My Brother

I just thought, that the proverbial "they" might be right, and it might help me to talk about my brother.

I remember from a young age the arguments.

Constantly my parents would be on edge, and snapping at one another, and all due to my brother.

He never slept. He answered back. And could get violent very quickly.

Not exactly the ideal little bundle of joy!

My mother has suspected that something was, well, different about him since he was under a year old, but whatever she tried, or wherever she went for support, they would just say that he was a "difficult" child. This soon made her get depressed and soon she wouldn't go out of the house because my brother was unbearable.

Whenever my parents would argue with my brother, they would be left crying in separate rooms, while he would be laughing at something on TV.

A particularly vivid memory is when we lived above a pub, my brother was told he couldn't go to karate anymore and got very angry at my dad, and started to shove him, and get violent, my mother tried to help- but he threatened her.

My dad eventually managed to get away, and my mother and i hid in our rooms.

He got diagnosed at the age of fifteen, over fourteen years after my mum originally tried to get him diagnosed.

My brother has Aspergers' Syndrome, and since he's been diagnosed we've gotten on so much better.

I've forgiven everything he's done, from throttling me, to screaming at my mother.

But thinking back on it, i never had held it against him.

I love my brother. And since he'd been diagnosed, i wouldn't change him for the world.

I thank the woman who diagnosed him every day, as he now is coping with his life. Not "neuro-typical" but he's him.

We can now joke about his condition, and since the awareness of Autism and Aspergers has been on the increase, we have been able to point out sucessful people with Aspergers, so that he now knows that it's not all bad. He looks up to people like Bill Gates, and Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds, and sees how people with his condition can cope, and live sucessful lives and have relationships!

He now knows that it's not true that "Once they know it's Autism, they don't want to know"

He's now at Uni, sharing a flat with four foreign students, and is hoping to complete his degree in a couple of years.

My brother has Aspergers. I love my brother.