I greeted her and asked her how she was feeling. There was no response. I tried again, but she said nothing. Finally, after I asked a third time, I got an answer. “I don’t have any friends,” she said in the softest voice I’ve ever heard, barely a whisper. “I can’t talk to people.” For Rebecca, that statement was practically the Gettysburg Address. As I discovered, she almost never talked to anyone. She didn’t answer her teachers’ questions in class or chat with her classmates. When she used the school bathroom, she had to be alone; her one friend stood guard in the hallway outside the door to assure her complete privacy. She ate by herself in the school cafeteria. If someone joined her, she moved to another table and scattered papers and books around to discourage others. Then she hid behind a notebook while she ate. Rebecca had a number of other anxieties as well, each of which has an element of social concern. She worried that teachers would call on her in class. Any kind of social interaction forced her anxiety level through the roof.
What do You think about It's Nobody's Fault (1996)?
