Shmile

There is one video you can find of me smiling in recent years. An unabashed, genuine look of happiness. It’s when I was coming to, after oral surgery. Getting my wisdom teeth removed the day before Christmas in 2021. I was out of my mind. 

“Shmile!” I said, looking into my phone, proud of my reflection. My bloody, bandaged face. I find I always take my best pictures when I’m delirious. 

I have struggled with my smile my whole life. Making it, looking at it, dealing with the reactions of everyone out of my control. As a child I would practice smiling in the bathroom mirror before and after school, and over the past year the reflection is back. 

In December of 2022, I met a boy online. I was charmed by his supposed intellect and incessant love bombing, like any person with my conditions would be, and like almost any eighteen-year-old girl will tell you they have been. He and I both lived in New York, and he wanted a picture of me for his contacts. I sent him picture after picture of my face, but it wasn’t enough. He said he needed to see me smiling. I told him I had a strange smile, he said that had to be untrue.

I felt like I had something to prove. I sent him a picture of me at a friend’s birthday party, smiling wide as could be. “I’ll be real, I wouldn’t go up to this girl,” he said, and like a fool, instead of leaving it alone, I asked why. “Real grippy socks energy.” I was devastated. It was a joke, a joke with bones no doubt, and it hit me hard. I would be going to a mental institution in a month’s time. I didn’t tell him that. 

A word that’s been stuck in my head since I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder is comorbidity. It’s when two or more conditions fuse together, feed off each other – maybe you can’t tell where one starts and the other ends. The link between my autism and my depression is not made of brass. Autism is a social disability, and like all disabilities, it usually isn’t the disabled who are unequipped to manage, but the people who have never been exposed before.

Invisible until it isn’t, it’s all over my face. A portrait of Ava Zeldman, the title “Girl with The Grippy Socks.”

A few months ago, this spring, I was texting a guy before a date. He seemed incredibly kind. I told him this story, the story of the December Sock Lothario, and he reacted with righteous indignation. I even showed the picture that started it all, Venus in Hospital Sock Smile. The guy told me I looked beautiful. I’d say that’s like catnip to me, but it’s more like black tar heroin. 

When the day of this springtime date came, it felt like the night before Christmas. I got into my Uber and my driver started to ask unnerving questions. He asked me how old I was and where I lived. He told me I could sleep in his car. I had a panic attack, the kind you have where you keep your shit together on the outside, at least I thought it looked that way. While I was in the car, I reassured myself that this could turn out to be a good experience. I would get out and talk to my date, he’d ask if I was okay and be protective of me. He’d care for me. 

When I met my date he said, “Well, that’s why I never take Ubers.” Comorbidity, I thought that his saying that meant I must have fucked up on a social rule that everyone knew about but me (bipolar, autism), and I thought that this person who was so delightful on the phone’s now extreme apathy must be my fault (bipolar, P.T.S.D.), and that I had to fix it. 

As the date continued, he pulled strange faces at me. I assumed that he had a neurological condition or was under stress. Eventually he said, “You know I’m making fun of you, right?” I didn’t understand. He explained that my face had been twitching the whole day, and that he thought I was aware of it. I wasn’t. My face had been twitching when I looked away, laughed, stole glances, and worse of all, when I smiled. Those were the worst faces that he had pulled. I wanted to cry right there. I didn’t know if this was something I had always done, or if it was because of the panic attack I had from the Uber driver. Maybe it was from a med that I was taking at the time that I don’t take anymore. Whatever the case, a person who had called my smile beautiful in a photo found my face comical, maybe even disturbing in real life.

Everything I had worked so hard for, gone. No control. No high functioning expressions. No mask. All my life I’ve worried about the space I’ve taken up. My greatest fear is hurting people, especially those I love or believe I could love. I think this is a common feeling for disabled people like me who have involuntary movements and expressions. 

When I walk down the streets of New York, old men tell me to smile more. Guys ask me why I look so sad all of the time. I don’t owe these people anything, of course that’s true, but I fear that even if I tried to mask it wouldn’t fit.

I don’t want to mask, I don’t want to people please. I’m not attracted to guys who say stupid shit like “grippy socks energy” or guys who victim blame and don’t bother to ask if you’re okay. That shit was a done deal. But it can’t be so binary as just people are misogynistic and I’m angelic, I know I’m not. I know I’m strange. Why’s that gotta stop me from getting any?

I don’t want to be that little girl who’s scared of a mirror because she thinks there might be a monster behind the glass that everyone but her can see. I don’t see a monster in other disabled people, I see beauty and strength. I know what it’s like to some extent, what it’s like to not have complete autonomy in any regard. Maybe that makes people uncomfortable because they’re not ready to be exposed to the mirror, the camera, or the picture frame. 

So for now, I’m gonna practice my smile.