I have been called “an idiot” for as long as I can remember.
There are two versions of it: an affectionate “you idiot”, and the kind that unsettles me every time I hear it — “are you actually stupid?”
Affectionate or full of malice, I have genuinely wondered myself why people call me that so often.
And then, recently, caught up in exactly that question through a relationship, I ended up with medical data — an EEG reading — that showed I was, in fact, a genius.
The backlash I felt after deciding to take this on and telling the world
It started when I decided to take on the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge and began telling people about it — and I felt both a warm tailwind and, beyond that, a headwind so strong I could barely open my eyes. The biggest challenge of my life: the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, 14,000 km, 37 days.
More and more people took it up as their own challenge too — “I want to cheer you on”, “it feels like I’m driving with you”, “thank you for taking on a challenge worth cheering for” — and ran alongside me. And at the same time, other people spread word like “if it’s a hobby, pay for it yourself”, “raising money off illness and life”, “that girl’s odd, better not get involved with her”, and some gave me the sharp advice: “there are people with harder illnesses than you.”
Blaming myself, cornering myself, until I was close to depression
“That isn’t what I’m trying to say” — the harder I struggled to get my own feelings across, the less they landed at all, and on top of that I kept choosing the wrong words, saying too much or too little, and running into trouble again and again.
Maybe I really am a hopeless person. Maybe I’m an “idiot” who makes people unhappy just by existing — asking myself that over and over, I blamed myself, cornered myself, and ended up in a mental state close to depression.
Where did the world go, where I lived as myself?
I had had plenty of difficulty before this too, and my share of being misunderstood and talked about behind my back.
But until then I had always stayed myself — kicking aside deference and “should” and “must” (laughs), living wildly like myself, enjoying it, full of anticipation.
Remember who you used to be! — there is a conversation about exactly that below ↓ ↓
But lately it has been like riding the Steel Dragon 2000 at Nagashima Spa Land, the tallest drop in Japan —
an emotional roller coaster going up and down so hard I wanted to shout about it.
The day I thought, I want to crack my own skull open and look inside
Why can’t I understand how other people feel?
Why can’t I do things everyone calls ordinary?
Am I disqualified as a person? Unfit for society?
A clinic that can “visualise the state of your brain using neuroscience”
One day, at my part-time job, I did it again from the morning.
“I explained this so carefully, why don’t you understand?” “Were you even listening?”
Not knowing why it kept happening, unable to say anything, a storm of denial rained down on me.
It landed the finishing blow on someone who was already coming to hate herself.
“I’m the one who most wants to crack my own skull open and look inside!!!”
Half out of desperation, what caught my eye was information about a clinic that could “visualise the state of your brain using neuroscience.”
“Wait, really? You can actually do that?”
“God helps those who help themselves.” “A drowning man clutches at straws.”
“Right — let’s put some science to this brain of mine, even I don’t understand it!”
And to grab that straw with everything I had, no time like the present, I booked an appointment on the spot — which is one of my better qualities, if I say so myself (laughs).
The unease I had felt since childhood, not being able to do things the same way as everyone else … a brain I had been told, over and over, must be broken somehow.
My own brain, explained in five minutes
What kind of enormous test would this even be?
Nervous, I put on the headset that measures brainwaves and simply stared at a white wall …
“Wait — already done??”
The whole test took just five minutes.
And then … at last,
48 years of my own brain, finally taking off its veil.
* From here it runs as a conversation between the doctor and me (laughs).
Doctor: “You have two neurodevelopmental conditions— ADHD and ASD — together,and on a ten-point severity scale you’re at a 9. Quitesevere.Do you find everyday life, being alive, hard to bear?”
Me: “Actually, lately I’ve been hearing a lot of things that feel like denial, and I’ve fallen into self-loathing and real difficulty. But before that I almost never felt things were hard or painful.”
Doctor: “Hm?Really? Given how severe this is, why weren’t you struggling with it before now?”
Me: “Because taking on a challenge was always tremendously fun for me … I loved being someone who cleared one new thing after another. Even laughed at as an idiot, I kept pushing forward! I could always laugh and keep moving, and I never once looked down on myself.
But lately … it just stopped being fun, and it got hard and painful, close to depression. That’s why I wanted to know — about myself.”
Doctor: “Huh! Is that right! So — what actually happened recently?”
Me: “Actually, right now I’m taking on this challenge.”
From there I told the doctor about the huge challenge of Peking to Paris, the tailwind and the headwind blowing through it, and everything churning inside me right now — and the conversation started bouncing along like a world champion trampolinist (laughs).
Doctor: “Carrying that much neurodevelopmental difference and still getting to this challenge with a smile — that makes you a remarkable person.The extreme commitment and the differences from other people you were born with — they were good for you, exactly as they are.I’m genuinely glad you found something that lets your character work for you!
You’re not stupid. You’re a genius.
So don’t you dare deny that commitment! Let’s put it to work!
There are patients out there living happily with this, apparently — and at the very least, it moved me. I want to back your life from the heart! Which of course means — I’m backing your crowdfunding too!”
I— what wonderful words … meeting someone like this actually happens — and moved, I got my smile back all at once.
The chains of “normal” and “ordinary” that had bound me tight until then blew away somewhere the instant I heard the doctor’s words.
Severe neurodevelopmental difference — I felt an enormous, almost strange happiness at getting hold of this fascinating data, and I was so grateful for the miracle of meeting this doctor that I nearly cried from sheer joy.
And then another shocking fact came out!!
The learning-ability level inside that severe neurodevelopmental brainwave reading …
yes, exactly what you’re picturing.
A proud, solid “level 1.”
No wonder people call me an idiot — we both burst out laughing.
(Though the doctor, to be fair, never once used the word idiot.)
Neurodevelopmental difference! What the brainwave test taught me
That I am allowed to simply be myself!
The very thing the friends who have backed me all along had been telling me the whole time …
Turning into someone who can be grateful even for being scolded, even for criticism
I may go on causing trouble for people, and go on being misunderstood — but I think that me, staying myself, taking on what I want to take on and still smiling through it, might become a light for someone carrying the same difference as me, someone whose character has never been understood, someone who suffers for being different from everyone around them.
And the thing that opened my eyes to that was not only the presence that gave me comfortable, easy love — it was the presence that gave me the experience of tasting negative feelings too.
Turn even that negative feeling into gratitude, and it becomes energy that pushes me to try harder still!
Able to think that way now, I wonder if I have grown a little stronger, a little more flexible — just a hair’s breadth, maybe, but grown all the same.
To you, hesitating to take on a challenge because of your experience, your age, your talent —
to you, unable to picture a future because of a serious diagnosis or an injury —
to you, or to the parents of a child, struggling with what is commonly called neurodevelopmental difference —
so that I can become a spark for a smile, for that feeling, in every one of you,
I will keep moving forward, one step at a time, with a smile of my own!