Our story begins in 2013. Intellau was 15, and Shannon was 12. It's a story of inequality in group therapy.
I was an anxious fifteen-year-old with MDD and GAD. Each day, I was filled with crippling anxiety/"hazy depression" and would often start "shaking" on the way to group therapy. They gave me stress balls so I would stop fidgeting with my hands during therapy time. Still, the group psychologist considered me "NT" and often criticized me for my failure to make eye contact with other people in the room/failure to speak to other group youth(Social cue problems).
Shannon Rose was a twelve-year-old with "social anxiety" and "depression". During group therapy, I was told to speak to Shannon, which was ignored because she preferred a taller, older boy over me and sat near him daily. The psychologists eventually switched Shannon to another group out of concern for her "progress"(They believed I was "negatively influencing" her by behaving in accordance with my illnesses); Shannon would mimic my neuro-atypical gestures to get attention.
