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Surely you have also seen it from near or far.

It was the boy who nobody wanted in his football team, balonazo meat. The one who had that oddity of fluttering at recess while circling. The one that distilled fear and to which the others barely spoke. The one who was cornered by the bad and the worst. The one that served to descojone for the neutral majority . The one who received outstanding salivazos and very poor hugs.

He better tell us.

"They called me abnormal, subnormal, delayed."

«They made me kneel before them. They slapped me.

"They forced me to teach my private parts in public."

"They broke my jobs, they spit on them, they painted them ... They kicked my wallet."

"They stole my money and destroyed my things."

"I was spit on food."

Total: «The habitual thing in the suffering of autistic children».

The story is in Los autistas we also want to be close (Editorial Caligrama), where Ignacio Pantoja explains without dressing the mangrove that is the world out there for people with asperger and also presents us: a man who is 35 years old, who He has studied Biology at the Autonomous University of Madrid and a master's degree at the Institute of Neuroscience of Salamanca, which is now a Pharmacy, who loves and is afraid, that as everyone dreams, which owes much to the extinction of the elephant bird of Madagascar and its parents .

And that returns to those school years like when you throw a branch into the sea and the waves give it back to you. Slowly. Obsessively. Like an old and rotten pruning.

«Since I was little, practically since I have conscience, a feeling has accompanied me: it is fear . In fact, since I wake up until I fall asleep and also while I sleep, I have nightmares. Life gives me fear ».

60% of Spanish students with Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD (asperger is included) have suffered bullying in the classroom. 90% of those with this diagnosis have been victims of workplace and social harassment, according to various studies. The suicide rate is 12 times higher in a person with this particularity. But this is the story of a very lively and very conscious guy with many plans and very committed and at times he smiles.

-Tell us something that makes you wake up wanting to live every morning.

-Anita. She also has asperger. See you every day. Is my best friend.

The first psychologist had it when he was only four years old. The last psychologist, like Monterroso's dinosaur, is still there.

There was no way to explain that behavior different from that of others. Something that had its logic until adolescence arrived and Ignacio was still stranded in another indecipherable place.

"He had a lot of difficulties in relating," says his father . «I was baffling you with incomprehensible reactions. He took a dog and there was no way to calm him down. He was very obsessive and had a lot of anxiety. If normal adolescence is complex, in a case like my oldest son can be terrifying.

"As a child you think you're shy and nothing else," says Ignacio. "But when you're still the same at 16, you think you have something to have."

Then, one day, suddenly, the revelation.

Ignacio remembers him as one of the most relieving moments of his life.

«We came from Zaragoza in the car. My parents go ahead and I go back, alone, without my brothers. It was June and it was night. They told me I had Asperger syndrome. They told me how little they knew. And I looked out the window again ... It was a total liberation, I understood many things that I didn't understand before. For me it was like taking off a very large weight. I was not guilty of being alone ».

From the time I wake up until I fall asleep, life gives me fear

Ignacio Pantoja

His father is Felix Pantoja, prosecutor of the Supreme Court and former juvenile prosecutor of Madrid. His mother is Virginia García, magistrate of the Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid.

But to understand the education received by Ignacio, you have to move from the curriculum and scratch below. Felix Pantoja is the son of a bracero, at age 16 she and he were already working, he began as bellboys, both of them combined the study of the career with several low-paid jobs. So in this family they have grown up knowing that nobody gives you anything.

As much asperger you have.

Definition of ASD: Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurobiological and chronic developmental disorder that already manifests during the first three years of life. It severely affects behavior, learning and interaction with others.

So far the theory. We start with the practice.

Definition of teactivist : the struggle for the inclusion of these excluded people. Let's say we talk about Ignacio and his book. From a man who has 67% disability and from a book where he is capable of everything.

He does not hide his "autolytic ideas." He asserts: "For years I have been medicated by anxiety and depression, but that has not been caused by autism, but by bullying." He wonders: "What is the use of two races and a master's degree if it doesn't help us to live?" He does pedagogy: «We are not sick and we must not try to heal ourselves, we must try to understand ourselves».

Starting with yourself.

His curiosity with biology began with something dead.

"I became obsessed with extinct animals," he assures us. «With the elephant bird of Madagascar, which became extinct in the 18th century during colonization. I wanted to work on resuscitating them, bringing them back to life through genetic engineering. That's why I studied this ».

Biology, Neuroscience or Pharmacy studies that have not reached him to decipher not only the brain of someone with ASD, but the brain of someone who does not have this disorder and behaves as follows.

At school.

«The teachers saw me as a green dog and the classmates kept expressing their disgust. They called me retro, stuttering, short-minded (...) They kicked and punched me in the chest, spit, they cornered me ... ».

In high school.

«The partners were more violent than ever. They beat me, they called me the autistic. I was unable to defend myself. I remember the boy who has made it worse in my life. His name was Nacho. He made all kinds of humiliations. I remember once a disabled boy who barely knew how to speak. He took the chocolate from the sandwich, threw it on the floor, stomped on it and then forced him to eat it ... The psychiatrist told me that I had to shake ... ».

In college.

“It's very hard to know that everyone in your class was left to go out and they didn't count on me. I tried to go with three girls from the Autonomous. They told me not to go with them. They literally clarified the reason for me: let's see if I was going to spread them ».

Still today.

THE BLAME

Juan Cruz is a psychologist. "You have to help normalize these people," he says. «We cannot say that this or that man is asperger. We can say that this or that man has asperger. In other words: for example, I have baldness, but I am not my bald head.

Diana Vasermanas is a psychologist and treats children with this problem throughout the country. «The situation of these boys is bleeding. And I don't say it just metaphorically. They can be good students, speak with scholarship, seem pedantic ... That creates envy. They do not understand the aggressions or the harassment, to the point that they do not defend themselves because they are perplexed with the evil of the other. I've had children beaten, locked in closets, victims of cruel teachers, others who made the queen's chair and threw them, others who bit their mouths and hurt themselves ... Because they didn't react against him another, but against themselves ».

Félix Pantoja is a prosecutor and above all he is a father, one who in front of us turns coffee with milk and his head. «Ignacio understands the tectivism as something matured in the family. Try to ensure that everyone with ASD, regardless of their origin and circumstances, has the opportunity to be a citizen , with the right to live and be understood.

And to feel.

Ignacio is afraid to be with people who do not have ASD since his parents die. He hopes to finish Pharmacy and to have a partner. The third feeling he quotes is guilt.

- Sometimes I feel it. The blame.

-Why, Ignacio?

-Well, because it has had to be very hard for my family. Because sometimes I hurt my parents with things I tell them ... I shout. I insult you ... I reproach you for everything that has happened to me.

KAFKA

When he is very anxious, Ignacio lies on his back. A little like a cat looking for familiar hands and a little like the protagonist of that reference book of Kafka. It is your way to calm down.

The last one was this afternoon. He was walking with his friend Ana. A couple of apparently normal young people have looked at them. Then they have proceeded to the relevant teasing . And they laughed at them, what a surprise.

"I have many defects, my physical appearance does not help, I have a disorder and I back down," he says in the book. «I know it can be difficult, but I deserve it. And a lot".

The Pantoja family record says that you have to work it day after day, that sometimes life is not fair, that there are guilty people who seem innocent and that wanting and loving oneself is of law.

So up.

In college three girls told me not to go with them. His justification was that he could spread them

Ignacio Pantoja

-At home today they told me to leave a beard for the photo, because that's how I'm more handsome , that's what they say.

Ignacio is already much more relaxed than at the beginning of this meeting. It also pays for the consumption. We talked a little more about the elephant bird of Madagascar, which fascinates us. Those extinctions.

And then he wants to solve a doubt.

-I want to ask you something.

-Tell me, Ignacio.

-Do you miss Pedro Jota?

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