BGM: Pet Shop Boys - Go West
Today I watched the video by Steve Silberman, "The forgotten history of autism" again after having my lunch. I cried a little... I was born in 1975 so the word or concept of autism was not popular at the period when I had spent my sensitive, wonderful teenage days. Therefore I had to spent these days with troubles. People treated me as a weird, crazy one so I had been having a hate or rage toward them. "Why should I be treated terribly like this?" or "They are the ones who are crazy". It was the same even though after graduated the university, and joined in a company. At 33, by a comment from a female friend of mine, I noticed that I could be autistic. I tried to be checked if I could be so, and it became clarified... I told that to my company and tried to show the paper by my doctor to explain that more. But my boss didn't read that... That was about 10 years ago. 10 years. The time changes. Now we can see the topic about autism anywhere in mass media or the internet. My company listens to my story about autism seriously. We shouldn't lose the hope we are having.
As I wrote before, I have read the Steve Silberman's masterpiece about autism "Neurotribes" once (only one time). After that, I learned that honest, trustable readers try to check how this book can contain mistakes through the process of translation (it can be said as deterioration). So I decided to read that book in English. But after buying that paperback, I have read it in a halfway and stopped. Therefore I can't say how that book's translation can be through the comparison by honest or steady reading. But I want to say this. If that "Neurotribes" were translated completely under the checking by a trustable doctor or specialist, then the situation around autism in this country could be changed definitely/absolutely. I believe so strictly. I can even BET it. This book must have such a wonderful, marvelous possibility in it. Ah, I wish I could read that book smoothly, and also could translate that into neat Japanese... I never have that kind of skill. So I try to improve my English as modesty as I can.
By that "Neurotribes", and also Oliver Sacks's "An Anthropologist on Mars" (it has an episode of autistic person, Temple Grandin), I remember that once I tried to look at how I could be autistic as modest as I could. I can never be ordinary or normal. It can mean I can never be a neurotypical person. Or I should never wish that (Even though I could become a neurotypical one by having any good medicine or any ways, that couldn't mean a solution of the difficulty autistic people must face in this world). It seems that I tend to be "a disciple" about this... I am now thinking that "I wish I can find a meaning of being born in this world as an autistic person" and "It must be. I want to try to find that even though it is impossible". Yes, I am basically living with no purposes. I am living really lazily. But I am thinking that I have a spirit of questing or looking for the truth.
After my work today, I went back to my group home and find the "Neurotribes"... But I was really exhausted by that work so I couldn't read it anymore. 10 years. I remember how it was 10 years ago. I had not attended the meeting about autism, and never met any current friends. I had to spend my days soaked into alcohol with solitude in this Shiso city. At that period, I could never imagine my future. My life had ended alreadly. I was just a loser (as Beck's song). And... life or the situation changed drastically. Suddenly, now, I try to imagine how it will change 10 years after. I can never even predict tomorrow. But I guess this. If my English could be improved and I could read English more speedy. then it would be possible to read that paperback of "Neurotribes". I want to make this true... Can I?
