Living next to Autism: Siblings perspective

Living next to Autism: Siblings perspective;

When you hear the word “Autism” what do you think? Some people say they think of Dustin Hoffman from the film Rain Man which is famously about a sibling (Tom Cruise) finding out about his autistic brother. However, not many people actually know what autism exactly is, which unless it directly involves you is understandable. 

The definition of Autism is according to the NAS (National Autistic Society) is a lifelong, developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with and relates to other people, and how they experience the world around them.

My older sister Nina, is on the Autistic spectrum. I don't remember my parents exactly telling me that my older sister was Autistic, but I now that I always knew that she was different to most people. I learnt that the hard way unfortunately by watching her get bullied countless of times during my school life growing up (she attended a state Primary and Secondary school as my parents wanted her to live life as normally as possible).

I do believe that children with autistic siblings have a valid part of the story, compare to the people and carers living with Autism because they see a different side of the story at schools and having a closer age connection to the sibling.

When I was younger I use to look up to my sister, because she would go to school before me and do lots of activities which I wanted to do. However, I did not receive the same enthusiasm in return for many years. This broke my parents hearts watching that. I never really understood the effect it actually had on me as a person until recently. 

One aspect of my personality it definitely affected is my fear of upsetting people, as well as always wanting to be a people pleaser. I believe due to the rejection I got when I was very young, I now have the need to always help people in order for them to like me and to avoid the rejection issue altogether. 

Nevertheless, I don't believe this to be negative, as it's not a bad quality to have to want to make people happy instead of annoyed or angry. My sister despite her Autism is a wonderful human being and I have many fond memories growing up with her which may have been different if she weren't Autistic. For example, we use to have a PlayStation 1 in our house and I would always want to beat my sisters score on the “Dancing Stage” game we owned and would always play it together. To the outside world we were normal sisters playing our games together.

I have an older brother too, who naturally is impacted by this too as well as the rest of my family. He has said in the past, that he feels protective over my sister because he sadly, also witnessed the bullying whilst at primary school with Nina. Since he is the older sibling, he obviously has a different relationship with my sister as she looks up to my brother more so than me, since he is naturally the next in charge to my parents. It is easier for him to communicate commands to her when he is looking after her for my parents which is a harder job for me on my own being the youngest. 

One thing I have learnt from having an Autistic sister, is that not many people are aware of what autism is. This leads to ignorance. Ignorance is the main reason for the bullying my sister received, one particular part the bullies at our secondary school focused on was the idea that if they said “happy birthday” to her when it wasn't her birthday, it was antagonise her and cause her great distress. Simple things which may seem funny can be really harmful. These events were nearly 5 years ago and she still talks about her “bullies” and how it made her feel at the time. The ignorance to how harmful and simple teases like that can be is what makes people living with autism lives a lot harder than it already is. I remember witnessing people laugh at my sister and just think if they knew what it did for her mentality. It caused her confidence to drop and she is still low in confidence due to the bullying. It was heart-wrenching. 

Even if one person reads this post and now knows about Autism in a different light, I will walk away from writing this a happy person. It's the spread of issues like the bullying and the people it affects that can help stop these issues and help the people with autism live happier lives without worrying about people laughing at them just because they do things differently. Think before you act when you see someone acting what may seem as “strange” to you, they may be going through a lot more than you see.