Art of Communication

2 September 2014. Digital photograph, 6MP (reduced to 1024 x 576 for web display), edited in Paint.NET.

This photo first appeared at the Broken Light Collective in October 2014. The Broken Light Collective is an "online photography gallery for people affected by mental illness. Broken Light’s main goal is to create a safe and accepting environment where photographers of all levels who are affected by mental health issues can display their work, as well as inspire one another to keep going and keep creating, despite the dark or scary places in which they may find themselves."

About this photo:

As if depression and anxiety don’t make it difficult enough to communicate with others at times, being on the autism spectrum takes it to another level. Even when I work up the courage to talk to others, I often find myself stumbling over what to say and how to say it, or falling back on clichés, idioms, stock phrases, and jargon. Even worse than trying to put my thoughts into words is trying to decipher what other people’s words mean. Depression and anxiety lead me to a lot of self-imposed solitude; combine this with the semantic, pragmatic, and other difficulties associated with autism spectrum disorder, and it should be no surprise that I find communication with others awkward on the best of days and downright agonizing much of the time. I think this photo sums up my experience with language quite well.

Full-resolution watermarked .jpg image (3264 x 1836, 3.0MB) available as a free download under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. You are free to use the image for non-commercial purposes, but you may not alter it in any way, including cropping or removing the copyright notice, which serves as the artist's attribution for the purposes of the Creative Commons license. You must also provide a link to that license so others understand these rights.