Age 29-30 (8) Scribbling and spinning was all I could do at church
Age 30 for me was the period when I felt I was impaired mentally, socially, and intellectually. This made me even more lonely when I was at church.
I had been baptized at he age of 28 and went to church in Sapporo. There even though I was trouble-maker I was part of the community where I could talk about what I thought or what I felt. The background of my English proficiency was also thanks to English conversation program of the church. I had been able to speak and I could bilingually.
After left Sapporo and moved to Sendai I go to a church within 3-minutes' walk from my house. Similar to the church I was originally in, this church also values primarily what Bible says.
By now my unique way of behavior and perception was well understood (although even now I feel I'm sorry when I'm restless or scream suddenly for making someone uncomfortable and it was really not the way I was understood in a group designed for caring for adults with autism), the encounter with this church I felt at that time was total deprivation.
First, I didn't know who to talk to. I felt I even forget how to speak either Japanese or English. The only thing I could was drifting between the entrance to the back of the chapel, sometimes spinning my wrists, my necks, or even my entire body. Tired from spinning, I tried to take note but only wrote sequences of alphabets which hardly compose any word of any language, and of course couldn't make any sense.
Sometimes my notepad was full of cars and trains, but usually at last the sheet I was writing on became black because I wrote and drew letters and pictures and lines on the paper on which something was already drawn.
The first year in Sendai, I went church only to cause chaos because I didn't know how to communicate and know brothers and sisters new to me, who I imagined think me of as intellectually retarded (and I even wished I were). The memory that I had shared many Bible verses with a lot of brother and sister from several countries in Sapporo barely reminded me that I belong to God and barely brought me church every Sunday, even I became speechless.
It took me a few years to learn to communicate with people who come to church.
I had been baptized at he age of 28 and went to church in Sapporo. There even though I was trouble-maker I was part of the community where I could talk about what I thought or what I felt. The background of my English proficiency was also thanks to English conversation program of the church. I had been able to speak and I could bilingually.
After left Sapporo and moved to Sendai I go to a church within 3-minutes' walk from my house. Similar to the church I was originally in, this church also values primarily what Bible says.
By now my unique way of behavior and perception was well understood (although even now I feel I'm sorry when I'm restless or scream suddenly for making someone uncomfortable and it was really not the way I was understood in a group designed for caring for adults with autism), the encounter with this church I felt at that time was total deprivation.
First, I didn't know who to talk to. I felt I even forget how to speak either Japanese or English. The only thing I could was drifting between the entrance to the back of the chapel, sometimes spinning my wrists, my necks, or even my entire body. Tired from spinning, I tried to take note but only wrote sequences of alphabets which hardly compose any word of any language, and of course couldn't make any sense.
Sometimes my notepad was full of cars and trains, but usually at last the sheet I was writing on became black because I wrote and drew letters and pictures and lines on the paper on which something was already drawn.
The first year in Sendai, I went church only to cause chaos because I didn't know how to communicate and know brothers and sisters new to me, who I imagined think me of as intellectually retarded (and I even wished I were). The memory that I had shared many Bible verses with a lot of brother and sister from several countries in Sapporo barely reminded me that I belong to God and barely brought me church every Sunday, even I became speechless.
It took me a few years to learn to communicate with people who come to church.
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