When I was about 2 years old, my parents realized that I was learning how to walk and talk later than most other kids. They took me to a developmental specialist, and they determined that the diagnosis was Asperger's Syndrome, though that name is no longer being used and has been replaced by the more general blanket term of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I remember my parents retelling the story, and the shocked and almost sad way my mom said "he has autism?" in her retelling. I think that even among people who sort of have an idea of what the symptoms are, there's a lack of understanding of the way these symptoms actually manifest themselves. Which is why watching 2019's Hitoribocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu was such a surreal experience for me. It's a piece of media that made me feel understood, and moreover, made me feel like it cared about me. The show is one of those shows that I feel like I had a very different experience with than other people, even among