I Feel The Earth Breathe Into Me

TW: Su*c*de and depression

If I remember correctly, I knew I was different since I was six. It was my first day at a brand-new school. I was supposed to wear a uniform, but I insisted on wearing my favorite pig costume. I was allowed to wear it at my old school, so why couldn’t I wear it here? My parents eventually gave up and let me wear it as long as my uniform was underneath it. Fortunately for them, my teacher was accepting enough to give me permission to wear it until recess.

Unfortunately, the other children weren’t so accepting. Some of them pointed at me while others simply stared with empty eyes. I was certain that all of them had at least worn a costume once a year for Halloween, so why was it so weird for them to see a costume in broad daylight? I was only dressed as a pig. It’s not like I was dressed as the Devil. Having been raised in a Christain household, my parents never would’ve allowed that, anyway. Even after all these years, I still don’t understand why some of those little brats appeared to be so offended by my cute piggy costume.

Another sign that I was different was when I was eight and started at yet another school. I’d chew on my pencil eraser when I was slowly dying of boredom. Once again, my classmates were offended, even though I owned the eraser. The only time it was valid for them to be offended was when I accidentally nibbled on my classmate’s pencil. We sat at a table that fitted five kids and I grabbed her pencil, thinking it was mine. My teacher made me pull a card from my chart (I had to keep all of my cards in order to receive a reward at the end of the week), and I covered my face in my arms so I could cry.

Two things gave me comfort during my miserable school days; drawing pictures and lying down in the grass. I’d often sketch in my notepad while lying in the grass at recess. Sure, we had a slide and a swingset, but who cares? I got to be kissed by the grass as the sun smiled at me. I know it sounds crazy, but I could often swear that I could feel the Earth breathe. No, it wasn’t the vibrations of kids stampeding with a soccer ball. I could feel vibrations of the breath press against the dirt and onto my back. It was like the Earth was reassuring me that I wasn’t doing anything wrong and that I needed to keep being me.

Drawing pictures was the perfect pastime for someone who didn’t know what to do with their hands. It was like I just had to draw something or else my arm would fall off. Whether I was drawing a map of an original fantasy world, designing a gown fit for the red carpet, or drawing a comic inspired by the Reign of Terror (I had a twisted imagination), my heart was telling me to draw something. I only did it if I had absolutely nothing else to do, so it didn’t really interfere with my work. The pencil was designing a map for me to use as an escape from reality.

My maps were burned to ashes in the seventh grade. I had finished my work and decided to doodle a little character I had designed named Dewdrop. She was a dryad covered in flowers who protected nature with her life–wait, she was a tree spirit, so she technically wasn’t alive. Anyway, I was sketching Dewdrop on a worksheet that I wasn’t supposed to turn in. Since my teacher wasn’t going to collect it, it was basically scrap paper. Conversely, my teacher didn’t approve of me using her uncollectable worksheet as a canvas. Instead of politely asking me not to draw on the paper, she held it up in front of the class and stated, “If you do this in college, you will fail.” For the longest time, I was afraid to draw in class. My fingers ached for something to play with, but I couldn’t please them.

Did that last sentence sound a bit dirty? Eh, whatever.

Despite being a total weirdo that offended everyone, I managed to make a single friend. Her name was Jessica, and I believe she was autistic. No one ever mentioned her diagnosis, but she undoubtfully had special needs and always needed help with her work. We bonded easily because no one else wanted us. Whenever she wasn’t on the swing set, she’d join me in the grass and admire my work. She giggled at everything and loved to talk about kittens. Along with the breath of the Earth, she made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

Alas, her friendship wasn’t enough for someone as selfish as me. By the time we hit seventh grade, I was desperate to be accepted by literally anyone else. I knew that no one else wanted me, but I still yearned for the attention of my more popular peers. In my delusion, I was convinced that Jessica was holding me back. Gradually, I limited my conversations with her. Even when she insisted on staying by my side on the grass, I acted like she wasn’t there. Eventually, I worked up the guts to drop her like a hot croissant on the cold floor. Like the heartless brat I was, I didn’t look back. I was relieved when I learned that she’d be moving away. I could spend eighth grade trying to be like everyone else for once without Jessica weighing me down.

At least I still had the breaths of the Earth.

-

“Melody, you’re autistic.”

Those words were a giant bomb that demolished my world. Everything I thought I knew scattered in my mind. My ears could only pick up faint whispers in the distance. No seventeen-year-old girl should have been forced to submit to this misery.

My “loving parents” decided to wait a few months before my eighteenth birthday to finally deliver the news that I was autistic. Since I was due for legal adulthood soon, I needed to know the truth so I could take control of my IEP (Individual Education Plan) meetings. I had already attended them beforehand, but I was just told that I needed accommodations because everybody thought that I needed extra help. Since I did need extra help, I didn’t really question if anything was wrong with me.

I don’t think my parents realized the damage they had done to my psyche. Up until that point, I had an honestly despicable opinion of autism. Not even an autistic friend like Jessica could convince me that autistic people were angels that needed to be protected at all costs. Nope, I had put my foot down on the idea that autistic people were worthless creatures that had no futures. In my opinion, none of them could possibly succeed in life or care for themselves. Just last year, an autistic boy who was a grade ahead of me passed away after battling a brain tumor for three years. This did nothing but proved my point that autistic people weren’t destined for happy endings.

Thanks to my endless negative thoughts, I firmly believed that I had no future.

As my parents dragged on about what I needed to do at my IEP meetings, my mom noticed that my brain was clearly elsewhere based on my poor eye contact. She asked if everything was fine, and I lied like any other teenager. I’ve lost count of how many times my parents had scolded me for letting my emotions get the best of me, so I held myself back from telling them how I really felt. The last thing I needed was for my dad to tell me that I had upset my mom because she made me upset.

Instead, my tears waited patiently for me to climb into bed before releasing themselves from my eyes. I knew right then and there that I didn’t want to live anymore. I didn’t view autistic people as deserving of a happy ending, and that mirrored the exact same vision I had of myself. Sleep drifted away from me as I stared up at the ceiling. How exactly did I plan to end everything?

The road.

My family owned a farmhouse outside of the city. You’d have to drive down a path through a field to get to the main road. Trucks drove past the field every day while going well over the speed limit. My twisted brain got the brilliant idea to go to the road before any vehicles appeared, curl up in a trash bag, and then await the next eighteen-wheeler to plow over me while mistaking me for a bag of garbage.

I was such a twisted genius that letting me live would cause World War III.

-

My alarm clock announced that it was fifteen till six as I scrambled to turn it off on a Saturday morning. If I was going to let this sick fantasy of mine come true, I couldn’t let my parents wake up and stop me. Imperceptibly, I snuck out through the kitchen and grabbed a massive trash bag as I made my way out the door. The sun was stretching in the distance, and the road was still bare. It was only a matter of time before trucks would pass by on their way to start their early shifts.

Despite the fact that summer was coming to an end, the air nipped at me as if I were walking around in a blanket of snow. My guess is that my body was giving me altered signals due to my broken psyche. Maybe I was just imagining things that morning, or maybe it was the autism. I couldn’t really explain it.

Maybe I really was losing my mind that day, because I could also hear the Earth speak out to me. Melody, I could hear it say, it doesn’t have to be this way. Let me hold you and help you reconsider your choices. I wanted to tell the planet to shut up and let me do whatever I wanted, but the grass was inviting. If I was truly going to go through with this mission, I might as well do one last thing that made me happy in order to relax my body for the end.

The skin kissed my skin once again as I slowly lowered myself. Still holding the trash bag, I loosened my grip as the wind whistled over me. I wouldn’t say that I was a religious person, even though I was in a Christain household, but I still thanked God for letting me experience all of this beauty before I carried out my sick operation. I even witnessed a butterfly dancing overhead as I relaxed my mind and body.

I nearly emptied my lungs in screams when I felt someone touch my hand.

“Melody? What are you doing out here? I thought you loved sleeping in on Saturdays.”

Did I seriously forget all about my fifteen-year-old sister? Yes, I was hundreds of feet deep in my delusions and depression that I have forgotten about Dahlia, the perfect little sister who was fortunate enough to be born without autism. You could say that I was jealous because my parents would often ask why I couldn’t behave properly like Dahlia. Most of the time, the youngest child is expected to look up to the oldest and model themselves after them. Not Dahlia, oh not by a longshot. For once, the oldest had to look up to the youngest.

“Melody?” she said after I initially answered in silence. “Are you ok?”

How was I supposed to answer that? Do I answer truthfully and risk revealing my plan to end it all? Do I lie and convince her to go back inside so that I can make sure she never sees me again? I could tell her to go fetch something and then quickly hurry to the road to crawl inside the bag, but she could clearly see the bag in my hand in the dim lighting. I wouldn’t be fooling her one bit. So, what the heck was I supposed to do?

“I’m feeling the Earth breathe,” I finally replied.

“Excuse me?” my porcelain doll of a sister asked.

“If I lay on the ground long enough and relax my body, I can feel the Earth breathe against me. I see it as reassurance that I’m not lonely and that I’m going to be ok. Would you like to try it?”

Normally whenever I invite normal people to do the weird things that I love to do, they recommend that I seek out a therapist. For once in my life, I finally received a different answer; Dahlia told me to get lost. I’m joking, she actually said that she’d love to try it.

Dahlia’s fingers laced with mine, even though I normally don’t allow others to do that. The sun was still struggling to creep out from behind the hill in the distance, and yet I could see my sister smile. The skin around her eyes wrinkled up as she scrunched up her eyes and let her smile grow wider. After looking constipated for a good minute, she finally relaxed her face and loosened her grip on me. A small gasp escaped her lips.

“I feel it!” she exclaimed. “I can feel the Earth breathe!”

I honestly couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or if she was lying as a way to support me. I wanted to accuse her of lying just to be nice, but I needed all the support I could get.

“This is what I do when everything goes wrong,” I explained. “Even when it’s like the people in this world are out to get me, it’s reassuring to know the world itself is here for me.”

“I’ve always admired the poetic way you carry conversions,” Dahlia said.

I’m pretty sure I was always the worst at conversations, but ok.

“Did you already know I was autistic before Mom and Dad told me yesterday?” I blurted out without thinking. Dahlia looked at the sky for a bit before turning her head to face me.

“Yes, I picked up on the signs two years ago. As you know, I spend a lot of time with special needs students. It took me a while, but I eventually noticed how you had a lot in common with them. Some of them go on and on about their favorite things, just like you. Some don’t pick up on social cues, just like you. Some get turned off by the smallest details like an itchy shirt or a sound coming from an overhead light, just like you.”

“I don’t get turned off by itchy shirts,” I interrupted.

“You get the point I’m trying to make, but you’re right. If anything, you’re bothered by clothes not fitting you just right. Anyway, I initially didn’t think that you could be autistic because you didn’t have to be in a separate classroom like the kids I assisted and you could mostly care for yourself. I later overheard Mom and Dad talking over your IEP. I confronted them about it, and they told me to keep it from you so that they could tell you themselves.”

“So, it really didn’t really surprise you when you figured it out?”

“Not really. It explains a lot.”

“Does it really?”

“Melody, do you actually understand what autism is?”

It hit me like a sledgehammer; I knew absolutely nothing about autism. I thought I knew everything based on the classmates that I judged, but now it was clear that there was more to autism than meets the eye. I suddenly felt the desire to learn more. I wanted to know why I always felt so sensitive. I wanted to know why clothes that didn’t fit me felt like the end of the world. I wanted to know why my brain always felt like it was in nine different places. I wanted to know why I always picked apart the things that I heard people say.

The trash bag that was meant to be my casket flew from my hand. I could briefly see it fly across the field and to the road. It made it to the other side just before an eighteen-wheeler came plowing by. I suddenly felt like I had a purpose, and it was beautiful enough to make me cry.

“Melody? What’s wrong?”

My tears glistened as the sun finally climbed its way up. The Earth’s breath pressed the dirt against me, whispering ever so gently, You have a life worth living. Don’t let it go. I took my sister’s hand and held it against my heart.

“Nothing,” I choked out. “Nothing is wrong.”

A Note About The Painting: The woman in Andrew Wyeth’s 1948 painting, Christina’s World, is Anna Christina Olson. She was Wyeth’s neighbor and was the subject of four of his paintings. Due to a degenerative muscle condition that she developed as a young girl, she was unable to walk her whole life. She refused to use a wheelchair and preferred to crawl. Wyeth explained, “The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people consider hopeless.” The painting is admired by members of the disabled community, and it was even referenced in the music video for “American Teenager” by autistic artist Ethel Cain. As a fellow autistic artist, albeit a different type of artist, I was inspired by both the painting and the music video to write a story that depicts both autistic pain and autistic joy. I really hope that others can relate.