Self Portrait

This diptych is a double self-portrait about autistic masking before I knew I was autistic.

In the top painting, I am laughing with my eyes closed. It reads as ease, even joy. One hand is visible in the frame, relaxed. The other hand is missing, but that absence is intentional. It is not gone. It is doing something the viewer cannot yet see.

In the bottom painting, that missing hand is revealed. It is holding my head underwater. I am submerged, my eyes and cheeks distended, my face strained by pressure and lack of air. The same body that looks socially at ease in the first image is, in the second, actively being held under.

I painted this in my early 20s, long before I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at age 40. At the time, I only knew I felt fundamentally different from other people, and I did not understand why.

I learned how to exist socially by studying people like patterns. I copied mannerisms. I memorized tone. I rehearsed entire conversations in my head before they happened, trying to prepare for every possible response. Social interaction did not feel intuitive. It felt like constant translation, like I was trying to speak a language I was never taught directly.

As a child, I did not really connect with other children socially. Instead, I played beside them more than with them. Looking back, I now know this is called parallel play, something that is common for autistic children. I had two early friendships that shaped my inner world. Christina, who I could pull into Barbie worlds with me. Barbie was my first intense, consuming special interest, and everything in play revolved around it. And Nikki, who shared my obsession with cats, which became my second lifelong special interest. That interest never left. I still center my life around cats today as part of my work as a pet sitter.

When my family moved from Texas to Colorado going into sixth grade, I did not know how to enter social groups at all. I already knew my interests were not considered "cool," so I hid them. I did not know how to be interested in what other kids were interested in, or how to pretend convincingly enough to belong. I sat alone at lunch that entire year.

By high school, I had become good at masking. From the outside, it looked like I had plenty of friends. In reality, I only had two people I felt deeply connected to. Nate, who shared my obsession with Tori Amos, and Jenny, who was on my diving team all four years. They were the rare friendships where I did not feel like I was constantly performing.

What this painting is really about is the split that masking creates. On the surface, there is laughter and belonging. Underneath, there is the exhausting performance of becoming the version of myself I thought other people would accept.

The bottom image is not a metaphor for sadness. It is the lived reality of autistic masking. It is the effort of holding your own head underwater so you can stay socially present, while still trying to appear like nothing is wrong in the image above.