The Opposite of Normal, Andrew Boggan [brene brown rising strong .TXT] 📗

lightening with the lights on. We sat on the bed for 2 minutes, even tho it felt a lot longer than this, we stayed and watched the lightening. My breathing began to go erratic and I can remember working up a sweat. The lightening would dance across the sky as I my dad sat there appreciating it and I sat in a state of horrific shock with tears streaming down my face. Even to this day I can still hear his exact words “See it can’t hurt you”. He then proceeded to go over to the light switch to turn it off to commence stage 2. The moment my dad had switched the light off a blinding flash of lightening lit the room followed by the sound of a freight train crashing. The bang was so intense that all the hairs on my body stood up and I ran out of the room screaming looking for Mum. My dad did end up giving me the yoghurt that night; simply because I tried to get over my fear of thunderstorms. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in eradicating that fear.

Many more storms were to follow throughout my life. Every time the sky changed color or I heard a roll of thunder, panic would set in and it didn’t matter how much I tried to surpress the fear, it always had control over me rather than me having control over it.

One year when I was around the age of 3 or 4, my parents held a bbq with many other families from the neighborhood coming along and of course the extended family. I can’t remember what the occasion was but for some reason I clearly remember a very tall woman with brown hair in a blue dress and her name was Pam. Pam was sitting at the kitchen table talking to my mother while my Dad was down the side of the house with my grandparents and my cousin Mandy and her boyfriend were sitting on the couch watching the premiere of The Never Ending Story. I remember seeing lightening off in the distance when I walked from outside into the living room but that was the last of my fears, I was more frightened of the movie playing. In the movie The Never Ending Story, the beginning part with the rock biter slowly making his way through the forest would scare me and I hid behind the couch while the scene happened. Mandy and her boyfriend thought it was cute and they tried to entice me out from behind the couch. When this part of the movie finished, the storm rolling in from the west had finally hit our neighborhood and it was time to batten down as the storm blew through. Everybody who was downstairs came rushing inside as the rain and wind pelted the side of the house and my mum had closed the front door of the house to stop the rain from coming in.

While I stood watching the commotion of everybody coming back inside the house, a very loud deep rumble of thunder rolled above our house, shaking the foundations. As I started crying from the noise of the storm; Pam told me it was her husband. She said that her husband was a truck driver and that he liked to drive around the block in his truck. At the time I truly believed it but now I learnt it was just a way to try and calm me down. At 4 years of age I didn’t have any solutions to the anxiety issues I faced with loud noises, in particular with thunderstorms but I often wonder if every time I cried and was hugged by an adult, if that increased my anxiety of the storm as I never really learnt how to cope with a thunderstorm until I was in my late teens.

During the summer months of my childhood when many a storm would roll in off the Darling Downs in the middle of the night, my mother would often come in and check on me. If I was lying in bed and a storm came in the middle of the night, I would be hiding under the covers with my fingers buried into my eyes, and then I would feel somebody pulling back the covers. It was always Mum who used to come in and check on me, then bring me into her and Dad’s bed to provide a level of comfort that would take away the fear of the storm.

Not only did I have a fear with thunderstorms but I also had a fear of fireworks. I used to think the sound of fireworks was like somebody letting off a gun next to my head. The flashing colored lights that would dance across the skies during all sorts of celebrations were too pretty to miss for most people, but for me it sent the same level of panic throughout my body as what thunderstorms did. When I was much younger I used to wish that I was deaf. I didn’t mind watching lightening or seeing fireworks but if I was deaf then I wouldn’t have had to worry about thunderstorms and fireworks. Although I loved to watch fireworks, the sound of the bang at the end of each lift off was always the scariest part and every time I sat to watch fireworks I would be waiting in chronic anticipation for the bang to come and go.

In October of every year, the community in my neighborhood put on a group of weekend festivities known as the Jacaranda Festival. It was usually a compilation of artwork done by the various schools in the district with dancing, music, arts, rides and entertainment. At the very end of festivities, the local council always donated fireworks to wind the festivities. With my mum and dad by my side, we all sat down to watch the fireworks. I can still remember how beautiful and pretty they looked and everyone feeling inspired by the many array of different colors but I sat there on my dad’s legs holding my fingers deep into my ears to block out the sound of the crashing fireworks.

Because I had a natural fear of loud noises, I was attempting to block the noise out but as I tried to hold my fingers in ears my father would keep pulling my arms to try and stop me. I can remember him telling me “you’ll never get over your fear if you don’t try and face it”. While that might have been the case but there were certainly many other different ways for me to learn to cope with my fear.

As a human being, I’m certainly not guilty, nor am I innocent; I was just trying to survive. As a very young child the thought of finding ways to cope with fear and anxiety didn’t exist and my parents had no clue at the early stages of my life about the attention and extra support that I needed. Perhaps I was walking alone in a deep ocean of fear without a hand of support, struggling to stay on top of the surface; even though I had somewhat of a lifesaver attached to me; my parents.

Some people always wished that they had some guardian angel to warn them about the future ahead so that they could put in coping strategies prior to the events in the future, but in a way I have always taken comfort in knowing that I never had any indication of what the future would hold. What has happened to me from childbirth until now has made me the person that I am today. I may not be the strongest person living on the planet but everyday is just another way to try and find a new way of coping with day to day life.

I’m certainly no expert when it comes to dealing with parents of autistic children but the only advice that I could give to any parent who’s children might be affected by a strand of autism is to heed the warning signs, access support as soon as possible and flourish the child into a wonderful human being. It may not be noticed as a child, but when adulthood settles in; great things will soon come from the very unique different individual.

During the summer months of the mid 1980’s, our family would take many day trips up to the Sunshine Coast or down to the Gold Coast for a day at the beach to swim in the surf, play with the sand on the beach and have a picnic lunch. Usually this was a great opportunity for my dad and my two brothers to play beach cricket while I built sand castles with my bucket and spade.

While the days were always memorable and as a family, we certainly will never forget them; my parents had to fight tooth and nail just to get to the beach; regardless of how rewarding the day would be.

We walked from the car and through the bush land just to get to the beach which was a few hundred meters away. I would be walking in the middle of mum and dad holding their hands while my brothers and my sister would run several meters in front trying to get to the beach as quickly as they could. As we slowly approached the beach a deep intense, but overwhelming fear of panic would stop me dead in my tracks and I tried to climb up my dad’s shoulders and started screaming at the peak of my lungs. The sound of the waves lapping on the beach caused me to start another panic attack. As with thunderstorms, it was the horrific crashing that always made me feel my world was about to collapse. As we got closer to the beach the stronger the anxiety would be as the crashing and booming of the waves got louder as we got closer. Mum always told me that every single time we went to the beach I would try and run up dad’s shoulders and hold on for dear life, even chocking my poor father to a degree. All that my mum could do was tell me that everything would be okay.

Just like a thunderstorm, my panic would start when the roar would be begin slightly off in the distance, it always reminded me as if something big and nasty was about to come and take me away. In some ways I kind of thought the world enjoyed playing with my mind, especially in summer. Summer was always the worst for me as a child. I was terrified of thunderstorms and terrified of the beach, even the water to a degree and yet at summer time I had endured them constantly.

Even now as an adult, when I go to the beach with my friends, as soon as I began to hear the slightest noise of the roar from the waves lapping the beach, my body freezes for a brief moment, yet I can keep going on. My mind works differently now that I am an adult, I can tell myself it won’t hurt me and I know it’s true. I may not be over the fear of either thunderstorms or the beach, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve just learnt to deal with the anxiety better.

In the winter months of every year, our city comes together in what is known as “The Ekka”. It’s a 10 day event for country folk to come to the city and showcase their cattle breeding, enjoy thrilling rides and have good old fashioned family fun. Every child in Brisbane always got excited at ekka time because of the level of excitement that it