The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy With Autism

arrive at happiness. For us, you see, having autism is normal – so we can’t know for sure what your ‘normal’ is even like. But so long as we can learn to love ourselves, I’m not sure how much it matters whether we’re normal or autistic.

E ARTHLING AND AUTISMAN
    I was travelling with my family to Hokkaido by aeroplane. It was the first time I’d flown for many years, and I was surprised to find that the sensation of gravity pulling at my body was really pleasant. I hadn’t noticed this the time I’d flown before, because I was still a little kid back then. Anyway, I made up this very short story …
    Once upon a time on a small, green, quiet planet.
    Autisman
: So – welcome to my home world.
    Earthling
: Don’t you feel weighed down? It feels as if I’ve got weights strapped to my arms and legs.
    Autisman
: Ah, but on your planet,
I
always feel as if I’m swimming around in space, weightlessly.
    Earthling
: Okay. Now I understand you. I really understand.
    If only there was a planet somewhere with a gravitational pull perfect for people with austism, then we’d be able to move around freely.

Q25 W HAT’S THE REASON YOU JUMP?
    What do you think I’m feeling when I’m jumping up and down clapping my hands? I bet you think I’m not really feeling anything much beyond the manic glee all over my face.
    But when I’m jumping, it’s as if my feelings are going upwards to the sky. Really, my urge to be swallowed up by the sky is enough to make my heart quiver. When I’m jumping, I can feel my body parts really well, too – my bounding legs and my clapping hands – and that makes me feel so, so good.
    So that’s one reason why I jump, and recently I’ve noticed another reason. People with autism react physically to feelings of happiness and sadness. So when something happens that affects me emotionally, my body seizes up as if struck by lightning.
    ‘Seizing up’ doesn’t mean that my muscles literally get stiff and immobile – rather, it means that I’m not free to move the way I want. So by jumping up and down, it’s as if I’m shaking loose the ropes that are tying up my body. When I jump, I feel lighter, and I think the reason my body is drawn skywards is that the motion makes me want to change into a bird and fly off to some faraway place.
    But constrained both by ourselves and by the people around us, all we can do is tweet-tweet, flap our wings and hop around in a cage. Ah, if only I could just flap my wings and soar away, into the big blue yonder, over the hills and far away!

Q26 W HY DO YOU WRITE LETTERS IN THE AIR?
    People with autism often write letters in the air. ‘
Are you trying to tell us something?
’ or ‘
Are you thinking about something?
’ you must be wondering, I guess. In my case, I’m writing to confirm what I want to remember. As I write, I’m recalling what I’ve seen – not as scenes, but as letters, signs and symbols. Letters, symbols and signs are my closest allies because they never change. They just stay as they are, fixed in my memory. And whenever we’re lonely or happy, in the same way that you might half hum a song to yourself, we summon up our letters. When I’m writing them out, I can forget everything else. I’m not alone when I’m with letters. Letters and symbols are much easier for us to grasp than spoken words, and we can be with them whenever we want.



Q27 W HY DO PEOPLE WITH AUTISM OFTEN CUP THEIR EARS? IS IT WHEN THERE’S A LOT OF NOISE?
    There are certain noises you don’t notice, but that really get to us. The problem here is that you don’t understand how these noises affect us. It’s not quite that the noises grate on our nerves. It’s more to do with a fear that if we keep listening, we’ll lose all sense of where we are. At times like these, it feels as if the ground is shaking and the landscape around us starts coming to get us, and it’s absolutely terrifying. So cupping our ears is a measure we take to protect ourselves, and get back our grip on where we are.
    The noises that get to people with autism vary from person to person. I don’t know how we’d cope if we couldn’t cup our ears. Me too, I cup my ears sometimes, though I’ve gradually got used to the noises by pressing my hands over my ears less and less heavily. Some people can overcome the problem by slowly becoming accustomed to the noises, I guess. What matters most is that we learn to feel safe and secure even when the noises strike us.

Q28 W HY