Paul El Kharrat is an author, writer, contestant of game shows and also a radio and TV columnist. His 153 wins on the show The twelve strokes of noon on TF1 brought him the adoption by the French, all unanimous and in admiration in front of his knowledge, but especially in front of his personality. He was diagnosed with autism at the age of 16, on June 22, 2015. 16 years to understand why he was so different in his vision, in his perception of the world. He publishes Welcome to my worldpublished by HarperCollins.
franceinfo: The date of June 22, 2015 is really highlighted. We feel that there was a click at that moment, a deliverance. Hence the importance of properly diagnosing and finding the words.
Paul El Kharrat: Yes. It was important that I know what I had, because it tortured me a little. Since I was three years old, it has been assumed that I could carry autistic disorders, neuroses or even psychoses. I have had so many different diagnoses that it would take too long to name them all. But anyway, I was happy to finally have a name because just before I got the diagnosis, we still didn’t know and I was not happy because it wasn’t precise. And finally, I had this diagnosis which was rather useful for us for the future.
You begin this work with a phrase from Ovid: “They take me for a barbarian because they don’t understand me“. Were you afraid of never being understood?
“There are many moments in my life when I continue to wonder what I could have done to be so misunderstood in my way of explaining and expressing things.”
Paul El Kharratat franceinfo
There are people who will say:But I got you!“In reality, it’s much more complex. And they only understand the tip of the iceberg and the big submerged part is still to be discovered and understood. And it’s not easy every day to having to constantly repeat how I work for such and such a thing because there are so many points to underline, to express that it would take far too long to do them all, so it’s still too complicated.
All that to say that you have an emotion on edge too?
Ah yes, I have a hypersensitivity which, in negativism or in positivism, is all the same extreme. That is undeniable.
It means that at times, you are borderline burn-out. You also say that when you make the show, the family is in total burn-out, that is to say that it is terrible in the family.
When I pass the selections, it was not going at all. I said to myself to clear my mind: I’m going to make a game, I’m going to try to surpass myself, to pass selections and as I appreciate culture and game shows, I started, I tried that. The only thing is that there are humans who are around and who gravitate, who surround us. There is an audience, there are lights, there are noises and you have to know how to submit to them without flinching. And so it’s not always obvious, far from it!
This book is a tribute that you pay to your family, to the fact that they have always been by your side. It’s your grandmother who saw this report that will finally make it possible for us to find a diagnosis and bring you an answer. Your parents never gave up.
It’s true that I can’t blame my family, even if it’s always more nuanced when I’m in times of crisis, I always say: the others are unbearable, they’re hostile, they’re bad, I hate them! There can be some very difficult things to hear.
“With the efforts that my parents have made, I cannot blame them for not fully understanding the ins and outs of my person, that is to say my way of acting, of doing, my philosophy of life.”
Paul El Kharratat franceinfo
It’s as if you were asked to fully understand a book by Hegel or Nietzsche, it’s not easy. As I have a way of conceiving the quasi-philosophical world, even if there are many others who find an echo in the person opposite and we get along well, it is enough that there is a point that does not go well and that is for all friendly and romantic relationships, it is always very complicated.
The moral of this book, and it is the strength of it, is that we are all autistic from the other because we are all different and it is important to preserve this difference.
Yes. There is a word that I hate, it is the word normality obviously.
Besides, you make a whole chapter out of it!
Of course, I do my best for adaptations, because you have to know how to make compromises, consensus to move forward, to be appreciated by everyone. If I remained completely impervious to others, I would have been criticized. Besides, people continue to criticize me, telling me that I don’t let anything pass. But to get on well with others, for there to be activities that lead to joy, you have to know how to make compromises, even if it’s with people much dumber than yourself, because apparently, in in that world, to be happy, you have to be a little dumber than the others. Seeing things that no one sees, that no one realizes and feeling alone for the same, is a source of suffering, it is a source of boredom, as Schopenhauer would say. And between the two, there are a few moments of happiness, you have to know how to seize them. In fact, when I’m happy, it’s because I’m a little dumber.