[Former 2E Child with Developmental Disabilities] "Why do they intentionally cause trouble even though they are smart?" — My story of being unable to read society's "unwritten rules"

Looking back on my childhood, I think I was quite a "troublesome child."

However, the trouble is that I myself was barely aware of it. My childhood memories are missing in places, and even when I ask my parents, they usually gloss over anything that seems inconvenient. Therefore, most of what I know about my childhood is either stories I've heard from others or things I've reconstructed by piecing together fragments after becoming an adult, thinking, "It was probably like this."

Even so, when I line them up, there are things that start to become visible.

I think I probably believed that the world was made only of things that were "written down if you read them". I was trying to execute society like a device that works properly if you read the manual to the end. I was actually quite good at the written rules. The problem was that the main body of society was not in the written rules, but in the annotations that were written nowhere.

It took me an incredibly long time to read those "unwritten rules". No, even now, I don't understand them well. That is why I write about "implicit rules" on note like this almost every day.

This is not a story about "please forgive a child who caused trouble." It is not a story about "it couldn't be helped because I had a developmental disability." I don't want to make excuses for past mistakes either. It's just that there are indeed children who cause trouble for others without realizing they are doing so. That was me in the past. Today, I, as an adult, would like to translate what was happening inside that child, in place of my younger self.

I couldn't connect well to the first group

I quit kindergarten halfway through.

I still don't really know the reason. Even when I ask my parents, they gloss over it vaguely as usual. So, from here on, it's just imagination, but I think I probably couldn't adapt to group activities at all and was causing the teachers a fair amount of trouble.

Standing in line. Doing the same thing together. Moving all at once at the teacher's signal. Even though no one has codified it, there are procedures that everyone in that place follows for some reason. I was not a child who could naturally absorb things like that. I think I had already failed to connect at the very entrance of the first connector that links to society.

I cannot say for sure. However, when I line them up later, I feel that this must have been the very first stumble.

My language was advanced. But I didn't understand the temperature of words

After I quit kindergarten, my parents tried to have me learn something, so they sent me to piano lessons. At that time, electronic pianos were not common at all, and my parents bought me a used upright piano.

Up until then, for me, a piano was that magnificent shape I saw on TV (in short, a grand piano). And when I saw an upright piano at the music store, the clerk said, "This is a used piano," so I jumped to the conclusion that "all pianos of this shape are used pianos."

On the day of my first lesson, the teacher's house also had an upright piano like ours. Seeing that, I was happy and shouted.

"The teacher's piano is a used piano just like mine at home!"

My parents hurriedly covered my mouth. The teacher froze with a stiff smile.

It seems I was reading quite difficult books before entering elementary school. So, it's not that I didn't know the meaning of "used." What I didn't know was the temperature that word carries when placed between people. That "used" sounds like you are quietly appraising the other person's belongings. That is not written in the dictionary. Accidents happen in the parts not written in the dictionary.

It wasn't that I didn't know the words, but that I didn't yet know the temperature that words possess.

Even though I'm smart, I can't get on board with the class

First grade of elementary school. I almost never faced forward during class.

Writing that I "faced backward" makes it sound like some kind of rebellious attitude, but in reality, that was probably not the case. I wasn't rebelling; I simply couldn't keep facing forward as a child with ADHD. My attention would drift here and there, and before I knew it, I was looking in another direction. From the teacher's perspective, I think they could have tolerated the restlessness, but they just wanted me to stop turning around and bothering the other children.

However, when called upon, I would answer correctly. Even though I dropped out of kindergarten halfway through and didn't go to cram school, I understood the content of the lessons themselves. The homeroom teacher seemed to be at their wit's end.

Here, too, I could read the rules of study because they were "written down." But I couldn't follow the format that no one spoke aloud: "sit facing forward during class." And what made it troublesome was that I was a reasonably "capable child." When a capable child doesn't face forward, it doesn't look like a "problem of ability," but a "problem of attitude." That I could do it if I tried, but I just wouldn't.

I understood the rules of study, but I didn't understand the rules of human relationships.The fact that those two things coexisted within the same child was probably very difficult for the adults at the time to see.

People do dangerous things even without malice

I made friends when I entered elementary school. This was probably the first clear sense of joy I had ever felt in my life.

I was so happy that I imitated a bad friend and tried to climb up the water tank of the apartment complex. Near the top of the ladder—I think I probably thought of something else halfway through—I let go. I fell headfirst, cracked my skull, and was hospitalized for a week.

Around the same time, on another day, I found a lighter or matches in the plaza and was playing with them for fun when the fire spread, and a fire truck came.

Writing this now, I can hear my heart shrinking with a squeeze. I don't think it's a laughing matter at all.

What I want to say is not something like, "I didn't have any malice, so please forgive me." I probably didn't have any clear intention to do something dangerous or to trouble the adults back then. But having no intention and having no actual harm done are completely different things. Therefore, what I did was definitely a "bad thing" and a "dangerous thing," even if there was no malice.

Even without malice, people fall headfirst, and even without malice, fire spreads. Even without malice, you cause trouble for others. In fact, I think that is the scariest part of this problem.

Thinking about it now, what I lacked was not reflection, but the circuit to imagine "what will happen next" before the action (for example, letting go of the ladder, lighting the lighter).

However, if you read this as "just a lack of discipline," you will probably choose the wrong approach. If it were a problem of discipline, it should be fixed eventually if you scold or threaten. But in reality, I repeated the same things no matter how many times I was scolded. It just meant that the method of scolding didn't work on the missing circuit.

Of course, I don't mean to say, "It doesn't work, so it can't be helped." That is no comfort to those who were pushed around by me. What I want to say is the opposite. If scolding doesn't work, you have no choice but to stop it in ways other than scolding.

Put the lighter in a place where the child cannot reach. Make it so they cannot climb where they shouldn't. Instead of relying on the person's will, stop it first with the environment. That kind of mechanism would have been much better for me and for the adults who had trouble with me. It's just that no one understood that at the time.

Play for me, unpleasant for the other person

When I was in the lower grades of elementary school, I apparently did things that were like harassment to the girls in my class. I don't remember the details. I think I probably found it interesting that a reaction would come back when I did something. I have no intention of justifying this either. But,the "interesting experiment" for me was just an unpleasant thing for the other person. I didn't understand that at all back then.

What I remember more clearly is when I was in the upper grades of elementary school. I got hooked on a game of changing people's names into different kanji characters. When I was having fun changing the names of my classmates one after another, I got a complaint from their parents. Maybe there were some bad kanji mixed in, or maybe it made them feel like their names were being treated carelessly—honestly, I still don't fully understand even now.

For me, it was a puzzle using characters. It was just a language game, playing with sounds and shapes. But for the other person, a name was their personality and dignity itself.I could be obsessed with the structure of characters for hours, but what those characters meant to someone else was completely missing.

I didn't want to hurt anyone. But it's not that I didn't hurt anyone, either. My childhood existed somewhere in between.

I could read school rules. But I couldn't read society.

Up to this point, it's a story about a young child. But it becomes clear by the time I enter high school that this problem cannot be dismissed as "just because I'm a child."

My middle school grades were the best in the class for all three years. However, because the classes themselves were unbearable, I chose to go to a so-called bottom-tier high school where delinquents and dropouts lived together, simply because it was the closest to my house and it seemed like some of the curriculum involved practical training rather than just sitting in a classroom.

The high school seemed to have had some expectations about what kind of honor student would be coming. I received a message through my middle school saying, "We would like you to read the new student representative address at the entrance ceremony."

At this point, I didn't understand the meaning of "being chosen as the new student representative" at all. I didn't understand the nuance of it being an honor or a symbol of the occasion at all. My understanding was just, "Oh, I see, I'm going to play that role."

Before enrolling, I read the high school student handbook thoroughly. Of course, not for the virtuous reason of wanting to grasp the rules properly, but simply because I was "starving for text." And I noticed that there were no regulations regarding socks anywhere. In middle school, the student guidance teachers checked everything, even the one-point logos and lines on our socks. So, I jumped to the conclusion that "no regulations = this school is extremely free."

There is no deep reason why I chose red socks. But thinking back now, perhaps I had a longing somewhere for the primary-colored socks that the delinquents in middle school wore. For some reason, I had managed to read one of their "rules." Of all things, I chose the one least appropriate for the occasion.

Just to be clear, I didn't want to stand out. As my readers already know, I have a very fragile ego, and I hate standing out more than anything. So in my head, the red socks were supposed to be "quietly red inside my shoes." A subtle red that couldn't be seen from the outside. That was the only image I had.

But what I had actually missed was something much more basic. In middle school, we changed into gym shoes when entering the gymnasium. I hadn't bought my new high school gym shoes yet. In other words, I hadn't realized that the entrance ceremony would be held in the gymnasium and that I would have to take off my shoes at the entrance—that was all there was to it.

On the day of the entrance ceremony. The moment I took off my shoes at the entrance of the gymnasium, I thought, "Oh, this is bad."

However, at that point, the only thing that crossed my mind was, "I'm going to stand out among the new students." I still couldn't picture the scene where I would go up on stage and give the new student representative address in bright red socks. For some reason, my realization always stops one level too shallow.

I was called, "New student representative address!" I steeled myself and went up on stage. My classmates from today on, the upperclassmen, the teachers, the guests... at the end of all those gazes were my bright red socks.

This was my high school debut.

I didn't break the school rules. On the contrary, I read them. I read the student handbook, probably more carefully than anyone else. I just couldn't read the "meaning of the situation" that existed outside the school rules at all. Nowhere in the student handbook did it say, "Those who go up on stage for the new student representative address must wear plain socks, considering the symbolic nature of the occasion." And to me, what wasn't written was the same as not existing.

—By the way, there is a follow-up to this story.

Thanks to this incident, the school delinquents started to respect me, thinking, "That guy has guts." Apparently, I was seen as a guy with the nerve to stand on stage calmly in bright red socks. Of course, it wasn't nerve or anything, just a huge accident. Thanks to that, my high school life was peaceful. A blessing in disguise, or something like that.

The result of not being able to read a single unwritten rule was, by chance, received as the correct signal in a different place. Sometimes, the world helps people through such mistakes.

Connected by a single thread

Quitting kindergarten halfway through. Shouting that the piano was second-hand. Not being able to face forward during class. Falling on my head, spreading a fire, and making adults turn pale. Changing people's names into puns and probably hurting someone. Going up on stage in bright red socks.

For a long time, these were just a collection of disconnected stories to me. A gathering of funny and not-so-funny failure stories from a child who wasn't very good at things.

But as an adult, when I line them up, they appear connected by a single thread.

I was not a child who could naturally absorb the rules of society. I could read the written rules. But the unwritten rules—the temperature of words, the meaning of a situation, what is happening inside the other person right now—I had to implement them one by one, through trial and error, and sometimes by causing trouble for others.

Looking back on my childhood, I think thatthe majority of children called 'troublesome' are not doing it because they know better.

Children like this are often called 'self-centered.' But prioritizing oneself means weighing oneself against the other person and choosing oneself. In my case, rather than choosing myself, the other person I should have been choosing wasn't even visible to me yet. This is just my personal opinion, but I think the line between a 'troublesome child' and a 'self-centered child' lies in whether or not the child is trying to gain an advantage. I was certainly a 'troublesome child.' But there was no thought in me of 'trying to gain an advantage.' I can say that much for certain.

So, if there is a 'troublesome child' around you, I hope you will watch over them, understanding that they are still in the middle of implementing the unwritten rules of society one by one. And that they are incredibly clumsy children who cannot pretend to have features they haven't finished implementing yet.

...

I repeat, this is not a story about how it is 'okay to cause trouble.' I do not want to pretend that the discomfort of those who were troubled or the dangers that actually occurred never happened. The fire actually burned, the girl was probably truly unhappy, and someone's name was treated carelessly. That does not disappear. I keep it in mind that it must not be erased.

However, I know that there are children who end up troubling others without the awareness that they are doing so. And what that child needs is probably not strong pressure from the community. It is not 'behave properly' or 'how many times do I have to tell you.' I believe it is an adult who can translate the unwritten rules into words the child can understand, one by one.

To those who felt this story was 'about them'