“It’s still me, but with an extra awareness,” wrote Benji, or Benjamin Mascolo, in a long post on Instagram where he revealed a new side of himself. The artist, after a long period of suffering and unanswered questions, has received a diagnosis of high-functioning autism. The post begins like this: “’I don’t want the world to see me because I don’t think they would understand.’ This is the chorus of my favorite song, Iris. I’ve spent my whole life asking myself if I’m damaged inside, if I’m special, or if I’m just like everyone else, and I’m asking myself too many questions. Over the years, I have undergone therapy, I who have never fully trusted adults, I who have never fully believed in institutions and their representatives, whether they were teachers, police officers, or doctors.”
Benjamin continues, sharing his truth, a new scale of balance in his life. A life that has led him to become an idol of Italian teenagers together with his adventure partner Federico Rossi (and we still elect “Dove e Quando” by Benji and Fede as the favorite song of every summer), has taken him first to America, far from family and friends, catapulting him into a reality foreign to everything he knew, and finally leading him to experience numerous breakups followed by just as many rebirths.
“I got there because I was exhausted, because I had hurt myself so much that it no longer made sense to try to self-medicate, whether it was with drugs or with marathons and healthy diets. And so I decided to trust, to drive for hours in August with my wife (a saint) instead of going on vacation, to reach a hospital on the other side of Italy, take test after test, and have my parents interviewed about my childhood by a great psychiatrist. High-functioning autism. This is the diagnosis, the modern science answer in 2024.” The artist, married since November 2023 to Greta Cuoghi, has revealed on many occasions his struggle against addiction, depression, and the painful and, in some ways, destructive love for his historical ex, actress Bella Thorne.
“I’m not a super-intelligent autistic person who looks at New York from a flying helicopter and can draw it from memory. I’m one of those who has an existential panic attack when they open the menu at a restaurant because there’s too much choice, one of those who has to have all his clothes from the same brand, all the same color, all the same model, packed in rigid transparent plastic bags and stacked in a closet. And that’s okay. Dr. Rosso says that in the diagnosis there is already a small healing effect, and I believe it.” And then he concluded, full of hope: “I’m still me, with an extra awareness: I’m no longer alone.”