As someone who is neurodivergent, traditional brick-and-mortar school often felt suffocating for me growing up. I was always very hyperactive, I had trouble concentrating before I started taking my ADHD medication, and my teachers frequently got upset with me when I got too creative and outside-the-box with my school assignments. But then I started taking ballet when I was six years old, and suddenly I found myself in a world where all the things that were frowned upon in a traditional classroom were my greatest strengths. Dance allowed me to take my hyperactive energy and turn it into something beautiful, and a medium for creative expression that traditional school couldn’t provide. Though there were points in my time as a pre-professional dancer where I found myself at rigid dance studios that perpetuated toxic perfectionism, when I was in the most healthy studio environments, dance gave me an escape from my troubles and a way to cope with my difficult emotions through movement, like when I was a frequent target of bullying in elementary school, or my more recent struggles with anxiety. But beyond using art as a coping mechanism, I think art can also help us empathize with others. An emotionally vulnerable song or a first-person novel can give us insight into another person’s inner world in a way that we rarely see in any other areas of our lives. One of the reasons it is important to have representation of diverse cultural backgrounds and identities in art and storytelling is because these stories allow us to relate to and understand people who may otherwise be very different from ourselves. One of the reasons I was drawn to psychology is because I am also a creative writer, and having an intimate understanding of how the human brain works allows me to write about a more diverse, realistic range of people, even if those characters are very different from myself. Throughout my last two years of high school, I was a volunteer for my dance studio’s chapter of Darby’s Dancers, a non-profit organization that provides free dance classes to people with special needs. The program was named after the late Darby Jones, a girl born with Down Syndrome who loved to dance. The dancers I assisted were mostly autistic and/or had intellectual disabilities, and had varying levels of abilities and personalities. Some of the dancers were shy and inattentive, while others were incredibly energetic and had such a love for dance. Sure, these dancers might not have created the most “beautiful” art or been the most technically impressive, but their passion and joy for performing were truly infectious and heartwarming to see. I think having that opportunity to perform on stage was very valuable for these dancers, as people with special needs rarely get the opportunity to truly be themselves without being looked down upon, and traditional performing arts spaces are often inaccessible for people who aren’t able-bodied or -minded. As an aspiring dance therapist, I hope to help people find that same passion, purpose, and release through dance as I, Darby Jones, and so many Darby’s Dancers have. I’m particularly interested in artistic modalities of therapy because I believe that healing is less about fixing what is “wrong”, and more about providing people a space to embrace their true selves when the rest of the world often discourages that.

Option #1: Relationships & Impact When I first met Hannah when they were a senior in high school and I was a junior, I sensed there was something different about them that set them apart from everyone else at my dance studio. Hannah was sarcastic but sincere; kind but moody; overwhelmed by expectations, and yet they never seemed to lose their patience or temper with anyone. I told myself that I only liked Hannah as a friend, despite the fact that my heart would race around them, I would smile and feel merry for no particular reason, and I would light up whenever they complimented me. But then June dance recitals rolled around, and we were missing a person in our dance on performance day. So when we got to the partnering section of the dance, Hannah improvised by taking my hand and started dancing with me—not alongside me like we usually did, but WITH me. It was that, and the handwritten note and purple rose Hannah gave me as a token of affection before they left for college, that I realized my feelings for Hannah were more than just platonic. And this terrified me. I am aromantic and asexual, and I dread the thought of being in a romantic or sexual relationship with anyone, Hannah included. But I couldn’t deny that I wanted to be emotionally intimate with Hannah in a way I hadn’t wanted to with anyone else before. I couldn’t bear keeping quiet about my true feelings, but I feared what would happen if I tried to come out to Hannah as queer. Hannah might’ve openly identified as a lesbian, but I have had my disinterest in romantic and sexual relationships be dismissed as me having “not found the right person yet” by other members or allies of the LGBT community before. What if Hannah dismissed me in the same way? What if they didn’t believe I was agender because I am assigned-female-at-birth and present hyper-femme? What if I made things weird between us if I told them how I really felt? What if Hannah was romantically attracted to me and I had been completely oblivious to the signs? Despite this, I eventually worked up the courage to ask Hannah if we could meet up for coffee when they were home from college over winter break, with my hidden intent being that I was going to come out to them as aromantic and asexual. We went into a lot of deep subject matter in our conversation, from the growing pains of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, to our frustration with our conservative, Catholic relatives, to our shared experiences with being queer, as Hannah came out to me as non-binary and asexual– things Hannah wasn’t out about to most people in their life yet. And when I did confess to Hannah about my complicated feelings towards them and they gently told me they only thought of me as a friend, it didn’t feel like the crushing heartbreak you would expect. In fact, it was almost a relief to know Hannah DIDN'T have romantic feelings towards me I couldn’t reciprocate. For so long, I had felt so alone in my queer identity and struggles. But as it turned out, there was someone else, standing right there in front of me, who was struggling with very similar things. I had just been too blind to see it. The lesson I learned from my friendship with Hannah is that, in a world where we often hide our true selves out of fear of what others might think, we lose sight of the fact that there is often someone just like you, not as far away as you might think, who will accept you with open arms if you only take the chance to reach out. And it’s often scary to take that chance, because sometimes when you open up to someone they reject you or misunderstand. But being vulnerable also allows you to grow closer to the people who do matter, and you discover beautiful things about those people that you would’ve never known otherwise. So ever since that conversation with Hannah, I’ve made that effort to be vulnerable and honest in my relationships, old and new. Because in a world that is becoming increasingly divided and isolated, I think reaching out is the most powerful thing we can do.

The first time I became aware that I wasn’t considered “intelligent” by traditional standards was in kindergarten, when I ended up in a class where half the students were so-called “gifted” kids already reading chapter books, while the other half barely spoke English. Seeing as I didn’t fall into either extreme, I was practically ignored by my teachers, which only amplified my developmental delays. By second grade, I had been diagnosed with ADHD, and my parents enrolled me at a private Catholic school. This turned out to be a living hell for me due to the ridiculous, overwhelming curriculum, and me being a constant target of bullying. Out of desperation, my parents tried to have me repeat fourth grade at a prestigious, private all-girls school, but I had to take the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children to determine my eligibility to enroll. And it was through taking this test that the psychiatrist evaluating me diagnosed me as autistic, and I was not accepted to attend this exclusive school. So we were back to square one at my dreaded Catholic school, who agreed to give me accommodations to give me a fair chance at passing and to keep my family from leaving. But the damage had already been done. My experiences of being rejected from gifted programs and having my needs constantly ignored led me to believe that I was a failure in school. Even with my accommodations keeping my head above water, I was still being yanked around without any consideration for what I actually thought of any of this. I hated my Catholic school, but I probably would’ve hated an all-girls school even more, given my complicated relationship with being a girl, and public school had all but failed me. But what other options did I have? When COVID hit and my Catholic school refused to follow the basic health precautions, my parents enrolled me at Virginia Virtual Academy (VAVA) for the 2020-21 school year, and this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Suddenly, I wasn’t being tormented by my peers all day long, and I had the freedom to work at my own pace and motivate myself. Suddenly, I wasn’t just barely passing school—I was succeeding. I came to realize that I wasn’t lazy or undisciplined, I had just been constrained by the rigid structure of traditional schools. I had finally found a school that worked for me, and now I was able to advocate for myself by making the choice to stay at VAVA through the rest of middle and high school. I even had my passion for writing recognized by my tenth grade English and later AP Language teacher, who actively nurtured my previously unrecognized talent. And since VAVA is a public charter school, I also qualified for an official 504 plan and accommodations. My journey navigating being neurodivergent in school has taught me that just because my learning style and talents don’t align with traditional measures of intelligence, that doesn’t mean I am lazy or incapable. If I had never learned to recognize the value in my unique talents, I don’t think I would’ve had the courage to take on AP and Dual Enrollment classes in high school, let alone consider taking on a double major in college. As I’m graduating from high school and transitioning into college, I want to continue advocating for myself by pushing for excellence in the things I know I’m strong in, while also giving myself grace in the things where I may need more assistance.

If there’s one thing I knew from an early age, it’s that I wanted to write. When I was little, I spent my downtime during family summer vacations scribbling on blank picture book templates, recounting the highlights of our trip with a few embellishments. In third grade, I would turn mundane homework assignments from writing ten sentences using the vocabulary words on that week’s spelling list, to page-long short stories. This always annoyed my teacher at the time, since that wasn’t the point of the assignment, but I never understood what the problem was with being a little bit creative with my interpretation of the instructions. My elementary school fantasies probably weren’t the works of artistic genius that famous authors like George Orwell or Sylvia Plath came up with at that age, but there was always a new story idea marinating in my head that I would try to bring to life on a sheet of paper or when I was playing with my brother in the basement after school. But as much as I loved to write, I was never really an avid reader, mostly because it was hard for me to find a book with representation of people like me. I had quite a fondness for Percy Jackson and the American Girl Doll books in late elementary and middle school, but I’ve found most books I’ve read in the Young Adult genre since then to be just okay at best, to actively excruciating at worst. There are several reasons why I get turned off by so many YA books, but a big one is cliche romantic subplots of starry-eyed characters who will meet someone and just know from day one that they are in love. “Love at first sight” was always a foreign concept to me as someone who could never quite wrap my head around what romantic attraction was exactly, let alone if I even experienced it for myself. This was one among many reasons I discovered I am aromantic and asexual: someone who experiences little to no romantic or sexual attraction. Asexuality and aromanticism (or aro-ace for short) are identities under the queer umbrella that, for better or worse, do not get the mainstream attention and representation other identities such as “gay” or “transgender” do, which means the feelings I wrestle with as a queer person are less about being hated, and more about being invisible. I often find myself surrounded by people who claim to be allies of the LGBT community, but who are so often oblivious to the existence of aro-ace people; often dismissing my disinterest in romantic or sexual relationships as me having “not found the right person yet.” I’ve also struggled with my experiences as a femme-presenting agender demi-girl being dismissed in favor of the mainstream narrative of gender dysphoria and androgyny. Things like this, as insignificant as they may seem, slowly but surely eat me up inside everyday, to the point where I feel very, very small. That’s why writing has become ever more important to me as I’ve gotten older, because I believe there are a lot more interesting and thought-provoking stories we can tell when we see the world beyond the simplistic narratives and binaries presented in fiction; when we give a voice to the stories of people who have often been ignored and erased. Because I believe these stories can reassure others of a simple truth I wish I had known sooner: You are not alone.