The Reason I Jump

by Naoki Higashida

As for people who don’t show any signs of pain, my guess is that they’re unable to keep those signs on display. I think it’s very difficult for you to properly get your heads around just how hard it is for us to express what we’re feeling. For us, dealing with the pain by treating it as if it’s already gone is actually easier than letting other people know we are in pain.

  Normal people think we’re highly dependent and can’t live without ongoing support, but in fact there are times when we’re stoic heroes.

  Q31 Why are you so picky about what you eat?

  Some people with autism keep to a very limited diet, it’s true. I don’t really have this problem myself, but to some degree I can understand where they’re coming from, I think. We do this business called eating three times a day, but for some people having to eat different meals each time can be a major headache. Each type of food has its distinct taste, color and shape. Usually, these differences are what make eating a pleasure, but for some people with autism, only those foodstuffs they can already think of as food have any taste. Everything else is about as appetizing as toy food you might be served at a little kid’s “pretend tea-time.”

  So why do these people experience new food this way? You could say, “Because their sense of taste is all messed up” and be done with it. But couldn’t you also say that they just need more time than the average person to come to appreciate unknown types of food? Even if they’d be happy sticking with only those foods they’re used to eating, in my opinion meals aren’t just about nutrition—meals are also about finding joy in life. Eating is living, and picky eaters should definitely be nudged toward trying different foods little by little. That’s what I reckon, anyway.

  Q32 When you look at something, what do you see first?

  So how do people with autism see the world, exactly? We, and only we, can ever know the answer to that one! Sometimes I actually pity you for not being able to see the beauty of the world in the same way we do. Really, our vision of the world can be incredible, just incredible …

  You might reply, “But the eyes we all use to look at things work the same way, right?” Fair enough, you may be looking at the exact same things as us, but how we perceive them appears to be different. When you see an object, it seems that you see it as an entire thing first, and only afterward do its details follow on. But for people with autism, the details jump straight out at us first of all, and then only gradually, detail by detail, does the whole image sort of float up into focus. What part of the whole image captures our eyes first depends on a number of things. When a color is vivid or a shape is eye-catching, then that’s the detail that claims our attention, and then our hearts kind of drown in it, and we can’t concentrate on anything else.

  Every single thing has its own unique beauty. People with autism get to cherish this beauty, as if it’s a kind of blessing given to us. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we can never be completely lonely. We may look like we’re not with anyone, but we’re always in the company of friends.

  Q33 Is it difficult for you to choose appropriate clothing?

  Whether it’s hot or whether it’s cold, I always have a hard time choosing the right clothing, as well as putting extra layers on or peeling them off accordingly. Some people with autism keep wearing exactly the same type of clothes all through the year, in fact. What’s the deal here? What’s so tricky about putting on or taking off clothes as you need to?

  Well—search me. It might be scorching hot, and we know it’s scorching hot, but it simply might not occur to a person with autism that taking off a layer is a good idea. It’s not that we don’t understand the logic—it’s just that we somehow forget. We forget what we’re wearing, and how to make ourselves cooler.

  I can mop the sweat off my face with my handkerchief, at least—I’m used to doing this now—but adjusting my clothing is a taller order because the situation is often changing. So I can well sympathize with those people with autism who prefer to wear the same clothes day in, day out. Clothes are like an extension of our bodies, an outer skin, and so the day-in, day-outers find it reassuring to stick to the same outfit. We feel obliged to do everything we can to protect ourselves against uncertainty, and wearing comfy clothes we like is one way of doing this.

  Q34 Do you have a sense of time?

  Time is a continuous thing with no clear boundaries, which is why it’s so confusing for people with autism. Perhaps you’re puzzled about why time intervals and the speed of time are so hard for us to gauge, and why time seems such slippery stuff for people with autism.

  For us, time is as difficult to grasp as picturing a country we’ve never been to. You can’t capture the passing of time on a piece of paper. The hands of a clock may show that some time has passed, but the fact that we can’t actually feel it makes us nervous.

  Because I have autism, I know all about this and I feel it myself—believe me, this is scary stuff. We’re anxious about what kind of condition we’ll be in at a future point, and what problems we’ll trigger. People who have effortless control over themselves and their bodies never really experience this fear.

  For us, one second is infinitely long—yet twenty-four hours can hurtle by in a flash. Time can only be fixed in our memories in the form of visual scenes. For this reason there’s not a lot of difference between one second and twenty-four hours. Exactly what the next moment has in store for us never stops being a big, big worry.

  Q35 Why are your sleep patterns all messed up?

  Quite a few people with autism find it hard to fall asleep at night. When I was little there were times when I couldn’t fall asleep either, even when it got really late. This seems strange, because we human beings aren’t nocturnal animals, right? But now I rarely have this problem. The cure might simply be time. People who can’t sleep may appear to be okay on the outside, while inside they’re exhausted.

  I don’t really know what causes sleeping disorders, so all I want to ask you to do here is, if your autistic child isn’t going to sleep at a decent hour, please don’t tell them off—even if it goes on night after night after night.

  Never-ending Summer

  People with autism can be restless and fidgety all the time, almost to the point of it looking comical. It’s as if it’s summer for us the whole year round. Most people look pretty relaxed when they’re not doing anything in particular, but we’re always zooming off madly like a kid who’s late for school. We’re like cicadas who’ll miss the summer unless we hurry, hurry, hurry. Bzzzzzz, bzzzzzz, crick-crick, crick-crick, chirrrrrr … We cry our hearts out, shout our heads off, and never rest in our battle against time.

  As autumn comes around the year’s corner, the cicadas’ lives come to an end. Human beings still have plenty of time in store, but we who have autism, who are semidetached from the flow of time, we are always uneasy from sunrise to sunset. Just like the cicadas, we cry out, we call out.

  Q36 Why do you like spinning?

  Us people with autism often enjoy spinning ourselves around and around. We like spinning whatever object comes to hand, for that matter. Can you understand what’s so much fun about spinning?

  Everyday scenery doesn’t rotate, so things that do spin simply fascinate us. Just watching spinning things fills us with a sort of everlasting bliss—for the time we sit watching them, they rotate with perfect regularity. Whatever object we spin, this is always true. Unchanging things are comforting, and there’s something beautiful about that.

  Q37 Why do you flap your fingers and hands in front of your face?

  Flapping our fingers and hands in front of our faces allows the light to enter our eyes in a pleasant, filtered fashion. Light that reaches us like this feels soft and gentle, like moonlight. But “unfiltered” direct light sort of “needles” its way into the eyeballs of people with autism in sharp straight lines, so we see too many points of light. This actually makes our eyes hurt.

  This said, we couldn’t get by without light. Light wipes away our tears, and when we’re bathed in light,
we’re happy. Perhaps we just love how its particles pour down on us. Light particles somehow console us. I admit this is something I can’t quite explain using logic.

  Q38 Why do you line up your toy cars and blocks?

  Lining things up is the best fun. Watching running water is great fun, too. Other kids seem to enjoy games about pretending and make-believe, but as a person with autism I never really see the point of them.

  What I care about—in fact I’m pretty obsessive about this—is the order things come in, and different ways of lining them up. It’s actually the lines and the surfaces of things like jigsaw puzzles that we love, and things like that. When we’re playing in this way, our brains feel refreshed and clear.

  Q39 Why do you like being in the water?

  We just want to go back. To the distant, distant past. To a primeval era, in fact, before human beings even existed. All people with autism feel the same about this one, I reckon. Aquatic life-forms came into being and evolved, but why did they then have to emerge onto dry land, and turn into human beings who chose to lead lives ruled by time? These are real mysteries to me.

  In the water it’s so quiet and I’m so free and happy there. Nobody hassles us in the water, and it’s as if we’ve got all the time in the world. Whether we stay in one place or whether we’re swimming about, when we’re in the water we can really be at one with the pulse of time. Outside of the water there’s always too much stimulation for our eyes and our ears, and it’s impossible for us to guess how long one second is or how long an hour takes.

  People with autism have no freedom. The reason is that we are a different kind of human, born with primeval senses. We are outside the normal flow of time, we can’t express ourselves, and our bodies are hurtling us through life. If only we could go back to that distant, distant, watery past—then we’d all be able to live as contentedly and as freely as you lot!

  Q40 Do you like commercials on TV?

  This is a difficult one. I’m not quite sure what the answer is. If you figured that we must like TV commercials just because the slogans and catchphrases roll off our tongues so easily, that wouldn’t be the full story. We remember them as well as we do because they’re on so often, and sure, we dash to the TV when a familiar commercial comes on. We enjoy watching the ones we know well. How come you people without autism aren’t that keen on TV commercials? They’re on again and again and again, after all—so isn’t seeing them a bit like being visited by old and dear friends?

  I’m not a big fan of TV commercials in and of themselves, but when a familiar ad comes on, I get quite excited about it. This is because when a familiar one comes on I already know what it’s talking about, and I feel sort of soothed knowing that they never last for long. The reason why we look happy to your eyes while we’re watching TV ads must be that at all other times we’re less stable and calm, and our faces are blanker. Perhaps what you’re getting when you look at us watching commercials on the TV is a brief glimpse of the Real Us.

  Q41 What kind of TV programs do you enjoy?

  Even at my age, I still enjoy this TV program for kindergarten kids, Watching with Mother. Reading that, you must be thinking, “Ah, this guy’s just a big kid, after all!” But that’s not the case, in my humble opinion. Sure, we may appear to resemble small children—our fondness for gentle, kind, beautiful things—but we tend to prefer simpler, more straightforward stories, not because of childishness, but because we can more easily guess what’s going to happen next. This allows us to stay more relaxed and more engaged. Plus the simpler stories tend to repeat themselves a lot, so when we get to a familiar scene we can get all excited and make a happy fuss.

  People with autism get quite a kick out of repetition. If I was asked how come, my reply would be this: “When you’re in a strange new place, aren’t you relieved too if you run into a friendly, familiar face?”

  What we just don’t do are disputes, bargaining or criticizing others. We’re totally helpless in these scenarios.

  A Story I Heard Somewhere

  There was once a girl who loved dancing and she wore red shoes. Everybody who knew her thought, That girl will keep dancing until the day she dies, and who knows, maybe the girl thought the same thing herself.

  One night, when the whole world was fast asleep, she began dancing. She went:

  A twirl and a whirl and a leaping curl,

  A-skippetty-skippetty skip-skip-skip,

  A-tappetty-tappetty tap-tap-tap,

  A-tra-lah-di-dah and a tim tam tom.

  The girl was in a state of sheer bliss. How sublime it is to dance! A whole week went by in this manner. Then she thought, I wonder how much longer I can keep this up? By this point she was almost dead on her feet, but all she wished for was to keep on dancing, dancing, dancing.

  Then, on the eighth day, this handsome young man appeared. He said to her, “Would you care to dance with me?” With that, the girl stopped dancing. She said, “Thanks, but no. I’ve just discovered something more precious than dancing.” Then, in a small house, they lived happily ever after.

  Q42 Why do you memorize train timetables and calendars?

  Because it’s fun! We get a real kick out of numbers, us people with autism. Numbers are fixed, unchanging things. The number 1, for example, is only ever, ever the number 1. That simplicity, that clearness, it’s so comforting to us.

  Whoever reads any given timetable or calendar, it’s always, always the same. You can easily understand all of them by following the same set of rules. And when it comes to our favorite things, we can memorize these as easily as if they were jumping straight into our heads. Invisible things like human relationships and ambiguous expressions, however, these are difficult for us people with autism to get our heads around.

  Perhaps you’re thinking that it’s no major effort for me to write these sentences, but that wouldn’t be true at all. Always lurking at the back of my mind is an anxiety about whether or not I’m perceiving things in the same way that people without autism do. So, via TV, books and just tuning in to the people around me, I’m constantly learning about how ordinary people are supposed to feel in given situations. And whenever I learn something new, I write a short story dealing with the situation in question. This way, with luck, it won’t slip my mind.

  Q43 Do you dislike reading and picking apart long sentences?

  No, I don’t dislike longer sentences. Whatever else is going on, I’m always hungry to learn about lots of different things. It really gets me down that people just don’t understand how hungry for knowledge people with autism actually are. The problem isn’t that I dislike longer sentences. The problem is that my patience wears out so quickly. I get tired so soon and lose all track of what the sentence was about. I can read simple picture books without much trouble, so when I’m alone, I tend to choose one of these. They are easy to follow and stimulate my imagination, and I never get bored with them.

  I want to grow up learning a million things! There must be countless other people with autism who have the same desire, the same attitude. But our problem is, we aren’t capable of studying all by ourselves. To be able to study like other people, we need more time and different strategies and approaches. And those people who help us study, they actually need more patience than we do. They need to understand our eagerness to learn, even though from the outside we may not appear to be keen students. But we are. We, too, want to grow.

  Q44 What do you think about running races?

  I don’t hate races, but the instant I’m conscious of the need to run fast, I find that I can’t. If I’m just running for fun with my friends, I find I can run as long as I want to—it’s as if I’m making friends with the wind. Sometimes people say that I’m very good at running away, but really it’s just that when someone’s chasing me, I find it both funny and frightening when the chaser is catching up to me. This prompts me to put on a spurt of speed, and I’m off.

  The reason I can’t run well once I’m aware of needing to isn’t to do wit
h nerves. My problem is that as soon as I try to run fast, I start thinking about how I ought to be moving my arms and legs, and then my whole body freezes up. And another reason I don’t do well in races is that I don’t really get any pleasure out of beating other people. I agree that it’s right and proper to do the best you can in a race, but this desire to beat everyone else is another matter altogether. So on competitive occasions like school sports days, the pleasure I get just by being there takes over, and I’ll end up running the race with all the urgency of someone skipping his way across a meadow.

  Q45 Why do you enjoy going out for walks so much?

  My guess is that lots of people with autism like walking, and I wonder if you can work out why. “Because walking makes you feel good?” “Because it’s great being out in the open air?” Both these replies are true, of course, but for me the number one reason is that us people with autism love the greenness of nature. Now you might be thinking, “Oh, is that all?” However, our fondness for nature is, I think, a little bit different from everyone else’s. I’m guessing that what touches you in nature is the beauty of the trees and the flowers and things. But to us people with special needs, nature is as important as our own lives. The reason is that when we look at nature, we receive a sort of permission to be alive in this world, and our entire bodies get recharged. However often we’re ignored and pushed away by other people, nature will always give us a good big hug, here inside our hearts.