The Reason I Jump
Table of Contents
Q1. How are you writing these sentences?
Q2. Why do people with autism talk so loudly and weirdly?
Q3. Why do you ask the same questions over and over?
Q4. Why do you echo questions back at the asker?
Q5. Why do you do things you shouldn’t even when you’ve been told a million times not to?
Q6. Do you find childish language easier to understand?
Q7. Why do you speak in that peculiar way?
Q8. Why do you take ages to answer questions?
Q9. Should we listen to every single word you say?
Q10. Why can’t you have a proper conversation?
Q11. Why don’t you make eye contact when you’re talking?
Q12. You seem to dislike holding hands with people.
Q13. Do you prefer to be on your own?
Q14. Why do you ignore us when we’re talking to you?
Q15. Why are your facial expressions so limited?
Q16. Is it true that you hate being touched?
Q17. Why do you wave goodbye with your palm facing yourself?
Q18. When you’re on one of your highs, what’s going through your mind?
Q19. What are your flashback memories like?
Q20. Why do you make a huge fuss over tiny mistakes?
Q21. Why don’t you do what you’re told to straight away?
Q22. Do you hate it when we make you do things?
Q23. What’s the worst thing about having autism?
Q24. Would you like to be ‘normal’?
Q25. What’s the reason you jump?
Q26. Why do you write letters in the air?
Q27. Why do people with autism often cup their ears? Is it when there’s a lot of noise?
Q28. Why do you move your arms and legs about in that awkward way?
Q29. Why do you do things the rest of us don’t? Do your senses work differently in some way?
Q30. Why are you too sensitive or insensitive to pain?
Q31. Why are you so picky about what you eat?
Q32. When you look at something, what do you see first?
Q33. Is it difficult for you to choose appropriate clothing?
Q34. Do you have a sense of time?
Q35. Why are your sleep patterns all messed up?
Q36. Why do you like spinning?
Q37. Why do you flap your fingers and hands in front of your face?
Q38. Why do you line up your toy cars and blocks?
Q39. Why do you like being in the water?
Q40. Do you like adverts on TV?
Q41. What kind of TV programmes do you enjoy?
Q42. Why do you memorize train timetables and calendars?
Q43. Do you dislike reading and unpicking long sentences?
Q44. What do you think about running races?
Q45. Why do you enjoy going out for walks so much?
Q46. Do you enjoy your free time?
Q47. Would you give us an example of something people with autism really enjoy?
Q48. Why are you always running off somewhere?
Q49. Why do you get lost so often?
Q50. Why do you wander off from home?
Q51. Why do you repeat certain actions again and again?
Q52. Why don’t you do what you’re supposed to do, even after being told a million times?
Q53. Why are you obsessive about certain things?
Q54. Why do you need cues and prompts?
Q55. Why can you never stay still?
Q56. Do you need visual schedules?
Q57. What causes panic attacks and meltdowns?
Q58. What are your thoughts on autism itself?
About the Author
Naoki Higashida was born in 1992 and diagnosed with ‘autistic tendencies’ in 1998. He subsequently attended schools for students with special needs and graduated in 2011. He has published several works of fiction and non-fiction and won awards for his writing. He also gives talks about autism and writes a blog. He lives in Kimitsu, Japan.
THE REASON I JUMP
Naoki Higashida
Translated by KA Yoshida and David Mitchell
with an Introduction by David Mitchell
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Sceptre
An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Naoki Higashida 2007
Translation © KA Yoshida and David Mitchell 2013
Illustrations © Kai and Sunny 2013
The right of Naoki Higashida to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781444776768
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
I
NTRODUCTION
The thirteen-year-old author of this book invites you, his reader, to imagine a daily life in which your faculty of speech is taken away. Explaining that you’re hungry, or tired, or in pain, is now as beyond your powers as a chat with a friend. I’d like to push the thought-experiment a little further. Now imagine that after you lose your ability to communicate, the editor-in-residence who orders your thoughts walks out without notice. The chances are that you never knew this mind-editor existed but, now that he or she has gone, you realize too late how they allowed your mind to function for all these years. A dam-burst of ideas, memories, impulses and thoughts is cascading over you, unstoppably. Your editor controlled this flow, diverting the vast majority away, and recommending just a tiny number for your conscious consideration. But now you’re on your own.
Now your mind is a room where twenty radios, all tuned to different stations, are blaring out voices and music. The radios have no off-switches or volume controls, the room you’re in has no door or window, and relief will come only when you’re too exhausted to stay awake. To make matters worse, another hitherto unrecognized editor has just quit without notice – your editor of the senses. Suddenly sensory input from your environment is flooding in too, unfiltered in quality and overwhelming in quantity. Colours and patterns swim and clamour for your attention. The fabric conditioner in your sweater smells as strong as air-freshener fired up your nostrils. Your comfy jeans are now as scratchy as steel wool. Your vestibular and proprioceptive senses are also out of kilter, so the floor keeps tilting like a ferry in heavy seas, and you’re no longer sure where your hands and feet are in relation to the rest of you. You can feel the plates of your skull, plus your facial muscles and your jaw: your head feels trapped inside a motorbike helmet three sizes too small which may or may not explain why the air-conditioner is as deafening as an electric drill, but your father – who’s right here in front of you – sounds as if he’s speaking to you from a cell-phone, on a train going through lots of short tunnels, in fluent Cantonese. You are no longer able to comprehend your mother-tongue, or any tongue: from now on all languages will be foreign languages. Even your sense of time has gone, rendering you unable to distinguish between a minute and an hour, as if you’ve been entombed in an Emily Dickinson poem about eternity, or locked into a time-bending SF film. Poems and films, however, come to an end, whereas this is your new ongoing reality. Autism is a lifelong condition. But even the word ‘autism’ makes no more sense to you now than the word
or
or
.
