At meditation retreats, I find that people often say things like: “It’s so nice to connect with the community rather than practicing on my own.” This doesn’t resonate with me at all.

The retreats tend to have practices like mindful walking (walking in silence in a circle around the room) and mindful eating (eating in silence in a circle in the room). These practices are not accessible for me; at least when I do them with a group of people, they sap energy rather than restore energy.

I think these are because I spend so much energy on masking (= pretending to be neurotypical). It’s not a matter of just switching off the masking—this tendency is so deeply ingrained in me from learning to survive in this society.

In fact, for me, “not masking” usually means “sitting by myself”—this is a deeply enjoyable activity and certainly a practice in itself. However, if I spend large chunks of meditation retreats sitting by myself, that does make me wonder what the point of going to the retreat is. Though I must say, it is very nice to sit in the garden outside the meditation hall by myself! It’s like my own garden, but with bigger trees, more pretty statues, and fewer of the mental distractions that I encounter at my own house.

The misgendering that I’ve encountered at retreats (more often than not, in fact) doesn’t help either.

Perhaps the answer is solo retreats, but at a location that isn’t my house.