I haven't told many people this, but in my head, I've got thousands of secret worlds all going on all at the same time. I am also autistic.
我還沒有告訴很多人一件事, 在我的腦海中, 會有成千上萬的秘密詞語, 在同一時間湧出。 我是一名自閉症患者。
People tend to diagnose autism with really specific check-box descriptions, but in reality, it's a whole variation as to what we're like. For instance, my little brother, he's very severely autistic. He's nonverbal. He can't talk at all. But I love to talk. People often associate autism with liking maths and science and nothing else, but I know so many autistic people who love being creative. But that is a stereotype, and the stereotypes of things are often, if not always, wrong. For instance, a lot of people think autism and think "Rain Man" immediately. That's the common belief, that every single autistic person is Dustin Hoffman, and that's not true.
人們一般在診斷自閉症時, 都會有很詳細的描述。 但是現實是,每個自閉症患者 都會有完全不同的情況。 舉個例子,我的弟弟, 他是一名嚴重的自閉症患者。 他不能使用語言,他不能說話。 但是我卻喜歡說話。 人們經常把自閉症 和只喜歡數學、科學聯想在一起。 但是我知道很多自閉症患者, 他們都喜歡創新。 但那只是刻板印象, 而所謂的刻板印象 大多時候都是錯誤的。 舉個例子,很多人 聽到自閉症時, 會立刻聯想到電影《雨人》。 大家都認為 每一個自閉症患者都是 電影裡的「達斯汀·霍夫曼」, 但這不是真的。
But that's not just with autistic people, either. I've seen it with LGBTQ people, with women, with POC people. People are so afraid of variety that they try to fit everything into a tiny little box with really specific labels. This is something that actually happened to me in real life: I googled "autistic people are ..." and it comes up with suggestions as to what you're going to type. I googled "autistic people are ..." and the top result was "demons." That is the first thing that people think when they think autism. They know. (Laughter)
而且也不是只對自閉症患者, 對 LGBTQ(男、女同性戀、雙性戀、 跨性別和對性別有疑問)也這樣, 對女人、有色人種也有刻板印象。 人們很害怕不同類型的人, 所以只想把任何東西 放在一個「小盒子」裡, 再把這個小盒子上貼上特定的標籤。 這其實是現實中 發生在我身上的 我谷歌了一下:「自閉症患者是...」 然後出現了很多建議 猜測你接下來要打什麼字。 我查了查, 第一條出現的是「惡魔」, 那是人們每當想起自閉症患者, 第一個想到的事。 他們知道。 (笑聲)
One of the things I can do because I'm autistic — it's an ability rather than a disability — is I've got a very, very vivid imagination. Let me explain it to you a bit. It's like I'm walking in two worlds most of the time. There's the real world, the world that we all share, and there's the world in my mind, and the world in my mind is often so much more real than the real world. Like, it's very easy for me to let my mind loose because I don't try and fit myself into a tiny little box. That's one of the best things about being autistic. You don't have the urge to do that. You find what you want to do, you find a way to do it, and you get on with it. If I was trying to fit myself into a box, I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have achieved half the things that I have now. There are problems, though. There are problems with being autistic, and there are problems with having too much imagination. School can be a problem in general, but having also to explain to a teacher on a daily basis that their lesson is inexplicably dull and you are secretly taking refuge in a world inside your head in which you are not in that lesson, that adds to your list of problems. (Laughter) Also, when my imagination takes hold, my body takes on a life of its own. When something very exciting happens in my inner world, I've just got to run. I've got to rock backwards and forwards, or sometimes scream. This gives me so much energy, and I've got to have an outlet for all that energy. But I've done that ever since I was a child, ever since I was a tiny little girl. And my parents thought it was cute, so they didn't bring it up, but when I got into school, they didn't really agree that it was cute. It can be that people don't want to be friends with the girl that starts screaming in an algebra lesson. And this doesn't normally happen in this day and age, but it can be that people don't want to be friends with the autistic girl. It can be that people don't want to associate with anyone who won't or can't fit themselves into a box that's labeled normal. But that's fine with me, because it sorts the wheat from the chaff, and I can find which people are genuine and true and I can pick these people as my friends.
身為自閉者,我可以做的其中一件事, 因為自閉是能力而非殘疾, 我有很生動的想像力, 讓我來解釋一下。 就像我經常走在兩個世界 一個是真正的世界,我們共享的世界。 還有一個就是我腦海中的世界, 而我腦海中的世界比真正的世界 要更加現實。 就像,我很容易就能放鬆我的大腦, 因為我從來不把 我自己逼到那個小盒子裡。 那是身為自閉症患者最好的一件事。 你不需要敦促自己這麼做。 你會找到你想做的, 然後找到一個方法去實現它。 如果我把自己逼到那個「盒子」裡, 我就不會在這裡,我也不會成就 我現在擁有的一半。 但是還是有很多問題。 身為自閉症患者所產生的問題。 有很多人的想像力過度豐富了。 學校雖然也是一個問題, 但是自閉症患者要每天 跟老師解釋, 他們的課堂是莫名的無聊, 他們的注意力一般不在課堂 而在自己的世界裡秘密避難, 也成為了一個大問題。 (笑聲) 還有,當我的想像力控制住了我, 我的身體就沒有主人了。 當一些很激動人心的事情 發生我在的內部世界時, 我就開始跑, 我就前後不停地晃, 或者甚至尖叫, 這樣可以給我很大的力量。 但我也需要一個地方去釋放那些能量。 我從小就這樣, 從我是個小女孩開始。 我的父母認為這樣很可愛, 所以他們什麼也沒說。 但是當我上學之後, 他們不認為這樣是可愛。 他們不想和一個在代數課上 突然尖叫的女孩做朋友。 但是現在都不經常發生了, 但是還會有人不想 和一個自閉症女孩做朋友, 不想和一個不能把自己裝進 那個貼著「正常」標籤小盒子裡的人 做朋友。 但是對我來說都沒關係, 因為物以類聚嘛, 所以我能找到那些對我真誠的人, 然後和那些人交朋友。
But if you think about it, what is normal? What does it mean? Imagine if that was the best compliment you ever received. "Wow, you are really normal." (Laughter) But compliments are, "you are extraordinary" or "you step outside the box." It's "you're amazing." So if people want to be these things, why are so many people striving to be normal? Why are people pouring their brilliant individual light into a mold? People are so afraid of variety that they try and force everyone, even people who don't want to or can't, to become normal. There are camps for LGBTQ people or autistic people to try and make them this "normal," and that's terrifying that people would do that in this day and age.
但是當你想一想,什麼是正常? 正常的意思是什麼? 想像一下,如果你收到最好的表揚是: 「哇,你真的很正常。」 (笑聲) 但是真正的表揚是 「你真的很非凡」, 或者「你突破了常規」, 「你真的很驚人」。 所以如果人們想成為這樣的人, 為什麼他們還在努力成為正常的人? 為什麼人們要把自己的 個人才華倒入一個模具中? 人們很害怕各種不同的人, 所以他們嘗試逼迫一些 不能或不想成為正常人的人去變正常。 有很多 LGBTQ 的人或者自閉症患者 都嘗試把自己變正常。 而這才是讓人害怕的。
All in all, I wouldn't trade my autism and my imagination for the world. Because I am autistic, I've presented documentaries to the BBC, I'm in the midst of writing a book, I'm doing this — this is fantastic — and one of the best things that I've achieved, that I consider to have achieved, is I've found ways of communicating with my little brother and sister, who as I've said are nonverbal. They can't speak. And people would often write off someone who's nonverbal, but that's silly, because my little brother and sister are the best siblings that you could ever hope for. They're just the best, and I love them so much and I care about them more than anything else. I'm going to leave you with one question: If we can't get inside the person's minds, no matter if they're autistic or not, instead of punishing anything that strays from normal, why not celebrate uniqueness and cheer every time someone unleashes their imagination?
總之,我不會和任何人 交易我的想像力和自閉症。 正是因為我的自閉症, 我出現在英國廣播電視台的紀錄片裡, 我也正在寫一本書。 我在做這些很奇妙的事情, 然而這中間最好的一件事, 就是當我想到我成就了什麼, 就是我找到了可以和我弟弟妹妹 溝通的方法。 而就像我剛才說的, 他們沒有說話的能力。 但是很多人都放棄了 那些沒有語言溝通能力的人。 這樣很愚蠢, 因為我的弟弟和妹妹 是你能想到最棒的兄弟姊妹。 他們是最棒的, 我也很愛他們, 我世界上最在乎的就是他們。 我要給你們留下一個問題: 如果你無法了解到一個人在想什麼, 無論是不是自閉症患者, 不要懲罰一切不正常的東西, 何不慶祝他們的獨一無二? 何不為他們每一次綻放想像力而歡呼?
Thank you.
謝謝
(Applause)
(歡呼)