Fingertips

Chapter Two

By: Lil' Inu Yahsa

After around the fourth visit to Inu Yasha I made, I went online and researched autism because I wanted to know more and I felt bad for him and wanted to help. I found a wonderfully informative site and it helped me find out a bunch of things about Inu Yasha's condition I did not know.

What is autism?

Autism (sometimes called "classical autism") is the most common condition in a group of developmental disorders known as the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Autism is characterized by impaired social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and unusual, repetitive, or severely limited activities and interests. Other ASDs include Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (usually referred to as PDD-NOS). Experts estimate that three to six children out of every 1,000 will have autism. Males are four times more likely to have autism than females.

This helped me a lot, because back then, I just thought that Inu Yasha was being a prick, but now I understand him better. Inu Yasha has unusually crisp speech for someone with autism and that is a good thing because most people with it have a lot of trouble speaking. But he has a really nice voice, even if it is somewhat monotone and it is dull and it is slurred just a tiny bit, but despite that, he is luckier than a whole lot of people who are autistic.

But I think that his problem is not that he can not speak, but that he can not relate how he feels to his words. I remember, once, Inu Yasha had the flu but he came to school anyways and he had his head on the desk and he was groaning really loudly. I asked him what was wrong and he said he felt giddy and dizzy and that it was like the room was spinning and it confused him because he knew the room could not be spinning, so it must be what was inside his head. Then he clenched his eyes together and started crying because he said he felt a lot of pain. I felt bad for him and wanted to give him a hug to make him feel better, but I didn't because then he would scream and run into the corner of the room like he did last time. Then I felt worse.

But, I suppose that he just does not understand feeling. If he feels happy, it is impossible to know. But the weird thing is, I realized that Inu Yasha does not want to be happy. He wants to be relaxed and calm and peaceful, because the calm is more comforting to him than being happy. And I wish that he could smile, but it is OK, because he can not help what he is.

Then I read some more about his disease that I thought was informative:

There are three distinctive behaviors that characterize autism. Autistic children have difficulties with social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors or narrow, obsessive interests. These behaviors can range in impact from mild to disabling.

The hallmark feature of autism is impaired social interaction. Parents are usually the first to notice symptoms of autism in their child. As early as infancy, a baby with autism may be unresponsive to people or focus intently on one item to the exclusion of others for long periods of time. A child with autism may appear to develop normally and then withdraw and become indifferent to social engagement.

Children with autism may fail to respond to their name and often avoid eye contact with other people. They have difficulty interpreting what others are thinking or feeling because they can't understand social cues, such as tone of voice or facial expressions, and don't watch other people's faces for clues about appropriate behavior. They lack empathy.

Many children with autism engage in repetitive movements such as rocking and twirling, or in self-abusive behavior such as biting or head-banging. They also tend to start speaking later than other children and may refer to themselves by name instead of "I" or "me." Children with autism don't know how to play interactively with other children. Some speak in a sing-song voice about a narrow range of favorite topics, with little regard for the interests of the person to whom they are speaking.

Many children with autism have a reduced sensitivity to pain, but are abnormally sensitive to sound, touch, or other sensory stimulation. These unusual reactions may contribute to behavioral symptoms such as a resistance to being cuddled or hugged.

This is very true of him. Whenever I talk to him, he hardly ever looks me in the eye. Sometimes when I call his name and he is doing something, he does not respond and I have to put my face in front of his which he does not like because he does not like me being so close, or I slap the table three times. Slapping the table works best because he almost always raises his head or says something.

I never see him talk to anyone in his school. He seems like the kid that would sit alone at lunch and talk to no one, and sit near no one, and just stare out a window for a long time. He does what I call 'phasing out' a lot. When he 'phases out' it's like he is a radio and the dial is turned so that you can't hear any of the people on the stations speaking and everything is unclear and not really there. It is like he is daydreaming, but he does not have daydreams. And it is like sleeping, but his eyes are open. I tried to explain this to him once and he looked at me for a long time and said, "I do not understand."

But I should not have expected him to, because something like daydreaming and metaphors are beyond his comprehension. He has dreams though, and I thought he did not.

He told me that his favorite one is where every person in the world died and he was the only one alive so he was all alone, and everything was quiet and he could see the stars at night because no one turned on their lights because they were all dead, and he could do whatever he wanted, and he could eat whatever he wanted, and he could just sit and play video games all day, or stare out a window for days on end if he liked. He told me this a month ago and it made me sad, because if everyone in the world was dead, then I would be dead too, and that dream made him happy.

So I asked him, "Would it make you happy if I were dead Inu Yasha?"

And he said, "No."

And then I asked, "Would you be sad?"

He said nothing.

And I said, "Would you cry?"

And he said, "I do not know. You are not dead and I do not know what I would do if you were because you have not died yet."

And then I felt sad because if I died, I don't think he would notice. And I tried to think that it's just him being him, but that didn't help me any because then I realized that he would always be this ay and even if I spent years and years being friends with him, he would still never care if I died. And that made me sad because if he died I would cry for him because I care about Inu Yasha.

Author's Notes

(About Chapter One: I replaced the first chapter with an introduction to try to explain to everyone that I don't think that autistic people are all retarded subhumans. C'mon people, I'm a writer lady! I'm the most tolerant person on this planet! Well, not really, but still … I am not biased against people with mental illness. My cousin and uncle have Asperger's and my grandma is schizophrenic. If I were biased, I'd be an idiot. )

I like this chapter because I did not have to write a lot of it. All the italicized parts are things that I got from websites and the such. Now I shall write the next chapter.

Oh yes, I do not own Inu Yasha, or 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time', because Rumiko and Mark Haddon own those. That goes for the first chapter as well.

Review Responses

Lady Everest: Look, I tried to be nice and explain to you that I don't have a problem with anyone who is autistic. You are testing my patience, not because you have a problem with the things I write, but because you aren't listening to me. I respect what you are saying and understand you might have a problem with the way I made Inu Yasha, and I told you that, but you are not listening to a word I say. This story is not about you, it is not about hurting/insulting you and I do not intend for it to do that to anyone.

So, if you are just going to be angry with me for writing a story about someone who is autistic, I recommend you just stop reading it, because it does not seem to me that you enjoy reading this, nor do you enjoy listening to me try to explain that I am not writing this to make autistic people seem like bad people. I do not group people together. If one black/Asian/white/mentally ill/Hispanic man kills another black/Asian/white/mentally ill/Hispanic man I am not going to say that all of the people on the race of the murderer are bad people, just as I am not going to say all autistic people are the same as Inu Yasha. If anything, you are making this into a bigger deal than it is. You can read this story if you want to, but don't tell me what and what not to write.

I never referred to autistic people as insane. If you had gotten this notion from the part of the story where it says 'I was so angry at him then, it took everything in me not to pat his back and send him back to the back of the class screaming like the insane retarded boy I thought he was.'

However! If you continue reading it says this: 'Little did I know that the description 'insane retarded boy' could not be farther from the truth. As it turns out, Inu Yasha is a genius.'

In other words, he is not retarded. And I never said he was, the character in my story did, and I am not Kagome Higurashi. I may agree with some of the things that she thinks, (after all, I did create her) but I do not use her as means to project my feelings about mental illness to other people. So if you have any further problems with Inu Yasha, though I personally don't know why you would, then you can bring them to me, but I think I have pretty much cleared up everything here.

xxXDarkSlayerXxx: I have a shrink but I only go to him when my dad thinks I have problems because I am not so happy at his house all the times and it bugs him. Plus he wont let me mention him to anyone because if I do he thinks that that is gossip and then he makes me write essays about how I did something wrong. And lots of people have shrinks. You're not the only one.

Aria-wolfstar: (laughs) OOC? A little? (laughs some more) Dude! It is completely OOC and AU! I thought that should be kind of obvious because in the manga, Inu Yasha has just been through a lot, and in my story he is autistic, and that is a condition and he was born that way.

Irish leprechaun: Your review was kind of touching you know? It made me really happy to know that it pleased your autistic cousin so much. And I am glad I made him smile. So let's see, hi little cuz! Yea, I am saying hi to you! Show it to him, Leprechaun! And tell him I waved!