Seth, 18, currently studying filmmaking at UAL, was diagnosed with autism when he was 15. He shares his experience of neurodivergence through his inner world, a sanctuary that exists in his head: the mystical town of Ivywood.
The autistic brain apparently roils when it is at rest¹. We are self-stimulating, so people often find us to be socially inept—detached². What they don’t realise is that the world around us is completely overwhelming, constantly changing, constantly out of our control, and so we recoil into ourselves. They don’t realise that a whole universe often exists within the vast expanse of our brains. An inner world, as real and interactive as the physical world we all share and live in.
The best way to understand my inner world is as a concept. I have a blooming, sprawling universe inside my head, but it exists in real-time just like the world around us. I call it Ivywood. Every time I visit my inner world, I am transported to 1995, to a small town in California. I shed my skin from the physical world. In Ivywood, I am no longer Seth, but Miles instead. He is a manifestation of everything I am and everything I wish to be. He, too, is a South-Asian trans man with three best friends, but complete with all the pieces I’m missing as Seth. He is close with his dad, he has impossibly good hair and he always lives in Ivywood.
When I’m Miles, Ivywood is my town, my home, my entire world. It has an old, suburban, nostalgic feel. It’s always summer there. There is a constant air of childlike wonder, adventure and friendship. The streets are always mostly empty so I can walk, skateboard or ride my bike around freely. Every day is a new adventure in the sun. I’ve got my backpack, filled with everything I’d need on an adventure (camera, flashlight, etc.) and I always find new places to explore with my friends, whether it’s traipsing through fields or scoping out abandoned buildings. Although, it’s not the usual ordinary and mundane small town that sits in peaceful quiet and soaks up the sunrise. It’s alive and sentient, a slow-burning hotbed for the arcane supernatural.
While it might be easier to understand Ivywood as a concept, it’s more than that. I experience it in present-time – I see it, feel it, sense it, hear it, smell it the way I would the physical world. It’s real in every sense except it’s something only I can experience. I live in the physical world, but I exist in Ivywood. I’m there all the time. When I’m not, I translate objects and happenings from the physical world into Ivywood, because life in Ivywood feels easier no matter how difficult it may be outside of it. It’s a world that’s a kaleidoscope of treasured pieces of my life in the physical world and pieces that I find missing. A world that is created exactly the way I want it to be, a world I can control. A world I don’t want to come back from.
Ivywood isn’t completely separate from the physical world. It shares similarity in objects that I’ve taken from Ivywood, and objects and places that I’ve taken to Ivywood. My backpack is something that I’ve taken from Ivywood and materialised in the physical world. It’s modelled to look the way Miles’ backpack does. My CD collection is a piece of Ivywood that I’ve recreated in the physical world, too, specifically albums released before 1995 – Deftones’ Adrenaline from 1995; Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York from 1994; Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality from 1971. Ivywood exists in the 90s. Cassettes were more popular than CDs at the time, which is why I want to start collecting them as well. Recreating these items in the physical world keeps me connected to Ivywood so that I’m there even when I can’t be.
I’ve taken places and objects taken from the physical world and placed them in Ivywood, too – cherry-picked certain things that I hold close to my heart for some peculiar reason. One of them is Parish Wood, an unassuming and cosy park near my home. It’s lush and green, just like Ivywood. Then there’s a solitary, secluded bench amongst a huddle of trees in another park called Danson, near a small pond I call Lover’s Lake. Lastly, my converse. I see Miles wearing the same pair, with beaded laces and soles scrawled over with sharpie marks.
When I visit these places, cast a glance down at my converse – things that existed here first and later came to exist in Ivywood – I’m reminded of the semblance of a physical connection I have to Ivywood. It’s bittersweet, because soon after I’m also reminded that these places only make me feel like I’m in Ivywood. They’re not actually Ivywood — just a fabricated reflection that exists because I chose to add them to Ivywood.
They say people with autism often seem detached from the world around them. Sometimes, in ourselves, we find another world, one that we can control — one that we often get lost in, and so people often think we are lost within ourselves. What I wish they knew is how badly I want it to be real.
