While reading The Reason I Jump the world I know was put in a different perspective for me. I can’t remember when I made the decision to be more mindful of people because it probably just clicked in my head one day and just happened, but reading this takes me back to when I was in middle school. In school the basement held a lot of classrooms for mentally disabled students and I remember a lot of kids would make fun of them behind their back. Throughout my life and like most people, I was not innocent and probably had my share of insults and of course using the word retard. I am more conscious and aware now of people who seem different, the “weird” kids might not be weird at all, maybe their brains are just different. The child that has an outburst in a restaurant might not just be having a tantrum and the person who seems to be in another place or talking to themselves might just not be crazy and need to express themselves that way. There are so many stigmas for what we call “mental illness” they are constantly flooded in the media we consume and throughout history people with so called disorders were shut away, sent away and mistreated for being abnormal. I think the most important message that I can take away from The Reason I Jump is the fact that people with Autism are normal people. What is normal anyway, are people who are considered having a sound state of mind really 100% sane? Why is it that many people with mental disorders gifted or are able to see things “normal people” can’t? What do we have to be afraid of?
I believe the cause of these fears and negative views stem from how little we know about the mind. I took a Psychology course when I was in Queensborough called Alternate States of Consciousness. I learned about how the mind functions differently on various drugs, insomnia and various disorders. The most interesting and scariest thing I remember is that out brains register our thoughts before we even think them, the action we want to perform is already being processed by our brains before we complete it. It brought up the question are the body and the mind separate? Does our mind control us or does our brain control us? The more we access what the brain is capable of the more we can understand the way humans function scientifically but that doesn’t help how we deal with it socially. Science won’t get rid of a stigma, people’s actions will. If we stopped pitying those with mental illness and treated them like we treat every other person then those people can contribute and feel like they matter in the world, not just as “Brian the Autistic Kid” or “Mary the Bipolar Girl”. This point was also made well by David Mitchell on how to understand his son and what he was thinking and feeling, making him feel capable and comfortable while learning together.
While reading I forgot I was inside the mind of someone who is autistic. I never spoke to anyone with Autism before so I wouldn’t know what a conversation would be like but everything I read sounded like any other person I would meet. My brother’s friend’s nephew has Autism and when I first met him he was 5 years old and he just seemed shy. Everybody has judgmental thoughts but I am more aware of people’s behavior now than I ever was before. I think this course is going to change my whole world. I wish that everyone was open to changing the way they think about a mental illness and the way people are treated. Maybe one day mental illness will be considered a normal state of mind.
Hey Renee, this is an amazing post. I can honestly say that I now think twice before calling someone stupid or a retard. I will never call a disable person stupid or would say anything to hurt their feelings. I do not judge a book by its cover and i think everyone in society should be the same. Everyone is special in their own way, we are all weird and we should just learn to accept life and live rather than judgeing each other. Life is way too short. People with a disability didn’t ask or choose to be disable. A friend of mine have two sons and they both are Autistic. One of the boys can speak and the other one can’t. The older can speak and he is very smart. He is a normal kid but he just knows a little more than kids his age. He does everything and act the same way a normal kids would act. He is just way too smart for his age but I don’t think that people should look at him differently.
Renee, in your post you said “while reading I forgot I was inside the mind of a person who is autistic”. I felt the same way when reading it. I thought that the book was so clear and to the point. The writing was great. I too forgot a person with autism wrote it. But when I think about, it’s disappointing that I thought so. There is no doubt that people who have autism have high potential, so what did we expect when reading it? Did we expect to read something poorly written, not clear, or with a lot of grammar mistakes? I’m not sure what I really expected but what this book is isn’t what I expected. Possibly our thoughts on how well this book was written and our astonishment about it says a lot about what our society says about people who are diagnosed with a mental disability. We expect them to be not as smart as us which is a thought that we should try to change. People who have mental disabilities have showed the world time and time again that they are capable of doing everything “normal” people are capable of and more. But do we think of those people as exceptions? Probably, because if we didn’t then seeing a young man who has been diagnosed with autism write so well wouldn’t have been such a surprise for both you and I.
Renee, great post! It seems this book has made us all rethink how we approach and think about someone with autism. I also hope one day the world will see autism as something normal. After reading Higashida’s words, which I was able to understand completely, it shows how very normal he is. In many aspects autism is merely a type of disorder but many of us tend to think this is a very terrible thing. I cannot imagine the struggle that parents go through as well. To think about the many times I could not help but stare or judge when seeing someone with autism makes me feel very guilty now that I see the hard struggles they go through. Higashida spoke about how sometimes he feels like a doll being trapped inside his own mind and unable to speak or communicate and I cannot image how difficult and frustrating that is. I also remember reading how if he had a choice of being “normal” he would not change. After all, he is normal. Each person has their own mind and way of processing and communicating. Autism is not something that should be considered so abnormal. They are functioning human beings with different ways of communicating and expressing themselves. The idea that they need to change should never be a thought we even acknowledge. I will take a different approach in the ways I think and interact with someone who is different than I am.
“What is normal anyway, are people who are considered having a sound state of mind really 100% sane?” This was the exact thought that struck me while reading Higashida’s work. Each answer seems to be a way for Higashida/Higashida’s speaker to normalize all of his actions that might be seen as abnormal. What struck me was his use of pronouns and the way it creates a separation between himself/the autistic (ND) community and the rest of society. He keeps pointing out to the NT audience that they just need to be “patient” with them (autistic people). It felt almost as if he was trying to point out the NT person’s flaws and abnormalities. I’m not sure if he purposely wanted us to think about the fact that, to an Autistic person, NT people around him/her might be abnormal to them. If you really think about it, normality is pretty subjective. What’s normal to one NT person may differ from another NT person, just as what’s normal may differ from one ND person to another ND person.
Renee, I think you do an great job of humanizing the issue of the various myths of autism. One statement that you made really stuck to me – the idea that we need to stop “pitying those with mental illness.” I definitely agree that in certain situations, people find themselves pitying others simply because they react differently, but I don’t believe that that is the crux of the issue. In fact, Higashida seems to be asking for his assumed NT audience to empathize with him and show compassion to others with autism. Pity itself doesn’t seem like the problem in this case – but rather a lack of pity and awareness. He states various times throughout his book that people tend to get angry or frustrated or even confused. However, I do think your overall idea is correct in that we should be working to “normalize” or more correctly, accept, all types of individuals, regardless of their mental, verbal, or physical capacity. Higashida’s text makes it clear that just because an individual cannot or will not verbally communicate their thoughts in a coherent fashion doesn’t mean that he or she is incapable of complex cognitive function. Overall, I love your response to this piece as I feel that most everyone will be able to relate to the situations you grew up with, as well as follow on a personal or social level your call to action to better ourselves, even if it is to simply open our eyes and minds to become more aware.
I wholeheartedly agree with your post. We’ve all been there, insulting people whose stories we know nothing about. I happen to think that ignorance is a huge part of any issue. We all presume so much about others based on our own experiences, which are vast yet limited in their own way, and we try to take our knowledge gained from those things and apply them to every situation, which obviously doesn’t work. I feel that anyone who is divergent from the majority in any way, whether they are homeless, mentally ill, or simply different physically- taller men and thin women are more valued than men and women who are not these days- is ignored by the society at large, and that is so, so wrong. Everyone deserves to be cared about, even if that means we have to step out of our own comfort zones and actually have to make the effort to learn about who they are as people, not just as “that guy/girl with _______.”
Renee, I agree with how you said your view of the world has changed after reading not only The Reason I Jump, but also after reading your post. This book hit a really soft spot for me because I have seen firsthand how difficult it can be for a family friend’s child to communicate with us. He is what would be considered a low-functioning autistic child, and all throughout reading this book I just kept wondering if this is how he feels. In a way it even broke my heart over and over when Higashida would keep saying things like “but don’t give up on us” or “stay with us”, because if it wasn’t for books like these that give us this kind of insight into their worlds we wouldn’t know how much they hurt about the things they cannot control. I have always been very aware of how hard it must be to be different for children or adults with mental disabilities, but now more than ever I feel that they deserve our patience and compassion, I would never want to make anyone upset with themselves the way Higashida describes he gets when he can’t do what is asked of him.