The Greatness of being different

By I.M Cabral

The Greatness of being different tells the story of Nathan, an autistic boy who was interned from an early age by his parents in a psychiatric hospital because of his condition. Since his stay in the hospital, Nathan understands that he has a gift: he is able to communicate telepathically with anyone in whom he perceives a need or a problem. After leaving the hospital, he is able to reintegrate into society thanks to Joyce, the babysitter of his siblings. Joyce will be able to look beyond appearances and see in Nathan not the guy with the Asperger syndrome but simply a person to feel attracted to, both physically and mentally. When one day Joyce is kidnapped and segregated by a man who wants to do some experiments on her, Nathan can’t avoid her from being abused. This will be his greatest regret, which will prompt him to decide to put his abilities at the service of the police, to allow the capture of dangerous criminals.

I.M Cabral is a journalist, psychologist and Autism Specialist.
Her life journey and direct contact with the most vulnerable began in Angola, when she met people with different abilities and no support but had no skills or understanding at the time about how to help people who saw the world in a different way. 
Later in the UK, she began to study about the subject and pursued her studies and working, with the understanding that love is the biggest ingredient to deal with all humans, regardless of any different ability. Within the autism
world, she had the chance to meet amazing people whom she always had a great connection with. She also gained the ability to understand certain behaviours or face many of the situations that she witnessed and that could not find a medical or scientific explanation with no judgments, every experience not only helped her become a better human being but also awakened in her a great desire and need to raise awareness about this condition that millions around the world have. 
The author of The Superpower of Caring for Others shares now on this book her continuing desire of combining her personal and professional skills to enlighten people from every background about the importance of respecting everyone’s differences and to understand that Autism doesn’t mean incapability but a different ability that needs to be respected and accepted. A great believer that empathy is the key to change humanity and that not everything will always have a logical explanation, she is committed to helping the most vulnerable and give them motivation to embrace who and how they are, improving their existing skills, promoting self believe along with raising acceptance worldwide regarding this condition, using different tools and different ways of reaching people according to the environment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Europa Edizioni
• Release date: Jul 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9791220131711

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The World Health Organization, WHO, estimates that Autism affects one in 100 children worldwide. The condition called ´autism spectrum disorderµ usually begins in childhood and persists during adolescence and adulthood. According to the UN agency environmental and genetic issues can be some of the factors that can make the child more prone to autism. Until the present day and after so many scientific studies nothing concrete has been proved yet. 

One of the great prides of my life was having the courage to accept who and how I am, no matter what others might think about me. I had to learn about self-respect. I had to gain knowledge about humanity to conclude that certain things, certain situations happen without having a plausible explanation. Remember that everybody is different and born with their own personality regardless of being autistic or not, and this is always my point. Try to comprehend people for who they are as an individual, do not label someone based on someone elseµV behaviour or diagnostic. Give everybody an opportunity to show you who they are as an individual: you may get to know a wonderful person with amazing abilities. You may relate to this story or know someone who does, and this is great but do not ever forget to look at people as unique.

As an autistic, I always looked for perfection in everything that I do, which led me to frustration whenever this perfection was not found. I learned that humans are full of imperfections so, for my own mental health, I could not in any way feel any kind of hurt in relation to human beings who consider themselves normal and perfect, who judged, or simply isolated people like me. I consider that their imperfection because the person who MXGJHVRWKHUVEDVHGRQGLIIHUHQFHVLVDSHUVRQZKRKDVQµW grown as a human being! I discovered with the passage of time and maturity that developing skills and gaining all the possible knowledge on understanding myself and keeping calm would bring me life quality. Most experiences that I went through were difficult to understand at the time, but everything started to make sense when I realised that I had to come forward and speak up about the things that I have experienced and everything that I have seen other people going through.

A small bottle of water can have different prices according to where it is sold: at the supermarket it can cost pennies, at the airport it costs more and at certain restaurants it FDQFRVWHYHQPRUHDQGWKDWµVDSSOLFDEOHIRUWKH same bottle of water, which means that the price is settled according to the environment. With this I want to say: always seek for a place where they highly value you as a SHUVRQGRQµWVHWWOHIRUOHVVWKDQZKDW\RXGHVHUYHDQG you deserve the best, you are the ´top notchµ Believe in that and project yourself as that. 

Society needs to see and treat autistic people with more respect, and they need to understand and respect how different we may project ourselves. No Human being is the same as other, we all have our own particularities that in no way should be judged according with VRPHRQHµVSHUVRQDOLGHDRIULJKWRUZURng. Society has a way to judge individuals based on stereotypes; society commonly leads us to create within ourselves what is the right or wrong way to behave but we need to remind society that we are not robots programmed to do things in a  certain way: we are humans and, as autistic or not, we all should have the freedom to express ourselves the way that is comfortable and convenient for us, even if that may be seen as a strange behaviour for others.

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At the end of the day nobody is attached to us sharing our feelings, nobody knows what is best for us. Therefore, nobody has the right to tell us what the appropriate behaviour is. This is my story but is also the story of many other autistic people around the world. Many autistic people do not know how to express themselves in order to be accepted and they only live day after day a constant frustration. Be the person who accepts difference without judging! We are all imperfect people living in this world full of rules. The only rule that should be universal is the rule of not hurting anyone in any way and if we all apply that rule to our lives, any other rule will be easy to follow: the mother rule to a life lived in harmony among all of us, regardless of your condition.

I can tell you that from the day that I have decided that I am the most important person and accepted myself as I am, and if I am always true to myself, somehow the universe creates a bubble that protects me from anything and anyone that may try to destroy my balance. Ignore the stamp that society may have put on you and in no way allow that stamp to turn into a prison. The worse prison is within us when we imprison our feelings, our way of behaving just to impress others. This condition, this different way of seeing things, leading a life, is a life condition so let us take the best of it and see all the differences that we have as a diamond that needs to be faceted and polished to shine, and as soon as we do so the better it is.    Impress yourself, be yourself, be happy for yourself, demand respect. If you are a caretaker of an autistic person that does not have the ability to defend of speak up for himself or herself, be their voice. Respect is a Universal language that must be used by all people in the entire world.

The Greatness of being different

I am Nathan. I am autistic. I live in England, and I have a story to tell. I am one of the inhabitants of the planet Earth who every year self-destructs by those who called themselves rational beings. A place where some people consider themselves superior as others for various reasons. Being autistic put me from a very young age on the VSHFLDOQHHGVµFDWHJRU\ Any behaviour that is not considered normal by society is a reason to simply put those individuals in a certain box.

I completely understand that if an individual for any reason is dangerous to society, then he or she should be isolated to not hurt anyone, but if the behaviour is simply considered different or weird, it is not fair to those individuals being treated like aliens. We tried to find out if there was life on other planets, but we despised and mistreated lives on our planet that has been contaminated by the worse diseases that are strong and powerful among us: the lack of empathy, respect, love for others.

The human being is in constant competition, not that this is bad because the goal is to be better than what we were yesterday, but the competition sees itself more and more without the slightest modesty and sickness because it makes people stop seeing the beauty of life, the qualities they possess and concentrate their energies on being better or having more material goods than their similar. The social networks that should serve only for people to connect and exchange ideas, are a real parade of exhibitions and futility where the ostentation is the dish of the day.

The human being began to explore artificial intelligence when in fact they should focus deeply on

perfecting their own intelligence, that can be classified or divided into ramifications such as emotional or financial. If we do not stop and make emends, we will really need a fresh start on another planet because humans were ending all forms of healthy living in their own home. And the human species is the one doing the destruction, not only material wise but the worse of all is the destruction of humans physically and psychologically.

We live in a bubble that at all moments has been injected with so many kinds of viruses. Inside that bubble we have people with their mental health at risk for so many reasons but the main one for me is the way that society puts pressure on individuals, especially on these modern days where everybody is seeking for perfection, where social media tuck over the life of so many people; these days that everybody has a camera ready to film and show the world anything considered not normal, not caring about the consequences of exposing people and the LPSDFWWKDWWKDWEHKDYLRXUPD\WDNHRQVRPHRQHµVOLIH. Anything is acceptable in order to get some likes on social medias!

These days that people are so afraid to show who they really are because society judges you. And amid so much confusion there were humans who are in a vulnerable situation, such as those born in poverty, the sick because they have some health condition that makes it impossible for them to lead a normal life and those considered ill by society, as has been my case for a long time. We live in a hypocritical world where we talk about love, but wars are being promoted; where we talk about family unity, but we encourage couples to divorce; we fight paedophilia, but the laws are lenient to the despicable beings who hurt children and the list of things that humanity should be ashamed of is endless!

Whether I like it or not, I am part of this world, of a country, of a society and although I am not a conventional or normal person as you can perceive throughout the book, I try to go unnoticed, I try to be invisible to the world and when I become visible, if possible, IµG rather be seeing as an ordinary man to whom no one would want to look twice. Only then I can have some peace.

Since I was two years old, my parents realized I was not a normal kid. I still did not speak at that age, but I was very observant and learned things very easily and quickly. Most of the time I would stare at nowhere, had a FROGORRNGLGQµWOLNHEHLQJWRXFKHG I had the ability to know where to find the things that no one could find, I cried and ran with the presence of certain people and others embraced them, and I was very affectionate. Very quickly my parents realized that I was a special child with a very great sensitivity.

At the age of four, I was diagnosed with Autism (Asperger) and started attending a day centre for supposedly children like me. Many of those children also behaved differently from what was normal for the common society. At six years of age, they did on me some tests and it was concluded that my QI was above 180. But just as I had the ability to do extraordinary things, I also sometimes struggled to do things that for an ordinary person would be considered easy, like tying my shoelaces, riding the bus and sitting by the window. Seeing many colours would make me dizzy, I had constant nervous break downs which made my body shake violently and I had no control of it, and sometimes I could be lost in my own world staring at a wall for two or three hours nonstop, and I had absolutely no control of those actions: my body drove me to do them.

But what people did not know is that on those moments my mind travelled to so many places, beautiful places. in my head I lived so many vivid experiences. I loved reading books, but the books given to me were most of the time chosen by workers and every time I