Meet Cameron. He has his hands around my neck, holding me splayed across a table in visual arts. The class is full of noisy kids who aren’t really fazed by the fact that I’m about to die. It’s only a couple of weeks into high school, but they’re used to Cameron’s antics.
The bohemian art teacher has only worked at the school for six months. In fact, she’s only worked in teaching for six months. At the end of the year she’ll throw in the towel on a career that was obviously never her idea in the first place. But right now she’s standing on the opposite side of the classroom, uncertain what to do, as Cameron’s hands grind tighter and tighter around my neck.
I provoked this attack when I said that Cameron was an idiot. In my defence, he was. Or, at least, he was acting like one.
I had muttered it in a cowardly manner, jeering back at him when he called me a faggot. In his defence, I was. Or, at least, I was acting like one.
Unlike Cameron, I couldn’t catch a ball and I wasn’t interested in the quantity of froth that could be produced from shaking a coke can for five minutes. I had proven adept at understanding some things that Cameron couldn’t, however. Like basic maths and English. And so I was a faggot.
‘I could snap you like a twig,’ he slurred into my face.
I was used to bullying, and Cameron was the typical bully in every way. He was tall, had spiky hair, and he had received an extra kick of testosterone before a lot of the other thirteen year olds around us had. He even had a sidekick: Trent. Trent was the weakest kid in the whole of our year level. He was round, he feigned stupidity and he hero-worshipped Cameron. Unlike me, he had made a wise choice, early on, to make himself Cameron’s best friend to prevent the inevitable arse-kicking that he would receive if he didn’t.
Who had I made my best friend in the high-school game of thrones?
Dearest, darling Ray.
On the very first day of high school, I was standing outside a classroom, waiting for class to start or for someone to give me orders.
‘Do you like cheese?’ said a deep voice from behind me.
I turned around and met Ray. We proceeded to have a ten-minute conversation about cheese. We resumed it over lunch. And then we picked it up again the next day.
I would come to both despise and love Ray. He was my instant ticket to the bottom rung of the social ladder, but he didn’t judge me. As long as we were talking about cheese or Pokémon, I was an amazing friend.
It took Ray slightly longer than most people to get his sentences out. He had long, greasy hair, which he tied in a messy ponytail. His skin was shiny and unwashed, and his clothes sat on him like they’d been thrown on from a distance. There were no lockers at our school, which meant that we carried the day’s textbooks around with us. So the new students were weighed down by a bag almost as heavy as themselves. But Ray seemed more weighed down than everyone else.
Ray had Aspergers. I diagnosed him within seconds and immediately felt comfortable. I knew Asperger’s Syndrome intimately through my younger twin brothers.
I suppose I should try to explain Aspergers. It’s not easy.
Have you ever been a sober person at a really messy party? Around you are loads of people having fun, singing and making out, occasionally stumbling over to you and slurring nonsense in your ear. There are moments of lucidity, maybe even enjoyment, when their drunkenness doesn’t matter and you’re able to feel part of the fun. There are other times where you feel completely alienated from the madness around you. You might even feel that you’re in significant danger, and you’re being driven towards an anxiety that no one else can understand, as they’re too busy riding high on something that you’re not a part of.
That’s kind of what being Aspergers is like. It’s not a brilliant explanation, but it’s a start. There are countless others.
My favourite is an unconfirmed story I heard long ago that originates in the nineteenth century somewhere. It’s said that people with Asperger’s Syndrome tend to have innocent features, with gentle contours and unblemished skin, sometimes described ‘otherworldly’. (It helps to think of the elves from The Lord of the Rings here.) This, combined with their general demeanour, led them to be called ‘Angel Faces’. This title is still around today. Search ‘Aspergers’ and ‘angels’ and you’ll get a myriad of sites that claim theological proof that people with Aspergers are reincarnated angels.
I like this bizarre deduction, not for its validity (although whatever floats your boat is fine by me), but for the idea that there is nothing inherently wrong with Aspergers kids. It’s not them who need to learn from everyone else; it’s everyone else who should learn from them.
But I fear I’m not getting any closer to an explanation.
Asperger’s Syndrome is, fundamentally, a social and communicative disorder. Asperger’s Syndrome kids have a great deal of trouble connecting with the world. They find it extremely difficult to read emotional or social cues. The subtle signals that we use everyday to demonstrate how we’re feeling can be completely lost on them. To survive, many learn to mimic emotional states.
Aspergers folks have a low threshold for stress and anxiety. So things need to stay in a strict, predictable routine. If that routine is broken even slightly it can lead to an unforgettable trauma.
My brothers were born two years after me, and diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome some time before they were five years old. The doctors originally thought they would never speak. This turned out to not be the case, and the twins have grown up to be, in most ways, functioning members of society. But it is unlikely that they’ll ever have jobs, and they stay at home, full-time, with my parents.
What makes my brothers effortlessly charming is their coping mechanism. They can, at will, recite any of the following television programs in their entirety: Family Guy, most of The Simpsons, Thomas the Tank Engine, Friends and The Adventures of Lano & Woodley. In addition, their video-game library spans an entire wall. Ask them to recite any scene from these and you’ll be met with an incredibly enthusiastic monologue.
For a long time when they were growing up, ninety-nine per cent of what the boys said came directly from a film or television show. Their dictionary was pop culture.
Feeling angry? Their voices would flatten, deepen and take on the exact intonation of Homer going off at Bart. Disappointed in somebody’s naughty behaviour? The Fat Controller would suddenly possess them, and they’d give a lecture to a ‘very naughty engine’.
Over time, they’ve found their own voices. These days they can articulate their inner-emotional states without resorting to television shows. It’s the result of a lifetime of hard work.
So I grew up with Frank Woodley, Colin Lane, Peter and Stewie Griffin, Chandler Bing, and the Fat Controller. Somewhere in there are Andy and Chrissy, my brothers.
Cue sentimental indie acoustic guitar, and enjoy the following montage of my life, growing up.
Chrissy is six when he collapses in the backyard. He is breathing and his eyes are open, but he’s completely unresponsive. Desperately worried about some kind of brain failure, Mum throws him in the car and we rush to hospital.
Upon arrival, Chrissy wakes up from his catatonic state and immediately goes back to playing. Mum nervously interrogates him, and Chrissy mildly replies, ‘I was Superman, affected by Kryptonite.’ His commitment to the role was stunning.
Mum plans an innocent surprise for Dad. A professional photograph of his wife and three children for his desk. It’s a nice thought: Andy, Chrissy, Mum and me all beaming at him. But the teenage photographer lacks the social skills to deal with the twins, who are not up for being told where to sit and how to smile or being ordered to keep still. They’re only six or seven. The result of half an hour of failed photos is a tantrum from both of them. It’s exceedingly public. Mum eventually gets them into the car. Just before she drives off, someone knocks on her window.
A woman smiles condescendingly as Mum rolls the window down. ‘Hi,’ she says to Mum, ‘I couldn’t help but notice you were having some trouble. I wanted to let you know that Jesus may be able to provide answers for you.’
The boys chastised Mum for swearing so much at the young woman.
At a primary school concert, Andy and Chrissy become the stars of the show. Their flawless rendition of a Lano & Woodley skit is met with wild applause. When they sit down to watch the others perform, however, they turn into harsh critics. They can’t understand why everyone else isn’t capable of perfection. A pre-teen amateur girl band squeaking out the Pokémon theme song is met with a particularly disgusted sneer from Andy.
When the girls bound up to him to ask him what he thought, he doesn’t pause before responding: ‘You sounded like crap.’
We have a conversation about manners on the way home.
‘But they sounded like crap!’ Andy argues, his skin becoming red and itchy in frustration.
In his defence, they really did.
We’re very young when we’re playing in the backyard of a friend’s place. Desperate to be liked, I’m doing my best to join in. One of the older boys suggests that we grab some tomato sauce and trick the twins into thinking we’re bleeding. The plan goes like this: we’ll run into them, fall over, and then blame them when blood starts going everywhere. The plan goes off without a hitch. The twins are confused and distraught. The older boy thinks I’m a hero. I hate myself.
Woolworths. The deli counter. In an effort to encourage life skills, Mum asks Chrissy to order some meat.
‘Hi,’ Chrissy says confidently to the girl behind the counter, ‘Can I have a dozen chicken vaginas?’
It’s a line from Family Guy.
The girl quietly calls her manager.
We’re at a party shop buying balloons in bulk. Chrissy grabs a fake rubber bum and proceeds to the counter.
‘Hi,’ Chrissy says with a smirk to the young girl behind the counter, ‘Can I have a new butt? This old one’s got a crack in it.’
It’s a line from Family Guy.
I grab Chrissy before the girl can call her manager.
The weird thing is, this is my normal.
Reactions vary when I tell people about the boys, but a common feature is pity.
‘Oh,’ they say, ‘that must have been so hard for your parents.’
Yep, it was damn hard. They had to make some tough decisions, and I think they raised two remarkable young men.
It took me a long time to realise my brothers were different. As a young child, I thought we were normal. Three kids, two parents, a cat and a dog. The picket-fence family.
Then something mysterious happened when I was twelve or thirteen. I got a lot of hair very quickly, my voice started cracking, and I became ultra-aware of the world around me. I had always wanted to be liked, and I’d always cared what people thought of me, but now my world expanded, and I suddenly realised just how different the twins were. We couldn’t take a family photo. We couldn’t go on adventurous holidays. We couldn’t try out a new restaurant or new food. Routine was a religion in our family. Spontaneity was blasphemous and would almost certainly lead to tears.
Imagine building this world while also raising another neurotic young man. My parents did an amazing job under tough circumstances. They did their absolute best for me. I was never denied an opportunity. But there was a lot that was inevitably impossible for my family. And when I became a teenager, I began to resent all the ways we were different.
As it turns out, this feeling of resentment is a fairly normal part of being a teenager, Aspergers in the family or not. Everyone thinks their family is about as cool as wearing socks with thongs. Everyone feels their family is probably the daggiest bunch of dags ever to have bred.
But just as strong as the resentment is the fierce and loyal protection that only brotherhood can summon. I felt this for Ray too. Bullies picking on me was one thing, but making fun of the truly defenceless was abhorrent.
Not that Ray would need that much protection. Ray knew every single line from Austin Powers off by heart. By the end of year eight, he would be celebrated for his talents. His sense of humour would even disarm Cameron.
We should get back to Cameron.
‘I could snap you like a twig,’ he slurred into my face.
‘Yes, you probably could,’ I replied through his tight grip.
Cameron, intellectual that he was, was baffled by my response. It wasn’t what I was supposed to say. I was supposed to put up a fight which would egg him on further. I was supposed to retaliate physically and provide him with the opportunity to display his manliness by bashing me into a fine paste. Sadly for him, he wasn’t prepared for the idea that I was a coward. Perplexed, and wearing an expression not unlike a bewildered animal, he let me go.
It was the first week of high school, and it was not going well.
I had somehow stumbled out of a primary school, a world I understood and knew, into a place rich with stereotypes. It was like I was in a cartoon. There was the Aspergers kid with the cheese. The bully with the spiky hair and chubby sidekick. The handsome boy from South Africa who everyone had a crush on. The girls who practised dance routines at lunch and made mean comments to each other. The boys who kept their shirts untucked and refused to wear the school hat because they were just that cool. The first-year teachers who were overwhelmed and tried not to cry in the face of harsh adolescent rudeness. The experienced teachers who smoked between lessons and hated every one of us.
In this mess, who the hell was I?
I was too scared to have my shirt untucked. Too terrified to join in on girly dance routines. Too Australian to be a handsome South African.
I hated it. But I really didn’t want to hate it. I wanted to be calm, cool and confident. It would do no one any good for me to whinge and whine. This was high school. It was part of growing up. And I needed to get on with it. This was my opportunity to be a man and show my family that I was ready to be an independent young adult.
So when Mum picked me up every afternoon and asked me about my day, I would say ‘fine’. Reassured by this, Mum would then tell me about her day. I didn’t want to tell her the truth about Cameron or my feeling of intense isolation, because Mum had a lot on her plate.
Our family was changing. At that time, we lived fifteen minutes outside town, across the road from the tiny country primary school that I had attended. Andy and Chrissy still went there, and Dad taught there too. My high school attendance meant Mum and I would drive into town everyday, with Mum frequently staying there for work. (I did try the bus at one stage, but the smoke-filled, noisy, forty-five minute trip home added an extra two hours to the day and added opportunities for Cameron to point out that I was a fag. I begged Mum to drive me back and forth.) The splintering of the family—Mum and me in town, Dad and the boys back home—was creating some pressure.
Importantly, the time for the boys to move into high school was just two years away. How would they handle adolescence? Where could they go? The tiny primary school had been perfect for them, but there were no high schools nearby. It meant a change was coming, and change is the enemy to the Aspergers mind. Would they be able to survive the confusing mess of classrooms, teachers and bullies?
Some minor cracks were appearing in my parents’ marriage, and Mum would share her worries with me. Dad felt alienated from Mum, and Mum felt under-appreciated. I tried to give advice, but I was incapable of understanding the true depth of their adult problems. Both Mum and Dad were dealing with their own lifelong battles with depression. Mum would often cry in those days. I recognised in Mum a vulnerability that was also in me: a desperate, heart-wrenching loneliness. With few friends to turn to and a lack of family beyond her children and husband, Mum found solace in her eldest son. I tried to be the best support I could.
On the evening of Cameron’s attack, I went to bed shaken. The thought of returning to school the next day made me want to vomit. I had avoided a beating, but I was certain I wouldn’t be so lucky next time. At lunchtime I would hide in the library, but there was no way I could avoid Cameron in class.
As I lay there, something else that had been bothering kept coming to my mind.
At high school, who was I?
In primary school, I’d been a friendly kid with a small bunch of reliable friends.
In high school, I was the loner who spent the day in desperate fear.
Quiet tears soon became loud sobs. The noise was enough to notify my parents.
‘What’s wrong, buddy?’ Dad asked.
I quickly tried to think of a lie. Um…Rachel and Ross just can’t get it together on Friends?
But I had never cried over television.
Ummm…
Palestine?
But I had no actual knowledge of Palestine.
I had nothing. I could only tell the truth.
‘I hate high school,’ I sobbed.
Mum and Dad held me.
‘Buddy,’ Dad said, ‘you’ve been saying it’s fine.’
‘You should tell us these things,’ Mum added.
I felt awful. I was worrying my parents unnecessarily. Why couldn’t I just toughen up?
The next day, Mum apologised for sharing her marital problems with me. I promised her it was fine, genuinely wanting to at least know the path to my parent’s divorce (that’s how it looked in my mind). So Mum continued to talk to me about all sorts of things that I didn’t understand.
It was clear to me then, and even clearer to me now, that Mum was determined that I wouldn’t feel unloved or uncared for in comparison with my brothers. The private school, the new uniforms, the car drives in—the whole thing was about me being given every opportunity that I could be afforded. Mum and Dad were making sure that I never missed out on anything because of the twins.
On top of all this, Mum committed a crime that is universally feared by all teenagers: she interfered in the intricate social balance of school. To my teachers, I had been the fairly quiet nerdy kid who hung out with Ray. But a hastily made phone call the day after my weeping soon turned me into the unhappy quiet nerdy kid who needed urgent help because he was a big wimp.
I knew nothing about Mum contacting the school until a morning assembly, when my English teacher (who I’d only had one lesson with) approached me.
‘You’re in the debating team,’ she said, as though it had been settled years ago. ‘Come to the meeting at lunchtime.’
I was scared out of my mind. But I went. A teacher had given me an order.
This teacher was Mrs Coates. She would change my life forever.