During the 2016 Seattle Mental Health Conference Events, issues and disorders on children were touched. This led me back to the past. I became a Neuro-developmental Pediatrician because of my brother who was special. Actually, he is my stepbrother, and after understanding why he was such, I have come to love him as my own, as if we came from the same womb.
My mother remarried to his father when I was thirteen. He was eight, then, and when I first met him, something was off. Kids at school would tease him because he was in the Special Ed class and to say it bluntly, he was really different. At times, my brother would just stare into space with his mouth moving, murmuring, and his hands would twitch.
People would laugh at him, mock my brother, and call him names like “weirdo, stupid, cuckoo” and many more. Of course, as his stepbrother, I was also teased. That’s what I didn’t like about him, back then. I was young, and as a teenager, I just didn’t get it at first.
He was what they termed as “autistic” back then. Today, and as discussed in the conference, it is called Autism Spectrum Disorder. He really was different. My brother absorbed information. Differently, he socialized differently, and he communicated somewhat differently as well. But as a brother to me, he was even if I didn’t treat him as such at first.
I am asthmatic ever since I was brought in this world. He saved my life, my “special” brother who was way younger than me. I had an attack and the only people in the house that time was him and me. The events were a blur to me, but I woke up in the hospital with my mom saying that my brother called 911 just in time to give me a life-saving dose. The “weirdo, stupid, cuckoo” special ed class little boy, who was “autistic,” saved a regular person like me. He did it out of love because when I came to, he rushed to my side and said, “I love you, big brother.”
So you see, kids with disorders have a heart. In life, that’s what really matters, right? He saved me even if I didn’t show him love, and even called me his big brother when all I did was ignore him. Ever since then, I have loved him. Because of him, I am a doctor now who treats kids like my brother – joining mental health conferences to enhance my knowledge.