My Brother’s Sister

This story was originally published on Friday, Apr. 28, 2017, in Volume LXIII, Issue 12.

Crouching between the corner of a desk and the wooden arm of a futon, I can just barely make out some of the titles on the lowest shelf of my parents’ bookshelf. That shelf contains the evidence of their dependence on literary advice throughout my childhood. There’s the beginning — No More Morning Sickness — presumably bought during my mother’s first pregnancy. There’s Seven Steps to Nighttime Dryness: A Practical Guide for Parents of Children with Bedwetting (both of my brothers wet the bed well into grade-school). And then there’s a collection of books all with similar topics: Asperger Syndrome and Difficult Moments: Practical Solutions for Tantrums, Rage and Meltdowns, Nonviolent Communications, The Explosive Child, the unopened Social Behavior Mapping workbook, and, among others, The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder.

My middle brother, Jacob*, was diagnosed when we returned to the US from a year-long family sabbatical during his third-grade year. My parents gave me and my youngest brother, Daniel*, who had just finished first grade, a small paperback book to read (Can I tell you about Asperger Syndrome?: A guide for friends and family). It was their way of explaining why Jacob suddenly had so many doctor’s appointments and pills. I don’t remember reading the illustrated paperback, but I do remember much of what it taught me. Asperger’s syndrome is a disorder on the autism spectrum although it is no longer separately diagnosed. People with Asperger’s, while often especially talented in specific areas, struggle to interpret social signals. Although I knew this growing up, it didn’t stop me from being sarcastic, which often confused Jacob (although now he’s learned to be sarcastic too). Aspies, or people with Asperger’s, often feel uncomfortable making eye contact with people, and can have sensory issues, which, in Jacob’s case, means that he is overwhelmed by large groups of people and loud, noisy places. Often Aspies’ arm, hand, and shoulder muscles are weaker. After his diagnosis, Jacob had to do strengthening exercises for his fingers and arms: writing with a vibrating pen, army crawling, playing with putty. Aspies also sometimes forget that others might not always share their special interests. I remember three-year-old Jacob talking for hours to no one in particular about trains. At age six, every conversation had to be about unicycles, his newfound passion. Now sixteen, he talks nonstop about rowing when given even the slightest opportunity.

But while the book does describe many of Jacob’s peculiarities, it doesn’t mention his tantrums. “You are acting like a two-year-old” is my mom’s favorite phrase when Jacob has a tantrum. When a five-year-old throws a tantrum, you assume they are just being a kid. When a third-grader throws tantrums while spending a year in a foreign country, you assume it is the bullying and the culture shock. When a fourth-grader throws tantrums at home, you get a diagnosis — Asperger’s. But the label doesn’t make it any better. When a 6’2” fifteen-year-old who’s been trained as a rower for three years throws a tantrum, it’s scary. You prepare for the bruises.

These tantrums are almost always incited by my mom. They start when my mother gets fed-up with his excuses and disobedience (not doing his homework, for example) and decides to actually follow through on her normally empty threats. She takes away rowing or the car. Incensed at the lack of freedom, he becomes emphatic, repeating the same phrases over, not calming down even to bargain. He will not stop until my mom gives in. He’s learned how to control the house using fear or frustration. He needs to control us, and he does — even when he doesn’t get what he wants. He keeps my parents exhausted, making Daniel’s and my needs an afterthought.

Before leaving for college, I worried that the tantrums would get worse once I was gone. When my parents both got so angry and stubborn that they wouldn’t negotiate with him, I was often the one to step in. When the stubbornness on both sides took hold, I would convince my parents to step aside for a moment. Then I would go in to talk to Jacob and calm him down, or, if he wouldn’t let me, just keep my parents out of it so that he could calm himself down. Before I learned to intervene, I would lay awake hours past my bedtime listening to them screaming at each other. I spent those nights worrying that a neighbor would hear their struggles and call Child Protective Services. Even after Jacob finally quieted down, I would stay up longer, listening to my parents’ hushed fighting. The tense whispers were basically the same every time — my mom shouldn’t have given him a punishment she wouldn’t enforce, and my dad shouldn’t have undermined her. Sometimes I was scared that my parents would turn on me like they turned on Jacob and on each other. Home didn’t seem so safe anymore.

A part of me wonders whether I have any right to complain. I am not the person growing up with Asperger’s, nor am I the parent tasked with raising him. I am his sister, and my experiences are just a side-effect. No one ever seemed to consider my experience growing up. Once my grandparents sympathized with me for how hard it must be living with him in the house. I just felt anger. They weren’t acknowledging the strain his (relatively mild) disorder puts on the whole family. They were blaming him. He’s my younger brother. I’m the only one who’s allowed to do that. While I do sometimes find myself blaming him, I mostly hold my mother responsible, justified or not.

My mom considers her role as one of enforcement, not one of trust and advice. I wonder if her attitude towards us would have been different if Jacob wasn’t Jacob. I wonder if, not having had to deal with tantrums all the way through our teenage years, she would have accepted us as independent people who might think differently than her. What she and my dad don’t see is that Jacob is a completely different person when he isn’t subject to their whims (a common refrain during his tantrums is “I wish you weren’t my parents”). At school he is more or less normal, if a little withdrawn. He can be obnoxious and a braggart, but he gets along decently well with other people, and is quite adept at functioning in society if he wants to. He often befriends the teachers he respects, and hangs out with friends at crew practice. But all my parents see is his blind hate of them and jealous treatment of my youngest brother. I don’t know if I’m seeing him and his future too optimistically, but I do know that he hides a lot of his life from my parents. The only reason they found out about one of his girlfriends is because another parent told them.

Although Jacob is unique, partly as a result of his Asperger’s, perhaps we aren’t so different. Both of us are part of a big sliding scale of personalities and brain wirings. We are similar in our peculiarities — both of us are unusually logical thinkers, and both of us are a little bit too confident in ourselves (though I think I carry it better). But he has a diagnosis, so I feel entitled to complain, and my parents can justify treating him differently. It’s useful, but I’m not sure it does my brother justice. The books on my parents’ bookshelf show the struggles they’ve had with my brother over the years, but they don’t show Jacob’s own struggles. Jacob’s bookshelf contains no self-help books. He is happy as himself, in all of his Aspie glory.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.