2 Minutes

Hello Readers!

I hope you are having a wonderful day.

And believe it or not, that segways perfectly into today's post. Good Days.

Recently, my days haven't been so good. I haven't had the best time at school. Bill had been bothering me at a new level and in different ways. I have been stressed and overwhlemed 85% of the time. But today was different.

It was my school swimming carnival, and it's a miracle I attended to be honest. If you know me, you know I'm not the sportiest, and my parents did encourage me to stay home and study. However, I wanted to go and support my friends and my house, so I crawled out of bed, donned by sports uniform and various coloured attire and got the bus to the Brisbane Aquatic Centre.

I thought "Great. Another day that I don't have a very good time."

However, I did have a good time. I spent time with different people than I usually would and I enjoyed it. I looked at the positives. I let myself do some things that I wanted to, like get a soft drink from the canteen and wear green coloured things even though I'm in the red house. I let myself have a good time.

When I walked home from the train station, I was feeling good. I was happy. My house had won, my friends had done amazingly and I was so proud of them. I came in to tell Mum all about how I finally had a good day, and she was so happy for me. She had also had an great day at work, and was happy and not stressed for the first time in weeks.

Both of us were happily chatting while we waited for the kettle to boil with my tea. And then he came.

I'm sure you can guess who. Bill.

He saunders in and starts chanting in my ear about how he needs me to put off studying for an hour to beat his impossible Mario Bros level. I say no, but of course that doesn't work. He can't take no for an answer. He needs to get what he wants. So he keeps chanting, making me want to yell at him. But I don't. I try to keep my cool, but eventually I can't take anymore and stomp downstairs.

In the space of 2 minutes, I have let him ruin my mood. I have let him unknowingly ruin my entire day, my happy day. I am now very angry. I don't want to be angry, and that just makes me angrier. How dare he? I think, as I walk down to my room. How dare he do that just as I walk in the door? He is evil, I hate him.

You may be thinking "Pretty drastic for a Mario level, isn't it?" But those of you thinking that may not have an autistic sibling. You may never have had to bottle your anger or frustration towards them up. Because when you do, it does spill out over little things like Mario.

I needed to change my thinking. MCH, as I always say. (Link to MCH blog post here) So I put on my happiest Spotify playlist, and tried to change my mindset.

I realised that I did have every right to be mad at him. He did make me feel bad about myself, and I didn't deserve that.

But I started thinking about him. How it must be. He doesn't know it. He doesn't know how bad it is out in the world.

I mean, he is never going to go to university. He will never have a career. He will struggle to make friends his whole life. People will point at him in the streets because he is wearing weird clothes, but that's just how he likes them. People at school will say "Do you have that weird Bill kid in your class?" He may never move out of my parents house. He has nobody. He is alone.

That saddens me. So next time you think that your autistic sibling deserves punishing, you're probably right. They probably do. However, it doesn't need to come from you. The world has punished them enough just by making them autistic.

I hope that this post has helped anyone in a similar situation.

Also, I know assessment is fast approaching, so good luck on all of your exams and assignments!

See you next time (:

Love,

E x