Wearing Thin

Growing up, patience was something I’ve always needed a lot of. When I was 1, my brother was born. Only a few years later, he was diagnosed with Autism. This meant a lot of things, for all of us. But namely, that he did not (and possibly never would) act the same as the rest of us. I don’t remember much, if anything, of those first few years. But once I hit age 7 or 8, I can start to recall the hundreds of instances where It was necessary.

Among other things, my brother had severe issues regulating his emotions and coping with them. I can’t say I have a whole lot of experience with how kids his age are supposed to act, but I know for sure that his reactions were far more extreme; screaming, hitting, shoving, and throwing things. He lacked patience, for any minor inconvenience could cause a full meltdown. Being only a child myself, it wasn’t easy to understand why he acted this way. But I managed, in many cases, to try and be patient with him. To not scream back, to not engage when he tried to put his hands on me and to let my parents deal with it instead of trying to do it myself.

I won’t claim I was perfect here. At the very earliest I was only a toddler, and these huge meltdowns didn’t really stop until he reached his teen years. And even now, he does have his moments. But I was a child still, for the majority of the time he was like this. There were plenty of moments where I felt like I just had to scream back, to push him away, to say mean things in retaliation for what he was doing. Because sometimes, these tantrums could feel scary. But I know that a majority of the time, and even now, I did my very best to keep my patience with him. Because I know that he can’t necessarily control it and that he has a harder time understanding that it’s wrong to do these things. So although my patience has been worn thin over the years, and at times it has broken, it is still holding on. My brother and I both have a long way to go in maturing and growing as people. But I would think it fair to say that we’ve both gained a lot of patience and a lot of respect for each other over all of these years.

“Food fight.” by Free the Image is licensed under CC BY 2.0.