Different . . . Not Less. Temple Grandin
had a bent toward theology. My parents did one good thing for me—they made sure I had a religious background. Both my parents had been raised Roman Catholic. Dad had lost his faith somewhere along the way, probably during the war in Japan, but Mom was more steadfast. She rarely went to church herself. However, she made sure I went and attended catechism class on Thursday afternoons at the local catholic school.
When I was small, I became aware that having no siblings made me different. One day in 1st-grade art class, the teacher told us to draw pictures of our siblings. The other two “only children” in the class submitted pictures of their pets. I had neither sibling nor pet and had nothing to draw. After school, I ran home and angrily confronted my mother. Why had she made me such a weirdo? Why didn’t I have a brother or sister, like “normal” kids did? To my surprise and delight, she replied that it was indeed a good idea and that she would think about it.
As it happened, a few months later, my mother presented me with my very own brother. I was ecstatic. A little pal! A second in my corner! Someone to talk to when everyone else deserted me! I proudly took his baby pictures to school for “show and tell” and declared that I now had a “real” family, just like everyone else.
My Younger Brother Was Unlike Me
Unfortunately, the promise of a baby brother turned out differently than I’d hoped. At first, all went according to plan. He dutifully toddled around the house after me, calling me “Yar-Yar” in an attempt to say my name, “Charli.” As he grew older, however, he treated me with complete indifference. All my life, I have grieved the loss of the brother and pal I wanted and expected. In his place stood the perfect stranger.
My brother could not be more unlike me. He is quiet and shy, sensitive and withdrawn—a natural introvert. His one lifelong obsession has been music. As a tot, he drove us all crazy with his constant repetition of television commercials. As a child, he raided my record collection with seeming impunity. I cannot recall whether he had friends in school, but by college, he had fallen in with some musically inclined students, and his life improved. All his friends are musicians. As an adult, he became a music writer and even published two books on rock music. Like me, he has never married, but he has had a proper series of live-in girlfriends. If fame and fortune are the standards by which to judge “success,” then my brother had the career success in the family. However, I do not believe it brought him much long-lasting happiness or self-fulfillment. He has been out of work for some time now and fears that, at 50, he is washed up.
My brother is so dissimilar from me that, even when I began to suspect that I might be on the autism spectrum, it never occurred to me that he may be, as well. Two years ago, when I received a formal diagnosis, my psychiatrist gave me books on Asperger’s syndrome. One of the books indicated that autism runs in families. A light went on in my head, and I immediately telephoned my brother. However, a lifetime of misunderstanding is not easily overcome.
Seventh grade was the best year of my life. Junior high brought a greater variety of class work, and advanced courses were available in my favorite subjects. I took violin and played in the school orchestra. I played sports the other girls played—floor hockey and softball. I was fairly good, despite some deficits in motor skills. Both the disciplinary problems and the bullies were behind me. I even went to dances and began looking at boys. It seemed that I had finally conquered whatever-it-was that had kept me from fitting in. Just to be certain, I consulted my guidance counselor. “Do you think there is anything wrong with me?” I asked him. “Not at all,” he replied. “You seem like a typical 12-year-old to me.” I beamed in satisfaction.
My World Came Crashing Down When I Was Uprooted from My School and Friends
Unfortunately, my world soon came crashing down. The summer I turned 13, my parents purchased a crumbling old estate further up the Hudson, in the middle of nowhere. I was uprooted from my home, my school, and my friends—life as I knew it was over. I had no one to talk to, nothing to do, and no place to go. I mean no one. There were no neighbors. There were no kids my age around, nor even any grown-ups. My brother had already locked me out of his world. Aunts and uncles came up to see us at first, but my mother did not encourage visitors, and gradually I lost touch with my relatives. The nearest village was 3 miles away, and although I soon learned to bike there and haunt the small public library, the icy fingers of deep loneliness reached into my heart and paralyzed me. I foundered. I regressed and fell apart. As B.J. Thomas sang, “I’m so lonesome, I could die.” He could have been singing about me.
For the most part, my parents did not understand what was happening as their little savant shattered into pieces. My mother believed that it was all make-believe and that I was pretending to be abnormal to punish my parents for tearing me away from my friends and my hometown. My father was convinced that my breakdown was physical in nature, and indeed I showed physical signs of distress. I had begun my menses 6 months before we left Croton. Once we moved, they stopped entirely. As a child, I had always been one of the tallest kids in my class. By 7th grade, I had attained my full height of 5 feet 4 inches and never grew a smidgeon more. My dad believed it was an indication of some unspecified illness.
Unbearable Loneliness in a Big High School
Eventually, I was sent back to school, but that did nothing to alleviate my unbearable loneliness. The high school I attended was a modern, sterile, overcrowded facility to which teenagers were bussed from surrounding towns. The teachers were too busy to devote personal attention to any one student. I made no new friends to replace those I had left behind. The necessity of riding the school bus seemed a humiliation. In Croton, school buses were associated only with the very youngest children and those who lived out in the sticks. After 3rd grade, you walked or biked to school. Bullies reappeared in my life. These bullies did not chase me around the schoolyard. They walked right through me, refused to move when I walked by them, and generally acted as though I was not there—which, in a way, I was not.
For a while I had a horse named Perhaps, who brought me some solace, although he could never replace Alexis. We cleared out a dusty stall in one of the old barns on the estate for him. Since we lived in such a remote area, I could ride him up and down the road without any danger. I had Perhaps for a year and a half. The second winter, it was extremely cold and I could not ride. By then I was battling not only loneliness, but what would now be called depression and anorexia. My mother quietly gave Perhaps away to a local horse farm. As a teenager going through a tailspin, I had neither the maturity nor the energy to care for a horse.
It was when I stopped eating that my father finally took action. With no notice and against my will, I was admitted to the local hospital. I was terrified. For a week, my blood was drawn and tests were run to check for every conceivable affliction. All the doctors could find was an underactive metabolism, for which thyroid supplements were prescribed. I was also given a psychotropic medication—I believe it was Ritalin. However, it had no beneficial effects; it certainly did not make me less lonely. I told my mother that I did not believe I needed it, and she agreed. The prescription was not renewed. The thyroid supplements, on the other hand, did seem to work. My menses came back, and so did my appetite. This satisfied my dad.
The only thing that ever did me any good in high school was my participation in the movement opposing the Vietnam War. I have read that Aspies have a keen sense of social justice. I would like to say that this was what finally motivated me to stand up for myself. The truth was, I was spurred on by an intense identification with the innocent Vietnamese peasantry, who, through no wrongdoing, saw their huts burned, their villages strafed, and their kinfolk decimated. Wasn’t that similar to what had happened to me? While I was undergoing tests in the hospital, I pored over news magazines to ease the boredom, and the articles I read instilled in me a renewed sense of purpose. Shortly after my release, I began hiking a mile to the bus stop, taking the bus to Poughkeepsie, and holding candles against the wind, marching with signs to demand peace and volunteering for antiwar candidates. I wrote letters to the editor of the school newspaper and spoke up in class. Many of my teachers were likewise opposed to the war and looked upon me with favor. With their help, a political science club was organized, and at last I found classmates with whom I shared an interest. While I never made friends, as Alexis had been, I finally had people