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

my life. On Christmas Eve of 1990 my older brother and me had woken up in the middle of the night and were talking about the Christmas presents we were hoping to get. Despite the excitement of Christmas, the heat from a typical summer night had made us incredibly thirsty and we both needed water. My sister had heard us make a move out to the kitchen and she followed us. All 3 of us slowly crept down the hallway, ever so quite so that we did not disturb our parents. As we approached the living room we could see all the Christmas presents sitting under the tree and the feeling of excitement certainly lightened up the room. My sister had taken us into the kitchen got me and my brother of glass of water with ice in it. Even tho we didn’t need somebody else to do this for us, it must have just been a natural reaction for her to just get the water and ice for us.

Perhaps my sister always had a natural maternal instinct when it came herself and her brothers. Her presence always managed to fill the void of when our mother was not around, especially for me.

I always found my sister very hard to interpret; from my perspective there were many mixed messages from her non-verbal behavior. Having said that, I’ve always known that I could go to her for absolutely anything.

Whenever my sister talks or describes something that I need to do, I always interpret this as her going off at me for something, and when I am in her presence, my natural reaction is to always feel like I am much smaller than her, even tho I know I’m not. My sister is not the type of person I can explain my deep dark secrets too, but she certainly is somebody that I know I can go to for help if and when I need it. It’s a very strange relationship that I share with my sister because although we are close, part of my brain holds back when I communicate with her. It’s probably because I give her the same respect that I give my mother.

On July 21 1997 my sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl with laughing blue eyes and reddish brown hair. Since then our family life has never been more fulfilling. My little niece was and always will be the centre of my world and she gives off a special light into my family, one that is certainly irreplaceable. However when I found out my sister was first pregnant, part of me had died that die. Because I used to see my sister as my second mother, that feeling had died because there were would be some other child now who needed my sister more than what I did. While it is true to say I felt strong feelings of jealousy about the new baby coming into this world, my main fear was that my sister wouldn’t be there for me anymore because the new baby would need her more than what I did.

My brain began to process the thought of accepting the fact that my sister was no longer there for me. While this was the basic assumption that I made on my own I didn’t realize how things would actually turn out as life unfolded. For 9 whole months I asked myself this question on a daily basis: “If my sister can’t be there for me anymore when my mum is not around, who do I go to?” In fear of looking like a fool, I never did ask my sister this question. Although I don’t regret not asking, I often wondered what the answer would have been. Perhaps deep in my subconscious I always knew what the answer was but I probably just needed to hear it from her own mouth.

As I began to grow older from a child into my teenage years, I began to interpret my sister in a much more complex way. I’m still not sure if she got more complex in communicating or if I just toke on a different perspective when I was around her.

In the early morning hours of July 21 1997, my parents arrived home from the Ipswich hospital. As the icy mood of that cold winter’s morning gripped the house, I wondered into my parent’s bedroom as they got into bed. I simply asked “what did she have?” With a proud grin that went from ear to ear my mother softly said “a beautiful baby girl”. I didn’t quite know what to think but as I went back to my bed to sleep I began crying. I hadn’t cried like that in such a long time that the top of my bed sheets were absolutely soaked from the tears that gushed from eyes. I didn’t know if I was happy about a new baby coming into our family or if perhaps that was the end of the close relationship that I shared with my sister. If it was the end of our relationship, then at least those natural maternal instincts my sister so deeply posses, at least it was going onto a new baby girl who deserved all the love and attention in the world.

Late that afternoon my parents picked me up from school and drove me to the Ipswich hospital so I could meet my baby niece for the first time. I quietly walked up the hospital hallway, not quite knowing what to think but I was about to meet a new family member for the first time. For 15 years I had always been the youngest member of my family and now there somebody below me.

I walked up to the white curtain that was drawn across my sister’s hospital bed. Without even thinking about what I was doing, it was if some greater force had control over me at this point and was directing me where to go. The curtain was drawn back by mum and I sat down on the hospital bed. I couldn’t see the little baby sitting in the hospital cot nor could I hear her but I knew the new baby was there. My sister picked up her newborn and placed her in my arms for the very first time.

The world around me had suddenly gone out the window. The horror and fear from school and the bullies suddenly didn’t exist; all that was alive at that moment in time was life’s pure gift sitting in my arms. A very warm and peaceful feeling had taken hold of me and I looked down at this precious baby girl curled up in my arms with her little arms huddled in. Although she looked so vulnerable my instant reaction was to provide a warm and safe place of comfort in my arms for this wonderful little girl that was pleasantly sleeping in my arms. In the very heart of the moment I didn’t worry about how this would have affected the relationship I had with my sister, all I wanted to make sure was that I could be as close to her as possible and always look out for her.

As time evolved and I got used to the fact that I had a beautiful little niece, the worrying about what kind of relationship I would now have with my sister eventually faded over time. Things never really changed and although I spent 9 months worrying about it; it never really happened. Perhaps what I perceived and thought didn’t hold true and at the end of the day, I was just worried over nothing. Although the relationship I had with my sister did scare me as too which way it would go, I never discussed it with her and I probably should have, otherwise I wouldn’t have spent 9 months mentally preparing myself to grieve for something that was never really going to leave anyway. Now that I am an adult and my beautiful little niece is almost a teenager, my relationship with my sister is still the same as it was many years ago and the only thing I’ve learnt from this event is that I know she’ll always be there for me as she always has been and that my perception of looking at her like a second mum is still the same.

Around the age of 3 years old, my mother had noticed a sharp change in my eating patterns. From the age of 3 I couldn’t chew food. Some of my earliest memories of my bad eating habits came to my mind only a short time ago. I can remember one night, well before I commenced at pre-school, sitting at the kitchen table with the family eating dinner. Mum had cooked up mashed potato, beans, carrots and diced beef. Eating my vegetables was always okay but when it came to eating the diced beef I couldn’t eat it. I can remember having to sit there and just chew, chew and chew the food until it was gone but the more I chewed the more it tasted horrible as my mouth filled with saliva drowning out the flavor. So, being the child that I was I pulled it out of my mouth and told mum that I couldn’t eat the meat because it was filled with bones. At the time I thought that was a very reasonable excuse not to eat but now when I think about it; it was such a story yet at the time I believed my parents had fell for my excuse.

I never had any idea why my eating habits changed as I got older, I never gave it any thought, and I really just assumed that’s how I was. On one occasion I when I was very young I can clearly remember sitting in the living room and totally refusing to eat what my mum had put out on the dinner table. I’m sure my parents would have been somewhat angry that I refused to eat dinner but I can remember mum giving me dry rice bubbles and spaghetti put into a green bowl and I sat on the living room floor and happily ate what was put in front of me. At the time I was very happy but when I think about this instance in my adulthood, I’ve become quite upset over the situation because I know that I would have caused my parents worry and anger about my refusal to eat certain foods. As a child I just flavor over what was healthy for me. Although I am not a parent I can totally understand why parents get upset with their children when they refuse to eat and knowing quite well that I would have upset them by acting this way as a child; it is very upsetting to think that I hurt my parents but this was probably just one of those many situations where my Asperger’s as child had more control over me rather me having control over the Asperger’s. To my parents; I apologise for causing heartache and distress when it came time to feed me as a child.

There were many foods that I remember not wanting to eat when I was younger. Most of these foods I can eat now as adult but when I was younger it was totally a different story. As a child I refused to eat mashed potatoes, stew, soups, beef, chops and a number of other things. Even today as adult I still refuse to eat potatoes or bananas and I have never been a fan of stews and soups to this day. Now, when I eat potatoes or bananas, the squishy and mushy feeling of this food in my mouth seems to