“There’s no such thing
as completely normal. I mean, there’s some
people with holidaysiac. That would mean
somebody who is addicted to holidays,
birthdays, death dates, and other anniversaries. Impersonitis. Somebody who is addicted
to different voice impersonations and they
cannot find their home voice and some people may
be stuck with it. I mean, there’s some
people with disabilities who want to try to be
normal and to fit in. But being a person
with Asperger’s, they may have some
very clever ideas that may become unheard
of in the normal world. Well, in terms of
growing up I preferred to mostly play on my own. When I was at
kindergarten I preferred to be rocking on
the rocking horse. And the teachers were trying
to encourage me to interact with the other children. The horse then was taken away. But I preferred, even
without the horse to, sort of, play or do
things on my own. Autism affects my
life in several ways. I have to, sort of, know
on a repetitious level, like, how to do
things accordingly. Change is very
difficult in a routine. It’s hard to
interact with people, even though I’d like to
get to know people better. I try to listen very hard
and try to become interested and gradually be friends. Sometimes it does
work, but sometimes I know the subject matters
are sort of limited with normal individuals. I’ve had cases where I felt
turned down, but silently. I sometimes feel
disappointed and hurt, then I retreat
and go back into my own indifferent world. I may daydream and sometimes
wish of certain fantasies, things I sort of
make up as a way to try to hide from reality. Something to make me happy
and to absorb into my head, such as, music and the arts. I tell you, I’m
not the Rain Man. Try scatting with me.” [scatting] “Boy, Jordan. That’s really great how
you play the piano.” “Thank you very much.” “Yeah you’ve worked very
hard playing the piano.” “Thank you.” “Am I a lousy girlfriend?” “Not at all. Don’t put yourself down.” “You’re the best, Jordan.” “You, too.” ”You are.” “It is very special to
really have Toni around. And at times I could not
have gotten by, I know, without Toni. It’s — I mean, she’s sort
of brought in the reality and, like, into to me.” “Jordan?” “She does bring
structure into my life. I mean, cooperativeness
is a very important point that I learned from her in
dealing with relationships in order to make it work.” “Jordan, can you come here? I love you.” “Love you, too.” “O.K. Jordan?” “Yeah?” “I love you.” “I love you, too.” “Jordan?” “I know.” “I love you.” “I know. I know.” “Jordan, will you come here?” “Yeah?” “I love you.” “Now look, I know your game. Come on.” “Jordan?” “I heard. Come on. Let’s go.” “I love you.” “Love you.” “O.K.” “O.K. Toni has
Tourette’s Syndrome, which involves
twitches and she does take medications for them. She has also a
learning disability. I learned to, of course,
accept this thing and to accept who
she herself is.” “I got sent to my room
and I lost my TV too, so I couldn’t watch Little
House on the Prairie.” “So it’s right, you really
were a brat, I see that.” “Then the cat sleep
with me for two days.” “Yeah, he remained awake
for those two days, I guess. I try to do fine things
that will get me with Toni, I mean, relief for both of us. And for me, as an
example, the pet shelter is a place that
does give Toni, and for me, our relief.” “Mommy’s here. Oh, yes. How about a little kiss. Here, Boppy. Oh, here’s Rachelle. She’s a nice cat. She likes attention. Come here, Rachelle. Aw. I notice when I pet another
cat she gets jealous.” “Well we all need
to know that. Very few get along
in their breeds.” “Oh, yeah. Kissy, kiss. Kiss her. On the lips.” “Reality is an existence
and it is not fictional. Maybe your father
or mother could have become one of those cats.” “No, not that I know of. My mom was into
birds and my dad -- ” “What it is is format.” “Every time, Jordan,
when I see — “ “It’s hard to
stay in reality.” “I think of her
watching over us.” “Sometimes, like,
you make plans but, again, these promises and
plans always go into chaos. It’s like — I think according,
like, to Nietzsche, that life you think has one
circle, but no, there are added circles added to
extra added circles, which create chaos. And then you sort of — looks like you’re drowning. Oh, yeah. I see. It could have been
reincarnated [inaudible].” “Cream cheese,
or this cheese?” “Because you’re
a cheesy person.” “I’m afraid so.” “Sometimes you have to
tread on water like that and then come back to reality. And to face it instead of
hiding from the present. You can’t go back to the
past or do the things that you enjoyed much. You just have to keep going
forward, always forward. See what I mean? We’re already gonna go over. Wow. Over $80.” “O.K., that’s it?” “So in order to make — to put the things back, this
is what — some of the things we may have to do without.” “Sorry.” “No, it’s O.K.” “It’s O.K. This goes back. This goes back.” “The potatoes
have to go back.” “Let me see. And the — yeah but
you can do without — maybe one of the [inaudible],
maybe one of them.” “No, I’m keeping both. Sorry, the peanut
butter has to go.” “No, no, no. The peanut butter, we
would still pay that — make it my choice. But then we’ll make
the fettuccine — we have other pastas. We have other pastas. That’s fine, one, we
could take one out.” “Take one out?” “That’s fine.” “Because we have no choice.” “Yes. And then that will
leave us with? That we can afford. Here, Kate.” “Well, there’s change.” “Where did everybody go? I bet they left.” “O.K. O.K., I see, so
it’s only in one bag. Thank you.” “Thank you.” “Thank you very much. With these type of
disorders, I mean, and with that understanding
of what she has, it has brought us
close together. We learned, just like
on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, not to run away
from our troubles, which can have a bad effect
on the relationship.” “I don’t mind eating this
at 5:00 in the morning.” “Neither do I. Well everybody does have
something — everybody’s not completely normal, I
mean, in their ways of life. Disabilities are secondary,
but we are people first. You don’t say a
disabled person, you say, a person
with a disability.” “They’re swimming — “ “There’s one.” “Oh, and there’s some
over there, too.” Just like the song Imagine. It’s, like, ‘They
say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll
join us, and the world will be and live as one.’ Which is kind of,
anyway, my hope for the future
for everybody so that people with
disabilities can be treated equal just like what we are.” “Isn’t that nice when you
hear the church bell ringing?” “Yes, the Big Ben sounds. Yeah.” “Yeah.” “Sure.” “It reminds me of you.” “Sure.” “I dig you.” “Sure.” “Self advocacy, you see it all
happen, with self advocacy, cy, cy, cy, cy, self advocacy,
self advocacy, self advocacy. Yeah, come on people
from California there’s a conference
for you to attend. With speeches and workshops
and keynote speakers, this is the meeting place
you’ll never forget. Dreaming and achieving
with self advocacy. In lower California. Self advocacy, [inaudible]
with self advocacy. Self advocacy, self advocacy. Yeah. Now.”
I have some things to add as a person with Aspergers myself.
I wish this had more focus on whats its actually like, having autism. They briefly touched on sensory overload, the scene with multiple over lapping noises, and overwhelming visuals. This is a major part of having autism, as it is the second largest source of strife in my life.
The scene from the second Sherlock Holmes movie “a game of shadows” works quite well as example. The situations are similar, and many depictions of Sherlock Holmes are pretty autistic. I see and hear everything in a room, the tiniest detail and ill pick it up. But its not a choice, I see it all because thats just the way I take in information. A blessing and a curse. Kids with autism need to learn how to direct this.
There are some ways to cope with it. One of these are repetitive behaviors that give us a constant and controllable source of stimulation. Go back to the video, and look at the scene with the pond in the park. You will see the subject of the video moving his upper body forwards and backwards in a rhythmic manner. There are other times he does this in the video, I can tell already that thats his way of focusing.
While it seems to people who don’t know, in the scene he isn’t looking ay his girlfriend, and he seems to be ignoring her. From the fact that he is using his twitch, I can tell he’s actually trying to focus on her. A twitch is a anchor, a way to stay in the here and now without being overwhelmed. The fact that he is using it and not focusing one some minor detail like a tree or the water, I can tell he places tremendous value on the time he spends with his girlfriend.
This leads us to the second hurdle, the one that causes the most pain. Being social as someone with autism.
Being social is important to humans, and its no different for people like me. But there are roadblocks, and some people with autism refuse to climb them. Claiming that if they did it would be no different from lying or changing themselves for the world. Some just don’t even comprehend they are socially different.
People with autism have to learn body language. You as a normal person are born with it, and you don’t even know how much information you take in from people this way. Some of it is easy. Smile = happy, tears = sad. Most of it isn’t. Looking away and crossing arms = discomfort. Scrunching of the nose and making a noise = disgust. The list is maddeningly long. Then there are even more variables, like social dishonesty, or manipulation. All needs to be learned to be socially acceptable.
The second problem is people finding us creepy, or machine like. If you pay attention in the video, your probably noticed how his facial expression didn’t really change much. Thats because our faces, and the rest of us. Don’t really displays much social information. You can see why this would be very creepy to a normal person.
A sudden lack of information most people don’t even know they use. Like a single person in the room not having color, being black and white, and you don’t know why. It causes a subconscious distrust of the person with autism.
We have emotions, we just don’t innately display them, except for smiling and crying. Those are learned by almost all very early. Probably because they are present even in baby’s. So we have to learn, but many refuse or don’t understand why they should. They refuse because they see it as disingenuous. As faking emotion.
I see it as this. I have all the emotions you have, I just don’t display them. As a way to make you more comfortable, I artificially display them to make you more at ease. But this process is damned exhausting to be perfectly honest. Reading, and making sure I can be read. It turns social exhaustion into a every day problem.
The lack of body language has lead to another problem. There is a community of people online who claim that all people with autism are just sociopaths. That we totally lack empathy, and that we are all emotionally abusive and manipulative. This community is growing, and I personally find that disturbing. But this is just a off hand note.
Well I hope you got through my god awful writing, and maybe learned something new about people with autism. If you got this far, thanks, and feel free to ask questions if you have any.
I don't think I really understood what Autism is until I read 'The Reason I Jump', by Naoki Higashida. He's a non-verbal person with Autism who wrote the book when he was 13 years old (I think I heard about the book from TDS w/ Jon Stewart).
It's relatively short and an extremely powerful book. Can't recommend it enough. The Wiki article I hyperlinked mentioned that there is a documentary based on the book being made.
There was little of "how it feels from the inside" and lot of "this is how a persons everyday life looks like"... Good piece but the title is quite a bit misleading.
This one is great: In my Language by Amanda Baggs. 1.5 million views. If you get impatient during the first 3 minutes, sit tight, the next five minutes is very different.
This guy has a job, a roof over his head, a car, plays piano, and has a girlfriend. He's doing better than like 80% of Reddit.
Thank you for all of this everyone. So many good resources in here that I'm going to take the time to read, learn and help give more perspective. As a father of 2 on the spectrum, all of this is helpful.
I hope more videos like these are made. This is wonderful.
Jesus I read the title and thought I was in /r/wallstreetbets for a moment, then had to do a neck snap when I saw the NYT logo flash.
What a good piece.
It's nice to get documentaries on my diability, but I wish they wouldn't always focus so much on fetishising it. The autism spectrum is a blessing and curse, and having such drab colours, depressing music, and rigid definitions of what Autism Feels Like only reinforces this stereotype of the 'pityous prison'. Oh, how sad this man is to have autism.
Ugh. It makes me criticise and feel gross about who I am.