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What was it like to be the sibling of a child with autism? |
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Well, sometimes it was fun because I knew I could play the my sister has autism card, and that always got people’s attention. Then most people didn’t know what autism was, and it made me feel very important to explain it to them. |
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But other times it was confusing and embarrassing. When I had friends over at my house, my mother would watch to see if they stared at Gina too much. And if they had, that was it, they were never invited back. |
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I shared a room with Gina until I was twelve, and that was always challenging, as she had frequent tantrums. When she was at Camarillo, she just lived with us on the weekends. Every Friday, I would go through this ritual of rolling my collection of blown glass animals in Kleenex and putting them in a box on the top shelf of the closet. Only books and cardboard blocks could be left out when Gina was home. Even so, every Sunday the room would look as if a tsunami had hit it. My mom helped me clean up on Sundays, though. She was always good about that. |
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