Different

My parents were often frowned upon because they only had two kids despite the high income level they live at.  Still, I know there was a reason my mom didn't adopt any kids or have any more than she had.  I'm bringing this up because my mom is downstairs watching the health channel about Bipolar mysteries involving toddlers.  My brother was born with Aspergers and Panic Disorder.  He didn't talk until he was four years old, and started school when he was three.  The developmental school came into the home and thought that it was due to parenting problems that my brother was the way he was.  They found out the contrary.

My mom worked around the clock with my brother, and I was often left in waiting rooms or home alone until my father came home from work.  One of my very first memories is sitting in a waiting room with my hands over my ears, trying to block out my screaming brother in the back of the building.  With all my brother's doctors visits, extra schooling, language and development problems (the left side of his brain didn't develop fully, causing the language problems), my mother could barely handle parenting him, let alone me.

People would make rude comments upon my mom's problems with my brother, and even her family refused to help her take care of him when she needed a break.  This all went on right after she had taken care of her mother in law, who has schizophrenia, bipolar and anorexia.  Needless to say my mom didn't appreciate the comments made to her that condemned her as a terrible parent.  The frustration of it all was often taken out on my father.  Every night some weeks I would hear them arguing about me, and my brother when they thought we were asleep.  Those nights I cried myself to sleep.  Throughout those years I always worried my parents were going to get divorced, and one night at family home evening/council I told them so, because I never saw them happy together, only fighting and angry.  They tried to change after that.

Over the years my mom and I never got along.  I would say hello in the wrong way and she would pin me in the corner and yell at me for hours.  Every day I would be scared to say or do the wrong thing around my mom, so I would try to stay around my dad.  Given, I wasn't the perfect child; telling my mom that I didn't have to do what she told me to at age four shows that perfectly.  Still, I felt like I got yelled at for longer periods of time and more often than most children.  The first time I overheard her tell my father how much she hated me I was completely heartbroken.  From that point on I became a perfectionist.  I didn't realize that she was saying those things because of all the stress of having a child with what is called "high functioning autism."

Hindsight is twenty twenty, so I understand now what I didn't throughout most of my life up until four years ago.  Nobody takes the time to understand how hard it is to have a child with a mental disability, because they can't see it.  Growing up I had very few friends, because I had a brother that was labeled a "freak."  Having a brother that was different exposed my family to ridicule in many ways; for me, this was both physical and verbal.  I would worry when I walked across the road in elementary because people, many who were in my home ward, would line up on the other side and throw rocks at me.  It stung more than just physically with each stone that hit me.  The ones that hit my head would always be the worst.  Even when I switched schools I was alienated, because I was friends with a kid at school who was disliked for his mental disorder.  No one "normal" likes the person who sticks their head out for the ones who are different, at least when it comes to a mental disorder.  Looking on that, it makes me realize that my mom went through the same thing, just with adults.  Now, my mom worries that I don't have any good childhood memories, that they are all sad and about people being mean to me.  She's not 100 percent wrong to be worried, as I can firmly say that over half of my childhood memories are of how mean kids were to me because I had a brother that was different and a mother who yelled a lot because she didn't know what to do about it.  However, the other 40 percent are some of the best memories I have, and I wouldn't trade them for 100 percent of decently happy memories.

Having few friends made me fall in love with books and learning.  My imagination flourished while I was in my room and with my best friends, Erin and Megan Moulding.  I was always the best in my class, because I worried that if I wasn't the best my parents would be disappointed in me.  I felt like I had to compensate for the trials my parents went through by being perfect.  The few times I've disappointed my father are the worst memories of my life.  The mentality of having to be perfect still sticks with me today, and that, I have decided, is a huge reason why I don't think I'm good enough for anyone, particularly guys that I would like to date.  It probably has a lot to do with why I think everyone has ulterior motives for wanting to be friends with me, or why I think that people are just pretending to be nice to me.  Most of these people don't even know my brother or his past, but old habits die hard.

Overall, I think that having a brother with a mental disability was just as tough as growing up in a large family that was hard on money.  If my mom had had more kids than just two, I don't think things would have gone so smooth, and they went bumpy at best with two; not even close to half of what we went through is mentioned in this post.  Between all the screaming and the fighting and the not knowing what to do with my brother, I somehow bonded with my family.  I may rant and rave about how angry I get with them sometimes and say that I want to get away from them, but I always find myself coming back to them, because they are the only ones who know what I went through growing up with a brother that was different, and I know I won't be judged by them.