The connection I have with my brother is like no other in my life. That could sound like a pretty simple statement at first glance, but it also encompasses the uniqueness of many people’s relationships with their autistic siblings. This uniqueness, though it can be the most wonderful thing, is also what has left me stumped so many times when reaching the inevitable stage of the ‘get to know you’ conversation you have when you first meet someone, when the question comes up: ‘So where is your brother at uni?’ or, ‘What do your brothers do for work then?’. These conversations never begin with me anticipating the eventual, chest-tightening dilemma, because why would they? After all, as far as I’m concerned my brothers are my brothers, and it’s as simple as that.
The trouble comes in explaining what that looks like for me to other people.
Do I go with the convenient half-truth ‘Oh, he’s not at work right now’, that can feel just as misleading as only mentioning one brother (which, when tried, has mostly left me with a resounding sense of guilt). Or, do I share the seemingly simple truth ‘My brother’s autistic so…’, but what comes after that? Many autistic people are employed so there’s not necessarily a casual connection there. When it comes to my brother, I also wouldn’t deny the possibility of him having a job in the future. So where do I go next? I sometimes wish I had figured out a smooth, no fuss answer to this situation, but realistically it still feels like I’m being thrown into some kind of overcomplicated improv task, that neither my questioner, nor I, knew we were getting ourselves into. And what a moral quandary for some small-talk on your first day of sixth form!
The truth is that nothing I could say in that moment, within the realm of social convention, would leave me satisfied. I would like to say that my brother is one of the smartest people I have the pleasure of talking to. That I’m very much on my back foot every time we talk, because he’s far more updated with global politics than I have ever been. That I often find myself laughing with him over absurd, make-believe scenarios where we give cheeky retorts to the authority figures in our lives. That in the summer after dinner when we played hide-and-seek tag with my family and chased each other through the over-grown path that circled our house, choking on laughter and our own over-zealous breathlessness, that when my mum would well-meaningly remind me that I had to give my brother a good chase more often than the others, it became worth it when I got to see the carefree eagerness on his face when he realised that he was, in fact, my next victim. That nothing made me happier than to experience one of those regrettably infrequent moments when I could share with him the freedom of running outside, without the worry of dogs barking or babies crying at the forefront of any of our minds.
My brother and I haven’t lived in the same house consistently since he was about 16 and I was roughly 11, but that hasn’t prevented us from getting along more so now than ever. Funnily enough, I have found that my most genuine times connecting with my brother are often the most low-key. This might be as unelaborate as when my parents, my brother and I will go over to his flat to sit on the sofas in his living room and enjoy a five guys burger and an oreo milkshake (if our mum is feeling generous). Or it might be when we, like any truly loving set of children, share a mocking glance at the expense of our dad as he huffs and puffs about someone packing the dishwasher ‘wrong’. This is not to say that growing up together hasn’t been difficult at points. I, like many other siblings might, still sometimes find myself anxiously monitoring my family members’ tones and facial expressions at a family meal, dreading, just as I did when I was younger, an incipient altercation. Indeed, there were times when I went to school carrying the emotional weight of evenings of upset at home, some of which I wouldn’t come to understand the profound emotional impact on me until years later, and never found the words to discuss with my friends, or anyone, for that matter. It is exactly this complexity that I appreciate about my experience as a sibling, and that has made me proud to be part of my own family, because there is something profoundly extraordinary about our shared experience.
If I were to give a piece of advice to a sibling who resonates with anything I’ve written here, it would be to remember that there isn’t a ‘right way’ to be a sibling – there may be times when you’re unsure how to talk about your situation, how to connect with your sibling or whether you’re putting enough effort in to do so. There may also be moments when you feel weighed down by your experiences, and like they’ve brought you more distress than anything else. None of these, nor any other reaction, are ‘wrong feelings’, they are responses that reflect the ups and downs of growing up as a sibling, and I would argue that they’re crucial in affording yourself enough attention to the parts of it that have affected you. I also want to end by saying that there are more people available to speak to than you might think, and that there will be people who can understand where you’re coming from – so don’t deny yourself the opportunity to reach out, even if you feel unsure!