly at my parents, my teachers, my classmates; I became a mime to make them laugh. Oh please, don’t notice that I’m a monster who doesn’t understand human emotion. I’ll pretend to be a person so stupid they redefine idiocy, and while everyone is laughing at me and pitying me and forgiving me, please let me live on.
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I’m still wearing my mask, still acting in this farce.