"The Reason I Jump" - My thoughts

My friend, cum sister-by-choice who lives in Canada found a review about a book written by an autistic Japanese schoolboy that has been translated into English called, The Reason I Jump by Higashida Naoki (yes, I use Japanese convention and write the last name first, so, if you're searching, go by the "first" name). My sister brought it to my attention and even had two copies sent to me so they got there the day it came out. (I'm so spoiled, thanks, Flit).

Now, as many/most/all of you may know, my son, Alex is autistic (and turns 10 next week). He is a beautiful, thoughtful, intelligent, creative, perceptive, caring, affectionate child and, yes, that is not the opposite of autism. And if you read this book, as I did, you might have a better understanding why that's so.  There are several perceptions about autism, I think this book might readily set on its ear.

If you don't know anyone who is autistic or has autistic children, this book would probably not have much appeal for you. But, if you do or have any interest into insight into this very challenging condition, I strongly encourage you to read it.  It was hard to read, hard to force myself to acknowledge one of my worst fears growing up: being trapped in a brain that couldn't communicate properly. It was hard to admit that my son has to deal with something frighteningly close to my own worst nightmare.

But it is not an unhappy book. The author is obviously struggling, obviously frustrated, clearly lonely and sad, wracked with a large amount of guilt. Not because he doesn't care about anyone else, but because he does care and can't stop himself from upsetting those around him. And that, of course, becomes an additional source for his frustration and his isolation. But, he is still hopeful, still trying, and has found ways to overcome some of his challenges, including his ability to communicate with the written words when his verbal skills failed him. He hasn't given up and he finds delight in some of those perceptions and senses of his that are different than the rest of us share.  Healthy reaction, that, I think.

And he has provided me precious insight into some of the unfathomable traits and tendencies my son has that had baffled and sometimes frustrated me as well. I am very grateful to my friend/sister for bringing this to my attention and to the brave young man who worked so hard to share his experiences with the rest of us.

I love my son. I don't want to turn him into something he's not or torture him into fitting into the world at large so he can interact more readily with everyone else. He is challenging but he's trying as hard as I am and I appreciate that. I'm comfortable with the notion that he may never fit in with the rest of the world because he always has a place in mine for as long as I live. And my daughter is just as determined that she'll take over if something happens to me. And my son, who's very intelligent, I think knows that.

And, I'll be honest, I felt a little better after reading this book too because my son does not isolate himself. His sister (5) insists on attention and gets it from him. I "listen" to some very complex and effective nonverbal communication he's been using since he was able to walk. And, as he has no trouble showing emotion, I can see he's frequently happy and loves to be with us. He has every appearance of a very happy child who isn't particularly patient, or handle frustration/thwarting well and, well, doesn't talk, but is otherwise pretty content with his life. But I can live with that.

The fact that he's happy and seems fairly comfortable with himself makes me feel that, though we've been shooting somewhat blind in all this, I and my ex-husband must have done some things right.

P.S. Flit has her own review here.

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Saturday Quote-a-thon: Assumptions and Stubbornness

Ah, the old presupposed notions and the inability to see past one's own view. Ah, I've got a bunch of these....I think.

Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.
--Baltasar Gracián

Perseverance is the most overrated of traits, if it is unaccompanied by talent; beating your head against a wall is more likely to produce a concussion in the head than a hole in the wall.
--Sydney J. Harris

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
--Aldous Huxley

When a true genius appears in this world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
--Jonathon Swift

Life is so unlike theory.
--Anthony Trollope

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
--Mark Twain

As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
-- Matt Cartmill

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
-- Howard Aiken

Every time we start thinking we're the center of the universe, the universe turns around and says with a slightly distracted air, 'I'm sorry. What'd you say your name was again?'
-- Margaret Maron

God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
-- Sir William Bragg

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-- Galileo

Ignorance is the mother of presumption.
-- Marie de Gournay

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
-- Charles Darwin

I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts.
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Information cannot argue with a closed mind.
-- Elaine May

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
-- Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
-- Upton Sinclair

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
-- William G. McAdoo

It would appear that we have reached the limits of what is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years.
-- John Von Neumann, 1949

Nothing is improbable until it moves into the past tense.
-- George Ade

Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.
-- Werner Heisenberg

Once, when the secrets of science were the jealously guarded property of a small priesthood, the common man had no hope of mastering their arcane complexities. Years of study in musty classrooms were prerequisite to obtaining even a dim, incoherent knowledge of science. Today all that has changed: a dim, incoherent knowledge of science is available to anyone.
-- Tom Weller

One must always tell what one sees. Above all, which is more difficult, one must always see what one sees.
-- Charles Pierre Péguy

Science is built with facts as a house is with stones -- but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
-- Jules Henri Poincarxiée

Scientists, especially when they leave the particular field in which they have specialized, are just as ordinary, pig-headed and unreasonable as anybody else, and their unusually high intelligence makes their prejudices all the more dangerous.
-- H.J Eysenck

Scientists often have a naive faith that if only they could discover enough facts about a problem, these facts would somehow arrange themselves in a compelling and true solution.
-- Theodosius Dobzhansky

Sometimes men come by the name of genius in the same way that certain insects come by the name of centipede -- not because they have a hundred feet, but because most people can't count above fourteen.
-- Georg Lichtenberg

Sometimes the best way to convince someone he is wrong is to let him have his way.
-- Red O'Donnell

“Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.”
-The Social Contract, Jean Jacques Rousseau

It is harder to crack a prejudice than an atom.
-Albert Einstein

Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.
-Nikola Tesla

Ford stood up. "We're safe," he said.
"Oh good," said Arthur.
"We're in a small galley cabin," said Ford, "in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet."
"Ah," said Arthur, "this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of."
-From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I have more, but this is long enough for today.

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