NONFICTION - May 14, 1995

I DON’T WANT TO BE INSIDE ME ANYMORE: Messages From an Autistic Mind by Birger Sellin. (Basic Books: $22; 240 pp.) Born in Germany in 1973, Birger Sellin, a severely autistic young man, is given to fits of screaming and self-destructive rage. He has spoken only one sentence since the age of 2. When he was nearly 18, Birger began participating in facilitated communication, a process where autistic and other disabled people can express themselves through writing with someone supporting their arm. The result, in Birger’s case, is “I Don’t Want to Be Inside Anymore,” a collection of thoughts, feelings, letters and poems that convey in painful, fractured language, exactly how it feels to be autistic.

It is difficult to forget while reading this writing that virtually every word came about with the help of Sellin’s mother guiding his hand or arm across the keyboard. Over the past few years facilitated communication has garnered more than its share of detractors, and one may wonder why Sellin’s authenticity was not put to any sort of test, a point never even mentioned in journalist Michael Klonovsky’s otherwise informative introduction. Still, much of what Sellin has to say is quite powerful. “Now i am going to write a song about the joy of speaking/ a song for mute autistics to sing in institutions and/ madhouses/ nails in forked branches are the instruments/ i am singing a song from deep down in hell i am calling/ out to all the silent people in this world.”

“I Don’t Want to Be Inside Anymore” is filled with a memorable combination of intelligence, insight and suffering, a combination that rings true regardless of its source.