Q12 You seem to dislike holding hands with people.

It’s not that we don’t like holding hands, it’s just that, if we happen to spot something interesting, we can’t help but dash off and let go of the hand we were holding. I don’t even remember letting it go until I hear the other person say, “Huh—it looks like he doesn’t want to hold my hand.”

That really used to depress me. But because I can’t explain to the person why I let go of his or her hand, and since I do in fact find it hard to keep holding the hand for long, there’s not much I can do about the misunderstanding.

It’s really not a matter of whose hand I’m holding, or even of the act of holding hands itself. It’s this impulse kids with autism have to dart off to anything that looks remotely interesting: this is what we have to tackle.

Q13 Do you prefer to be on your own?

“Ah, don’t worry about him—he’d rather be on his own.”

How many times have we heard this? I can’t believe that anyone born as a human being really wants to be left all on their own, not really. No, for people with autism, what we’re anxious about is that we’re causing trouble for the rest of you, or even getting on your nerves. Thisis why it’s hard for us to stay around other people. This is why we often end up being left on our own.

The truth is, we’d love to be with other people. But because things never, ever go right, we end up getting used to being alone, without even noticing this is happening. Whenever I overhear someone remark how much I prefer being on my own, it makes me feel desperately lonely. It’s as if they’re deliberately giving me the cold-shoulder treatment.

Q14 Why do you ignore us when we’re talking to you?

If someone’s talking to me from somewhere far off, I don’t notice. You’re probably thinking, “Same here,” yes? A major headache for me, however, is that even when someone’s right here in front of me, I still don’t notice when they’re talking to me.

“Not noticing,” however, is not the same as “deliberately ignoring.” But often people assume I must be arrogant or “retarded.” People around me always make me realize that I’m being spoken to by saying things like, “Say hello back, then, Naoki,” or, “What do you say, then?” So whenever that happens I just repeat what I’ve been told to say, like a mynah bird learning a new word. Even though I feel guilty toward the person who has spoken to me, I can’t even apologize, so I end up feeling miserable and ashamed that I can’t manage a proper human relationship.

A person who’s looking at a mountain far away doesn’t notice the prettiness of a dandelion in front of them. A person who’s looking at a dandelion in front of them doesn’t see the beauty of a mountain far away. To us, people’s voices are a bit like that. It’s very difficult for us to know someone’s there and that they’re talking to us, just by their voice.

So it would help us a great deal if you could just use our names first to get our attention, before you start talking to us.

Q15 Why are your facial expressions so limited?

Our expressions only seem limited because you think differently from us. It’s troubled me for quite a while that I can’t laugh along when everyone else is laughing. For a person with autism, the idea of what’s fun or funny doesn’t match yours, I guess. More than that, there are times when situations feel downright hopeless to us—our daily lives are so full of tough stuff to tackle. At other times, if we’re surprised, or feel tense, or embarrassed, we just freeze up and become unable to show any emotion whatsoever.

Criticizing people, winding them up, making idiots of them or fooling them doesn’t make people with autism laugh. What makes us smile from the inside is seeing something beautiful, or a memory that makes us laugh. This generally happens when there’s nobody watching us. And at night, on our own, we might burst out laughing underneath the duvet, or roar with laughter in an empty room … when we don’t need to think about other people or anything else, that’s when we wear our natural expressions.

Q16 Is it true that you hate being touched?

Personally, I have no particular problem with physical contact, but sure, some people with autism can’t stand being hugged or touched. I don’t know why, to be honest—I guess it just makes them feel uneasy. Even the way we adjust our clothing to match the season, putting on more clothes in winter and fewer in summertime, this can be a very big deal for people with tactile issues. Acting accordingly as situations change is a tough call.

More generally, for a person with autism, being touched by someone else means that the toucher is exercising control over the person’s body, which not even its owner can control properly. It’s as if we lose who we are. Think about it—that’s terrifying!

There’s also the dread that by being touched our thoughts will become visible. And if that happened, the other person would reallystart worrying about us. You see? We put up a barricade around ourselves to keep people out.

Q17 Why do you wave goodbye with your palm facing yourself?

When I was small, I used to wave goodbye with my palm facing inward when I was told, “Wave bye-bye!” I found simple gym exercises and dancing quite impossible. The reason is that imitating movement is difficult for people with autism. Because we don’t know our own body parts so well, moving those parts of the body we can track with our eyes is our first step toward imitating movement properly.

I never understood people when they told me that I was waving goodbye the wrong way around, until one day I saw myself in a full-length mirror. That was when I realized—I was waving goodbye to myself!

Slip Sliding Away

“I can run faster than any of us!” said the Hare, boinging away.

“But we had a race a long time ago to settle this and I won,” said the Tortoise, crossly. “I’m the fastest.”

None of the other animals was at all interested. “Ah, who cares?”

But the Hare insisted on having another race, so the Tortoise finally gave in and turned up at the starting line.

The race between the Hare and the Tortoise was about to start.

“Ready, set, go!”

The Hare dashed away at terrific speed.

The Tortoise slipped and flipped over onto his back, at which all the other animals ran up to the Tortoise to see if he was all right: “Poor you, are you okay? You’d better go home and rest.”

And so they all carried the Tortoise back to his house.

The Hare reached the finish line.

Nobody was waiting but himself.

Q18 When you’re on one of your highs, what’s going through your mind?

Sometimes people with autism start laughing like a hyena or appear to be having enormous fun on their own without any obvious reason for it. You must be wondering, What on Earth’s gotten into him?

At times like these, we’re having “imaginings.” Or not quite imaginings, but we experience pictures or scenes in our minds that pop up out of nowhere. Maybe it’s the memory of something that made us laugh, or maybe it’s a page from a book we read.

This might be hard for you to understand. But try to see these “highs” as a stronger version of those times when you remember something funny and can’t help but chuckle about it.

Q19 What are your flashback memories like?

We do remember what we did, when, where, who we did it with and things like this, but these memories are all scattershot and never connected in the right order. The trouble with scattered memories is that sometimes they replay themselves in my head as if they had only just taken place—and when this happens, the emotions I felt originally all come rushing back to me, like a sudden storm. This is a flashback memory.