He sits at the kitchen table, the sun shining through the window creates a halo around his head. He stirs his hot chocolate roughly and puts the spoon on the table with a “clink”. He has a frown on his face and his eyes look puffy from crying. He had a tantrum again, a regular occurrence in our household. A tantrum from two worlds colliding into a void of misunderstanding and pain. The first world is one that most of us are familiar with, one that includes sarcasm and hidden meaning. The world of body language and self-control. The second world is one that is hard to grasp and difficult to sympathize with, this is the world in which he lives. The world where everything is black and white, where if something needs to be said then it is said. If you say something then you stick to it, there is no changing the plan without lots of notice.
This second world is one that between 1 in 25 to 1 in 10,000 children are living in, depending on diagnosis criteria according to The Canadian Medical Association. This world is referred to as Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism that can sometimes be difficult to diagnose. The Canadian Medical Association has also found out boys are diagnosed with Asperger’s almost twice as often as girls are. My brother is one of these boys.
Due to the fact that he has a hard time relating to his peers and takes things as black and white, he is easily offended and often holds on to things that hurt him for a very long time. He has never had many friends and would rather hang out with adults than children his own age. He is smart but has a hard time getting what is in his head down on paper. There is a barrier there that we are only beginning to realize. He doesn’t like to talk about having Asperger’s Syndrome or the fact that he doesn’t have friends and feels victimized on a regular basis. Like every other junior high child, he feels awkward and pushed to the edge. But unlike every junior higher it may never end.
When I was in junior high I was always being told that the awkwardness would get better. That I would grow into my body and become confident. I always waited for the day that I would wake up and be confident with an awesome body that I loved. That never happened, it is a process that we all go through. Unfortunately his process may be a little longer and quite a bit more difficult. He may never have a day where he doesn’t feel like everybody is out to get him, like no one understands what he is thinking because his brain works differently from ours. He may never be able to have that connection with someone where you feel like you know exactly what they are thinking. But that is something that he and the people who love him need to realize and get over. Him not thinking the same way as we do is not the end of the world, we just need to make adjustments.
He is 7 years my junior and I have always felt somewhat of a maternal instinct towards him. Maybe this is because I am the oldest sister, perhaps it is because I don’t always agree with my parent’s style of raising him. Whatever the reason, sometimes I feel like more of a mom than a sister. It is hard to be a sister when you are always having to watch out for what he just put on the stove or what experiment he is doing on the kitchen table.
When you meet him someday, he may be that person on the bus who gets angry for no apparent reason because you looked at him the wrong way. Or perhaps he will offer you a random fact about WWII when you are looking at the same pair of shoes in the mall. He may open the door for you and be the nicest guy you ever meet. I can pretty much guarantee that he will tell you how to spell almost anything with perfect accuracy and will do a math equation for you before you have time to take out your calculator.
He is a brilliant boy, who lives in a different world than I do. Sometimes these worlds collide into chaos. But when our two worlds intertwine and become one, I see the face of God. He isn’t perfect, but neither am I. He so obviously loves the people in his life. Surrounding the moments of pain and anger is a river of love and unconditional caring and appreciation. He is my angel and little brother. I am so proud to be the big sister of an Aspie.
Bethany Christine Creative 