A book by Naoki Higashida, about living with autism;
“When you see an object, it seems that you see it as an entire thing first, and only afterward do its details follow on, But for people with autism, the details jump straight out at us first of all, and then only gradually, detail by detail, does the whole image sort of float up into focus. What part of the whole image captures our eyes first depends on a number of things. When a color is vivid or a shape is eye-catching, then that’s the detail that claims our attention, and then our hearts kind of drown in it, and we can’t concentrate on anything else. (pg. 59)”
I had a lot more copied out, but I want you to read it. Illuminating, maybe, is the word I want, except I’ve seen a lot of it. Maybe it’s like some pain that’s been bugging you and then somebody describes it and you go Yeah! Maybe I’m thinking you should read it, so you can see the straight up freaking all-out courage people on the spectrum have, to face the world every day – I don’t know. Words fail me. Maybe you should read it.
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December 31, 2013 at 12:23 pm
kmkat
The writer of this blog: http://olivespearls.typepad.com/ has a daughter, about 8 or 9, with severe autism. Jen (blogger) is an awesome writer, although she doesn’t blog as much as she used to b/c she is currently concentrating on her *real* writing.
And I just requested this book from the library.
December 31, 2013 at 12:42 pm
k
It’s a weird good book. It’s translated from japanese, but the original translation is from a feeling entity to one who has words.