The Ache of the In-Between

Personal Reflection

It happened during a walk with my dog. I felt okay — better than I had in a while. It was hot, but the breeze helped. My mind wasn’t racing. My body wasn’t bracing. I was just… me.

Then a woman rounded the corner with her dog, and we stopped to chat. She told me she worked at a shelter, and I could tell the heat had been hard on her — she said the air conditioning wasn’t always working. I nodded. I understood more than she knew. I didn’t go into detail, but I live with that kind of discomfort, too.

And then, for some reason, I told her I was autistic.

Maybe it was because I’d been practicing saying it out loud, trying to own it. Maybe it was because part of me still isn’t sure when or how to share that part of myself. I said it awkwardly in French. She corrected me. Then she said, kindly, almost offhandedly: “You don’t look autistic.”

And that’s when something shifted.

Not all at once. It was subtle. But I stopped feeling like myself. Or maybe I started showing more of myself. Or maybe I stopped knowing who I was altogether.

Words started coming faster — explanations about the heat, my sensitivity to it, why I could relate to her situation at the shelter. I don’t even remember everything I said. I just know I didn’t feel grounded anymore.

And it’s strange, because I wasn’t insulted by what she said. A part of me even took it as a compliment — because we never want to stand out. We want to appear capable, functional, normal.

But another part of me responded — quietly, almost beneath awareness. It was like something unspoken inside of me wanted to be seen, even before I fully understood it myself.

That’s what’s so hard about this part of learning to unmask.

Realizing I’d been performing all along — without even knowing.

But now, with this new awareness, I keep finding fragments of a self I’m only beginning to discover.

The one who overexplains when she’s anxious.
The one who freezes when the words won’t come.
The one who never saw her own struggles until someone gave them a name.

There’s an ache in that in-between space — not knowing which version is real, or when, or why.
It’s just a moment. One of many.
A pause in the day when I tried to be honest with someone — and ended up feeling like a stranger to myself.

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