(LONDON) Edited by Paula Tooths<\/p>\n
\nby\u00a013-year-old Naoki Higashida<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u2018What makes\u00a0me smile is seeing \u00adsomething beautiful.\u2019 Photograph: Miki Higashida<\/p>\n
When I was small, I didn’t even know I\u00a0had special needs. How did I find out? By other people telling me I was different and that this was a problem. True enough. It was very hard for me\u00a0to act like a normal person, and even now I\u00a0still can’t “do” a real conversation. I have no problem reading books aloud and singing, but\u00a0as soon as I try to speak with someone, my words just vanish. I\u00a0can’t respond appropriately when I’m told to do something, and whenever I get nervous I run off from\u00a0wherever I happen to be. So even a straightforward activity like shopping can be really challenging if I’m tackling it on my own.<\/p>\n
During my frustrating, miserable, helpless days, I’ve started imagining what it would be like if everyone was\u00a0autistic. If autism was regarded simply as a personality type, things would be so much easier. Thanks to training, I’ve learned a method of communication via writing. Problem\u00a0is, many children with autism don’t have the means to express themselves, and often even\u00a0their own parents don’t have a\u00a0clue what they might be thinking. So my big hope is that I can help a\u00a0bit\u00a0by explaining, in my own way, what’s going on in the minds of people with autism.<\/p>\n
Why do people with autism talk so\u00a0loudly and weirdly?<\/strong>
\nPeople often tell me that when I’m\u00a0talking to myself my voice is really loud, even though my voice at\u00a0other times is way too soft. This is\u00a0one of those things I can’t control. It\u00a0really gets me down.<\/p>\nWhen I’m talking in a weird voice, I’m not doing it on purpose. Sure, there are times when I find the sound of my own voice comforting, when I’ll use familiar words or easy-to-say phrases. But the voice I can’t control is different. This one blurts out, not because I want it to: it’s more like a reflex. When my weird voice gets triggered, it’s almost impossible to hold it back \u2013 if I try, it\u00a0hurts, almost as if I’m strangling my own throat.<\/p>\n
Why do you ask the same questions over and over?<\/strong>
\nIt’s true, I always ask the same questions. “What day is it today?” or\u00a0“Is it a school day tomorrow?” The reason? I very quickly forget what it is I’ve just heard. Inside my head there isn’t such a big difference between what I was told just now and what I heard long ago.<\/p>\nI imagine a normal person’s memory is arranged continuously, like a line. My memory, however, is\u00a0more like a pool of dots. I’m always “picking up” these dots \u2013 by\u00a0asking my questions \u2013 so I can arrive back at the memory that the\u00a0dots represent.<\/p>\n
But there’s another reason for our repeated questioning: it lets us play with words. We aren’t good at conversation, and however hard we try, we’ll never speak as effortlessly as you do. The big exception, however, is words or phrases we’re very familiar with. Repeating these is great fun. It’s like a game of catch. Unlike the words we’re ordered to say, repeating questions we already know the answers to can be a pleasure \u2013 it’s playing with sound and rhythm.<\/p>\n
Why do you do things you shouldn’t, even when you’ve been told a million times not to?<\/strong>
\nIt may look as if we’re being bad out\u00a0of naughtiness, but honestly, we’re not. When we’re being told off, we feel terrible that yet again we’ve done what we’ve been told not to. But when the chance comes once more, we’ve pretty much forgotten about the last time. It’s as\u00a0if something that isn’t us is urging\u00a0us on.<\/p>\nYou must be thinking: “Is he never going to learn?” We know we’re making you sad and upset, but it’s as \u00a0if we don’t have any say in it. Please,\u00a0whatever you do, don’t give up on us. We need your help.<\/p>\n
Do you prefer to be on your own?<\/strong>
\nI can’t believe that anyone born as a\u00a0human being really wants to be left all on their own. What we’re anxious about is that we’re causing trouble for the rest of you, or even getting on your nerves. This is why it’s hard for us to stay around other people.<\/p>\nThe truth is, we’d love to be with other people. But because things never, ever go right, we end up getting used to being alone. Whenever I overhear someone remark how much I prefer being on my own, it makes me feel desperately lonely. It’s as if they’re deliberately giving me the cold shoulder.<\/p>\n
Why do you make a huge fuss over tiny mistakes?<\/strong>
\nWhen I see I’ve made a mistake, my\u00a0mind shuts down. I cry, I scream, I make a huge fuss, and I just can’t think straight about anything any more. However tiny the mistake, for me it’s a massive deal. For example, when I pour water into a glass, I\u00a0can’t stand it if I spill even a drop.<\/p>\nIt must be hard for you to understand why this could make me so unhappy. And even to me, I\u00a0know really that it’s not such a big deal. But it’s almost impossible for me to keep my emotions contained. Once I’ve made a mistake, the fact of it starts rushing towards me like a tsunami. I get swallowed up in the moment, and can’t tell the right response from the wrong response. To get away, I’ll do anything. Crying, screaming and throwing things, hitting out even\u2026 Finally, finally, I’ll calm down and come back to myself. Then I see no sign of the tsunami attack \u2013 only the wreckage I’ve made. And when I see that, I hate myself.<\/p>\n
Why do you repeat certain actions again and again?<\/strong>
\nIt’s like our brains keep sending out the same order, time and time again. Then, while we’re repeating the action, we get to feel really good and incredibly comforted.<\/p>\nI feel a deep envy of people who can know what their own minds are saying, and who have the power to act accordingly. My brain is always sending me off on little missions, whether or not I want to do them. And if I don’t obey, then I have to fight a feeling of horror. For people with autism, living itself is a battle.<\/p>\n
Why are your facial expressions so\u00a0limited?<\/strong>
\nOur expressions only seem limited because you think differently from us. It’s troubled me for quite a\u00a0while that I can’t laugh along when everyone else is. For a person with autism, the idea of what’s fun or funny doesn’t match yours, I guess. More than that, there are times when situations feel downright hopeless to us \u2013 our daily lives are so full of tough stuff to tackle. At other times, if we’re surprised, or feel tense or embarrassed, we just freeze up and become unable to show any emotion whatsoever.<\/p>\nCriticising people, winding them up, making idiots of them or fooling them doesn’t make people with autism laugh. What makes us smile from the inside is seeing something beautiful, or a memory that makes us laugh. This generally happens when there’s nobody watching us. And at night, on our own, we might burst out laughing underneath the duvet, or roar with laughter in an empty room\u2026 When we don’t need to think about other people or anything else, that’s when we wear our natural expressions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(LONDON) Edited by Paula Tooths by\u00a013-year-old Naoki Higashida \u2018What makes\u00a0me smile is seeing \u00adsomething beautiful.\u2019 Photograph: Miki Higashida When I was small, I didn’t even know I\u00a0had special needs. How did I find out? By other people telling me I was different and that this was a problem. True enough. It was very hard for me\u00a0to act like a normal person, and even now I\u00a0still can’t “do” a real conversation. I have no problem reading books aloud and singing, but\u00a0as … <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2770],"tags":[55,2028],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-autismplusuk","category-paula-tooths","tag-paula-tooths","tag-paulatooths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3414,"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/3414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulatooths.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}