[...] when I'm jumping, it's as if my feelings are going upwards to the sky. Really, my urge to be swallowed up by the sky is enough to make my heart quiver. [...]
[...] People with autism react physically to feelings of happiness and sadness. So when something happens that affects me emotionally, my body seizes up as if struck by lightning.
'Seizing up' doesn't mean that my muscles literally get stiff and immobile - rather, it means that I'm not free to move the way I want. So by jumping up and down, it's as if I'm shaking loose the ropes that are tying up my body. When I jump, I feel lighter, and I think the reason my body is drawn skywards is that the motion makes me want to change into a bird and fly off to some faraway place.
But constrained both by ourselves and by the people around us, all we can do is tweet-tweet, flap our wings and hop around in a cage. Ah, if only I could just flap my wings and soar away, into the big blue yonder, over the hills and far away!
Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: one boy's voice from the silence of autism, Q25 p76f, (Sceptre 2014), translated by David Mitchell & Keiko Yoshida
