This is where I go, when I go:It's a room with no windows and no doors, and walls that are thin enough for me to see and hear everything but too thick to break through.I'm there, but I'm not there.I am pounding to be let out, but nobody can hear me. This is where I go, when I go: To a country where everyone's face looks different from mine, and the language is the act of not speaking, and noise is everywhere in the air we breathe. I am doing what the Romans do in Rome; I am trying to communicate, but no one has bothered to tell me that these people cannot hear.This is where I go, when I go:Somewhere completely, unutterably orange.This is where I go, when I go:To the place where my body becomes a piano full of black keys only—the sharps and the flats, when everyone know that to play a song other people want to hear, you need some white keys.This is why I come back:To find those white keys.
Jodi Picoult, House Rules
anxiety, autism