How the Songbirds Helped Me Heal

I got my first DSLR camera for Christmas (thank you, Mom and Scottish Dad!), and it’s been a game changer for me. My Canon camera and its zoom lens have helped me take great, lucky bird pictures of the songbirds in my neighborhood. I recently splurged and bought myself a cost-effective upgrade for zoom purposes, a zoom lens with better autofocus and an image stabilizer; what a difference it’s made!

I’ve spent the last year or so constantly walking throughout the neighborhood park and woodland, taking pictures on either my S23 smartphone or, now, my DSLR. The songbirds have more or less grown accustomed to seeing me, and some of them have seemingly posed for me when they see me coming.

I’ve grown very close with a male song sparrow whom I’ve affectionately named “Sam”, in honor of Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings. He recognizes the generic “bird call” I make when attempting to communicate with the neighborhood birds, and after doing a slight “call and answer” with him one afternoon, he hopped out of nearby reeds and let me take a glorious sunlit portrait of him.

I’ve taken to referring to Sam as my “emotional support sparrow”, and not without good reason!

Over the past month, I’ve earned their trust (or at least familiarity) by respecting their boundaries and privacy when photographing them and also by doing my best to gently keep them aware of my presence. This has been noticed by many of the birds, including a bold male American robin whom I’ve named “Will” (for some reason, the name came to me and stuck):

I know for sure that my autism has influenced the extra mile I go with empathy toward our neighborhood wildlife. I also recently realized that how I was mistreated several years ago during my college years has ironically helped me be a better friend to the songbirds.

Dorm Drama

The week of Valentine’s Day is a bit icky for me because of the nasty dorm nonsense I went through at that time, when I was a sophomore at college years ago.

I became the target of a gossipy group of female floormates who, while never directly confronting me, actively perpetuated a gossipy, malicious environment where I felt constantly unwelcome and paranoid and where having privacy (despite having secured a dorm without a roommate) was uncertain.

Well, I suppose the ringleader using her door’s peephole to spy on me, obsess over how long I supposedly spent in the floor’s private restroom, and even lurk right outside said restroom whispering about me would inevitably do a number on my mental well-being.

Unpacking More Ugly Memories

As a surreal side note, one of the only clues I ever got about her (the ringleader) motivations was a nap dream I had on Valentine’s Day that year. In this dream, she seemingly imagined me wearing Pink brand clothing and kept groping me despite my warnings. I eventually snapped and hit her, and the dream ended after I begged God to stop us from fighting.

Because she somehow knew I was gay, she saw me in a dehumanizing, objectifying light. It was as if she had an unreal idea of who I was based on the mannerisms she was obsessing over. Her passive-aggressive and contemptful actions, led by her disturbing fixation on me, left me with a lingering paranoia that took months to disappear.

A “smaller” thing that I forgot about was her lying to the Office of Student Conduct when she and her best friend were called to speak with one of the Office’s leaders. I was told in an email that they both expressed remorse and that “they were not aware that they had offended [me] at the time, and that was not their intention.”

Ah, of course. Yes, they clearly weren’t aware of “offending me”, even in the following instances:

• The ringleader showing me to her boyfriend on her phone and doing nothing when he promptly referred to me with a gay slur
• Lurking outside of the private restroom I was in on our floor and whispering, “He always spends so much time in the restroom.”
• After I expressed silent amusement one afternoon, coming back to our floor and seeing the ringleader glaring at me as she was oddly wont to do, I walked away hearing her scream, “WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS?! HE’S SO UGLY-” (I feel petty writing that out, but oh well. She was bizarrely enraged by me not taking her seriously.)
• And to reiterate, this girl was using the peephole in her dorm door to spy on me. I was able to prove this the night before I transferred back to my old dorm; I came back to the floor and saw her shadow under her door (which overlooked the hall in front of her, including my door). I glared at the peephole and slowly smiled (possibly unblinking) as I walked into my room. Sure enough, once I closed my door, she burst out of her bedroom and ran to her bestie’s room, expressing fright at me smiling at her

But yes, they were surely unaware of their actions. And I’m not actually gay, either!

I reread the report I sent to the Office of Student Conduct, detailing everything. In the report, I noted that I could frequently hear the ringleader in her bedroom, angrily talking on the phone with somebody, obsessing again and again over how much time I was supposedly spending in the restroom. …I really don’t know what to say, other than, “What the %*#^ was her problem?”

Wow, that was an uncomfortable but cathartic tangent.

On the other end of things, I recently had to make an uncomfortable confession to myself:

After I left that place behind, I had a toxic victim mentality; I made this trauma a part of my identity, and it was a mistake. I try to avoid coming back to this low point in my life unless there’s something new to be taken away from it.

This time around, I’ve realized that the memory of this abnormal trauma actually helped me become a better person.

A Lesson in Respecting Boundaries

At the core of this trauma was the underlying theme of those girls actively disrespecting/violating my privacy, consent, and basic boundaries (can’t a guy use the restroom without somebody analyzing his every move?!). Because I know what it’s like to have total strangers maliciously treat you as undeserving of these things, I’ve actively striven to ensure that I treat others in the exact opposite way.

I ended up applying that empathy to the neighborhood wildlife, too. Animals deserve the same compassion we strive to give each other. It’s paid off in special ways.

Feeling bad for startling these two does by accident in the summer of ’23 led to them shyly following me for a while:

And while it happened too quick for a photo, in the early fall of ’23, a female American goldfinch flew to our backyard and perched within a few feet of me, eyeing me endearingly before fluttering away with a beautiful song. It happened within the span of just a few seconds, but the peace and joy of that memory will forever lift my spirits.

My Bird Buddies and I

I do my best to keep the birds aware of my nearby presence, out of fear of startling them. While they sometimes cluck disapprovingly at me, they can tell nonetheless that I mean them no harm.

On top of the songbirds relaxing around me, I’ve more or less earned the respect of the neighborhood red-shouldered hawks, too! One of them, most likely a male, patiently posed for me on a nearby wire for a good minute before finally flying away one afternoon.

Overall, the birds in our neighborhood have all become familiar with me, and some will even fly and perch close to me, observing me keenly as I take pictures. This includes bluebirds, especially the colorful males:

Something I’ve observed from the songbirds here is that while they do employ survival awareness (watching out for hawks in particular), they’ve shown me that they balance it with relaxation. While they all come together with urgency to raise the alarm when a predator is spotted, once the threat is taken care of, they go back to singing their songs.

I don’t think they’ve been actively trying to get me to follow their example (boy, wouldn’t that be magical!), but getting to spend all of that time with them has taught me to lower my own guard. I honestly believe that spending time with them has helped me permanently let go of my (minor) PTSD.

I would also like to take this time to once again express my gratitude for the bizarre, tsundere (“it’s not like I like you or anything”) bond I have with Randall, one of the male red-winged blackbirds in our neighborhood. Like all other male red-wings, Randall is very blunt and outspoken. After so many oddly heartwarming encounters with him, he’s unwittingly encouraged me to be more direct myself.

I have a good idea of what Randall and the other red-wings would have to say about what I went through in college, and let me tell you, it wouldn’t be at all polite!

No More Survival Anxiety

While I haven’t been diagnosed with GAD (general anxiety disorder), I’m keenly aware of the spikes of anxiety I feel when being hyper-aware of my surroundings. At my job in my neighborhood library, I’ve sometimes felt fear when hearing nearby doors opening and closing. This stems from both my dorm paranoia and my last job, where my co-workers and I were frequently, unexpectedly admonished by management snapping at us in toxic manners of speech.

As I’ve been reminding myself, I’m no longer in an unsafe environment, both in my living space and my work environment. I no longer have to fear being observed by somebody with ill intentions looking for a perceived flaw to belittle.

I have to remember that what happened in that dorm happened in a vacuum. Their behavior was exceptionally abnormal and absolutely unindicative of anybody other than themselves. I could spend months trying to understand what motivated them, but it would just be a waste of time.

I don’t like remembering those events, and I don’t ever want to return to the awful victim mentality I had back then. I’m grateful to have a new, positive takeaway from that time: despite what happened to me, that nightmare inspired me to be kinder, not harsher.

I have God and the birds (and my loved ones, too!) to thank for helping me become more and more unburdened by the things that have weighed me down.

All Images by Connor Brennan

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