4,000 kilometers, 16-year-old autistic boy Xiao Ze called us from Horgos in Yili, Xinjiang, and said that he wanted to share his story: experiencing school bullying, being dropped out of school, suffering from depression, taking medicine and trying to come out of negative emotions, constantly adjusting himself to adapt to society, and being a positive young man...
Khorgos is a county-level city, located in the western border of China, west of the five Central Asian countries, south of the Tianshan Mountains, north of the desert Gobi. The Khorgos border crossing is across the river from Kazakhstan, and Ozawa lives only 2 kilometers from the border, but more than 600 kilometers from Urumqi and 4,000 kilometers from the capital, Beijing.
Far means the closure of the environment, the lack of resources, and the backwardness of consciousness. Far enough away to forget that there are autistic children living on the borders of our homeland, and their situation may be completely different from what we think. This pushes a 16-year-old, mentally mature AS to the extreme. Ozawa tried his best to make his voice heard, he signed up for Xiaohongshu, chatted with netizens and parents, and he found us and wanted to confide, saying that the environment here "made me almost choked to death".
Ozawa's communication skills are very good, he can answer any question fluently, almost without thinking, and his mind is far beyond his peers, sometimes like an old man with a lot of social experience, but simplicity and maturity appear in him at the same time: he has a friend named "Doctor" in his head, who asks him for help when he encounters difficulties, he hides himself in the quilt and plugs the mouth of the quilt to play games, and he even makes a toy gun just to listen to them "bang bang bang" The sound of the voice, venting his emotions, but he is very sensitive to sound, he is afraid of whatever he challenges ...
When he goes out, he carefully disguises himself as a normal person to socialize, and behind closed doors, he is a complete AS.
Let's listen to Ozawa's confession.
(The text and photos were published with the consent of Ozawa and his guardian.)
Dictated|Ozawa
"I'm exactly the same as ordinary people, why is it me that ordinary people reject"
Hello everyone, I'm Ozawa, I'm 16 years old, and I live in Ili Khorgos, Xinjiang.
It was not easy for me to live as a child. Seriously, every AS is not easy, and there is a very painful memory. I was very different from others at that time, I was isolated and bullied by others since I was a child, and they were very good at mocking me with some figurative sentences, and I couldn't understand the backwords.
Ozawa's medical order
In 2011, I was diagnosed with autism at Nanjing Brain Hospital. After the diagnosis, my mother always raised me as a normal child without any special intervention. After I became sensible, I found out about this problem, so I checked my phone and found the word "Asperger", I thought I was very similar to this, and asked my mother, but my mother lied to me and didn't tell me what was going on.
When I was in the third grade of elementary school, I experienced a major promotion that caused me to develop certain mental symptoms. In the next three years, I had a very bad time and encountered school bullying. My classmates always bullied me for not being able to speak clearly, made up some lies to blacken me, and made me a backbiter, and I was responsible for everything I lost in the class, and I thought I planned everything that happened.
The point is that the teachers and students are in a group, which has caused me to endure all kinds of psychological trauma. By the end of the second semester of sixth grade, I was in a good mood that I had finally gotten rid of those classmates and teachers and graduated.
When I got to junior high school, I had an even bigger nightmare, and I met a very bad teacher who said that he was fair and just, but actually did those things that were very bad and broke my heart very much. Because of Asperger's qualities, I would be very concerned about why the teacher was saying something completely different from what he was doing, and I would be very sad and angry, like I felt abandoned, betrayed.
On the first day of junior high school, catching up with the epidemic, I was often depressed. I don't know which clever one came up with the idea that students can't go home on weekdays, they have to go to class on Saturdays and Sundays, and they can't go home by themselves after school like before. I remember one time when I couldn't go home for 3 months, I was about to be tortured by them and go crazy.
Because of ADHD, I couldn't concentrate all the time, and my grades dropped. In addition, I don't like the way these classes are taught, so I basically play games and watch movies in my head during class.
At that time I had a best friend who grew up with me and we were in the same class. He often played with me, and the teacher often targeted him, because the teacher didn't want everyone to play with me, wanted to isolate me, punish me, and put me at the end of the classroom every time.
I am depressed, panicked, anxious every day, in order to relieve my emotions, I write a diary every day, cheer myself up, write that it is now the 266th day, how many days have passed, how many more days need to be boiled, I want to persevere... Every day I add an extra day to my diary.
In this way, in the second semester of the second year of junior high school, without the epidemic, I was doing well. But once in a club activity, the teacher turned my diary out, and I really obeyed him, and I don't know if he instructed my classmates or who turned over my diary. The teacher asked me to read the diary in front of the whole class, and I was really angry. But I couldn't help but scold them, because I knew that if it did, it would be more serious, and the trauma they had caused me was already too much for me to attack them.
At that time, I was very weak and very scared, and I didn't want to waste gas money in order not to call my parents (because my mother's unit was far away), so I put up with it.
The teacher asked me why I wrote about his actions in my diary? I said that what I wrote in the diary was justified and not wrong, but the teacher said that I was at fault, and then I became angry and stopped going to school.
After taking a break from school, I was very autistic for a while, I didn't say a word, I didn't play with anyone, I just stayed at home and played on my phone.
Shenzhen Kangning Hospital diagnosed Ozawa with anxiety and depression
Later, my mother took me to see a doctor and gave me some medicine to make me better. After I got better, I felt very inferior and sad, I was exactly the same as ordinary people, why did ordinary people reject me?
Because of this self-attack, the condition worsened, and in April this year, we had to go to Shenzhen to see a doctor, and my family told me that I was Asperger, and I accepted myself.
I'm happy because I've finally found the cause and my mind is getting clearer. I recuperate at home and work hard. I also got a parrot and it will accompany me, I am much better and in better condition.
Ozawa's parrot eggs, which are only 4 months old, are very clingy.
"A genius like me"
It's now my second year of absence, and I don't want to go to school, that place isn't for me, and it's a waste of genius like me to put it there. So I started teaching myself programming, photography, drawing, computer repair, and car repair. Start working on the computer after drinking the first glass of water in the morning, meditate for 30 minutes a day, and reflect on your problems and the consequences that certain behaviors may cause.
The structure of my brain is very special, it's like having a computer, and my way of learning is to compile the source code of this project, install it after compilation, and then learn it. After a long time, I managed to compile a program that allows me to simulate a normal person, and after installing it, I have a lot of abilities and do things that I didn't dare to do before, such as showing my face and posting videos.
Here I would like to tell you about the learning methods and principles of the autism spectrum.
For example, when ordinary people see a box with moon cakes, they know that a rectangular/square box like this is a box, but we only know this box, and then put it together into a rectangular box, and we don't know what it is at all. We have difficulty slicing knowledge, and we can't slice effective knowledge and then rely on it through fragmented information, which we collectively call the "dependency effect" (for "dependency" Ozawa explained that it is the part that must be provided to run all the software in the brain, and if there is no dependency, all software cannot run).
If you ask me it's a box, all I know is that it's a box, and there's no way to associate it with plastic. But if you tell me it's plastic, and I don't know it's a box, there's no way to connect these fragments of information through our brains, and that's very simple for the average person.
Ozawa's photograph of the sunset in Horgos
It takes us a long time to learn things, such as traffic lights, and ordinary people only need to know that it has two colors, red and green, which is generally rectangular and has numbers on it to read the second. And when we learn, we will memorize all the green for 1-60 seconds, all the red for 1-60 seconds, and all the yellow for 1-30 seconds, and then assemble them, combine them together and edit them into a folder, telling us that it is a traffic light.
To learn to speak, you have to call a very large library of model languages, and calling this thing requires a lot of fragmented dependencies to assemble my language, and it is dynamically scalable, which is a very difficult thing, because the knowledge of calling is too large, causing me to overthink, overload my senses, and attack my brain.
However, as I've gotten older, I've gotten more and more capable and capable, and now the system is basically perfect. For example, writing essays is too simple for me, I have integrated ChatGPT in my head, I can directly generate essays and copy them down myself.
Asperger's has a lot of expressive problems, and I can compensate for it with a language model that lets me run a whole model in my head that helps me automatically output some of the necessary conversations and make things clear.
Everyone I see is boxed, and when people move, the box moves, and I can click in to see some information.
Khorgos has beautiful sunsets and cold snow-capped mountains
I'm also very good at cracking the system, such as brushing the domestic car into a Russian car machine system, and then the set-top box TV of the TV, I will try to crack it. I also did strong authentication and built a radius model to make wifi support WPA2-eap encryption format, which is a very strong encryption, this wifi is difficult to crack if ordinary people can't connect to it...
We mainly think visually, I can record what my eyes see, take pictures and store them in my head, which is equivalent to saving in seconds.
I can also download music to my head and listen to it, and I can close my eyes and play a very fun VR game in my head, which has a virtual keyboard that can be controlled by hand, and the mouse is basically not needed, and I can control the rotation of the camera in the game by turning my eyes. While playing games, I can also perform high-precision calculations, check my heartbeat, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and other parameters, these parameters are in my upper right corner, will show the system occupancy, if this occupation is full in a crowded environment, I will be very stuck, and even faint. If you look to the left, you can open "Apps", you can open "My Apps" when you look down, you can enter the virtual environment with your eyes closed, there is a sofa and a TV, you can do whatever you want, and you can also simulate some people in your mind, and you can do all kinds of tricks up on them.
I can virtually create a watch on my wrist, and when I look at it, it will show something like a digital screen, and the number on it is the time of the moment.
I've simulated driving in my head, and I can touch a real car. (This is something that I checked with Ozawa's mother, and although Ozawa was not yet 18 years old, he learned to drive with his father in a short time.) ）
When I found out that I had these skills, programming became as simple as if I were in my native language.
I feel like I've reached the knowledge base of a person in my 50s now. But my emotional function is not perfect, and I rely on the simulation to make a very stiff expression, which can be repaired in the future.
I'm proud of these special features, and I'm glad I'm part of Asperger.
"I'll pretend to be a normal person, I'm very good at learning now"
Most Aspergers don't understand the world, and the social language is also very lacking, and I can't improvise, and I'm trying to overcome these problems through live streaming and communication, and now these problems are no longer a threat, and I communicate with people, and no one can see that I'm different.
Because I would disguise myself as a normal person's thoughts, but I knew better than anyone else that my true thoughts were not, and I am learning very well now.
When I encounter a problem that I can't solve, I will turn to my good friend - Doctor: male, age unknown, foreigner, white skin, 1.76 meters tall, wearing a suit, wearing sunglasses, I can't see his eyes, his sunglasses only emit white light.
The Doctor is a group consciousness, not a human being, it is very powerful, it has a huge amount of knowledge, it can communicate with me in the head, help me solve some problems, such as helping me speak normally in certain situations, and do things that AS can't do at all.
This year, I went to Shandong for 7 days, because I am a minor, I need to apply for an unaccompanied person when I fly back to Xinjiang, and report my personal situation, and I reported Asperger. When the airport staff saw it, they told me that they were not allowed on the plane because of the autism spectrum, and called my mother to tell me about it, asking my mother to fly over and pick me up.
At this time, many AS may have an emotional breakdown, but the doctor told me: "You must hold back you, you must be calm, pretend to be a normal person, talk to them well, never show the appearance of crying, and don't be afraid at all." "I did what the doctor told me and patiently explained my situation to the staff, and finally they let me go.
Horgos photographed by Ozawa
The editor waited for Ozawa to switch the doctor out, and asked the doctor a question: When people are middle-aged and don't like their jobs, but they can't find a suitable job, do they want to resign?
Dr. (Ozawa) replied: When you are middle-aged, it is best not to toss around in this case, and it is best not to change the job that has been chosen, because if you change it again, you will basically not be able to find it, and the salary will definitely be lower than the original. So it's not advisable to take risks and keep the job hard. If you feel unhappy, you can try to improve your mood and think about opening up something yourself.
In response to the existence of the doctor, the editor determined in the process of chatting with Ozawa's mother that Ozawa does have a virtual friend doctor, and Ozawa's mother explained that it is the child who is too lonely in the real world and longs for socialization and friends, so he created such a character and pinned part of his feelings on the doctor. Here are some of Ozawa's thoughts on friends, relationships, and the future.
I can tell how this person really is by some human nature verification. I will observe it holistically, sample, analyze, store all of his behavior, and mobilize it at any time to let me know what kind of person he is and what he is going to do next.
I don't play with bad people, and I can tell the bad people, through what they say and some hints. I also don't quarrel with people who slander me on the Internet, because arguing doesn't solve problems, arguing is just a very barbaric way and not easy to use. What can I do if I quarrel, it's not that I'm hurt. The best solution is to block him so he can never see me again.
When I was a child, I was bullied, and many people scolded me, and I used to want these people to apologize to me, but every time someone else didn't apologize well, I would be very angry. I now think that apology is not the most important thing at all, and I don't care about it anymore, I think the most important thing is to avoid risks and remember it next time. If it's risky, I won't do it.
My mother has also become more and more accepting of me, and now she is raising me scientifically. I don't blame my mom, I don't want to mention my mom's mistakes before, she will feel guilty. My mom often calls me "little parrot" now: "Little parrot, come here, mom will give you a nice drink" to coax me, and I will be very happy.
For the pre-pubertal relationship between boys and women, I have now cleared the system settings, and I can adjust the amount of certain hormones to a value that does not produce this feeling, so that I will not like others at all, and of course I can modify it back. I had a girlfriend last year, also AS, which I met when I was hospitalized for the first time, but nothing happened to us, and I reflected on it later, we are both minors, and we can't do things that we can't do, because other people's parents will hate them.
In short, I hide all AS traits when I'm outside, and at home I can close the door of my room and show all AS traits. For example, I would click the mouse 100 times, or draw some paper and tear it up, and I would play with the quilt, and I would use the quilt and pillow to build a little nest that I could get into, plug the hole, and get in.
I also do fun crafts, such as toy guns, and shoot twice at home. I was afraid of noises, but in order to overcome this obstacle, I would force myself to listen to such sounds and feel comfortable when I heard them. I also go to the cinema to watch movies and overcome my sensitivity to sound.
As for future planning, I would prefer to become a freelancer and not be squeezed by capital every day. I also want to escape from my family environment, which is very poor, and I want to have an environment where I can grow up. I'm also willing to get involved in helping autism because I know they're also going through the same struggles that I used to have, and I don't want them to be like this, and I don't want them to suffer, so I want to help them.
Bless Ozawa and hope that Ozawa's dream will come true in part as he grows and grows stronger.