Dissolving Glass

My work is a visual aut-ethnography that explores the profound loneliness of being a neurodivergent person, now amplified by living in a foreign country. This series of photographs represents the deepening of my personal "fishbowl," a metaphor for the isolation of my complex, forever-changing/evolving inner self from the outside world. For me, this feeling is not new; it is a long-standing pattern of being misunderstood, misjudged and under/overestimated by others. Having recently moved to Germany, I've found that the language barrier has increased the opacity on the glass, blurring my ability to understand/be understood by others and intensifying my sense of disconnection. I sense that I’m disappearing from mattering in the eyes of others, blending more and more into the background. I feel ignored, assumed to be incompetent, unintelligent, and almost non-human; more object than subject. This experience has intensified the already-existing sense of being an outsider, dwelling in a space where I am slowly disintegrating from view. The last image, though, gives me hope. I see 'me', centering behind the opacity, a sense of self taking shape. Perhaps my personhood isn't dependent on their gaze. That, in itself, is a place to begin.