Moniek Nodaikmo itzit Hiapnoduav

my bad period... and how I got over it...

Back a few years ago,( I think I was in junior high), I was having a real rough spot with my younger brother. He is two years younger than me and autistic. His condition can make it hard for people with short patiences to stand being around him. Add sibling rivalry and a famous dash of argumentativity and you get him and I having screaming contests and us doing our absolute best to kill eachother every day. It was bad. I knew he would never be normal but it was the first time I was having trouble accepting it.

He'd lock me in a closet with the lights out knowing that I was afraid of the dark, chase me through the house, I'd pick fights with him, back talk incessantly to everyone, (why does my dad call me a brat again?), and get into an elevated fight with him two or three times a month.

I'd leave to spend the night with my grandma just to get away from him.

One day I slapped him. I had never slapped anyone. I'm not even a violent person. I used to just stand there when he pinched me. I might try to push him away or kick at his legs, but I hate seeing anyone in pain. I hate being the cause of that pain even more. To this day I still find myself crying whenever I think of this.

Another time I tried to run away from him, straight into my mom and dad's bathroom; the only room in our house with a lock. I don't know how it happened, exactly, but his foot got caught somehow between the bottom of the door and the floor and he got an enormous gash on his heel. We were home alone for a few minutes. He was screaming and blaming me and crying, but I got out the first aid kit from under the sink and got him bandaged up as best I could. Mom sood came home and re-did the bandaging. She found Sammy and I still in the bathroom.

I had lost all faith in myself that I could be a good person. I thought that I was the most horrible person in the world and my mental funk was only going downhill.

Then one day I went to my grandma's house and she had a book for me. I kind of laughed when I saw it. I read all kinds of books and was in junior high and there was my grandmother, getting me a book for five or six-year-olds. When I looked at the tite, though, I had to hold back the laughter. My Brother Sammy. The irony and utter coincidence caught me in my tracks. I sat down and read it. By the middle of the book I was crying.

It was about a little boy who had a younger brother. He wanted his little brother to do things with him and got frustrated when he wouldn't. His little brother was special like my brother was special. It ended with him realizing that he could do all the things that he wanted to do and also enjoy doing all the things that his brother liked to do with him. It ended along the lines that he was glad he had a special little brother because it made him special, too.

Oh, yeah. I cried my eyes out and gave my brother a hug. From that day on whenever I was mad at Sammy I'd just remember that book. I still cry when I read it. You couldn't imagine how much my grandmother helped me that day be giving that book to me.