Today is Chelsea’s birthday. Her 21st. She is my “middle”
sister. I’m the oldest, 8 years later she came, and 8 years after her came
Lillie.
About 4 months ago we (my parents, Lillie and I) lost
Chelsea.
I don’t mean that she died and I don’t mean that she was kidnapped or
anything quite so horrendous. But somehow we lost her. She decided she no
longer wanted to be part of our family. A little over 2 years ago she left for
college. She went out of state – to a third tier school, as my mother likes to
point out – because that’s where two of her closest friends were. Two friends
she met playing a popular MMORPG.
She could have gone anywhere. Locally, she
could have gone to any state school – UVA, Tech, Mason, even Georgetown or GW.
Nationally, she could have gone to Brown, MIT, even Harvard. She’s brilliant. She
loves school. Life has always been school and school has always been the reason
for living life.
But a year ago she stopped going. We’re not sure exactly
why. She says it was anxiety. She withdrew in the middle of fall semester.
Spring semester she enrolled for 18 credit hours… and withdrew again mid-semester.
In April she quit returning emails and phone calls. My parents found out she
lost her phone. Her roommates said they were passing on messages, but we’re not
so sure. She never did replace her phone as far as we are aware.
In June my parents drove to her school to make sure she was
still alive. That’s when she told them she never wanted to speak to us again.
No reason. She just didn’t “feel like it”. She’d let us know if she ever “felt
like it” again.
Chelsea and I were never close. We had what one would call a
love/hate relationship. We loved each other because we are siblings and figured
we had to – that there isn’t really any choice. But we don’t get along with each
other in that we have very different beliefs about life and the world we live
that life in. I’m an extrovert, she’s painfully shy. I love to be social and
meet new people, she thinks all people are stupid - which they are, but I
forgive them that for the sake of their company and the entertainment derived
from that stupidity (I kid, I kid). I always hated school, she always loved
school more than anything. Polar opposites for sure.
If I want to be honest with myself, I have to say I don’t
miss her. I rarely think of her. She only impacts my life in that my parents
and my baby sister are devastated by her absence. I can’t change her mind. In
fact, I’m the last person who could change her mind. When all of this came to
be, my response to it was, “She can go fuck herself. You want to be a selfish
brat, go be a selfish brat, but don’t expect me to sit around pining and waiting
for you to grace my life with your presence.”
But today is her birthday and Facebook keeps telling me I
should express my birthday wishes on her wall. A couple other relatives have
posted happy birthdays. I know she doesn’t check her Facebook anymore. In fact,
I’m not entirely sure why she hasn’t just deleted her account. I feel like I
should say something… but then I think maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe she should know
what it’s like for someone to just disappear and not give a rat’s ass about
whether or not it’s your birthday. Afterall, our baby sister’s birthday was
just a few days ago – did Chelsea send any well-wishes via phone call, text or
email? Absolutely not. I’m sure it didn’t even occur to her. My sister… she’s different. She’s special, as my mom would say when we were kids. We have to forgive her social ineptitudes, she can’t help it. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t have the same empathy or understanding of what empathy is supposed to be. I do hope she has a happy birthday. Even if we don’t get to
be a part of it.
I look at this situation and I can’t help but fear that
someday this might be my son. That one day we might lose James as we’ve lost
Chelsea.
In May, James was diagnosed with Aspergers. This is a mild,
high-functioning form of autism. Actually, I’m not even sure the latest DSM categorizes
it as autism anymore – it’s its own separate brain weirdness. But many of its
symptoms present similarly to symptoms of autism; lack of empathy, misunderstanding
or not picking up on normal social and facial cues, sensitivities to light,
noise, touch, etc. Children with Aspergers are also many times highly gifted, making
it even harder to understand the other people around them – and making it
harder for the people around them to understand them. They are sometimes prone
to what can only be called “meltdowns” – episodes of loss of physical
and emotional control, to include screaming, hitting, throwing one’s self on
the ground and flailing, saying mean and nasty things, etc. These extreme episodes may
go on for minutes or hours. And once it’s over, it’s over and everything goes
back to “normal”. It’s almost as if life becomes over-stimulating and this is
the only way they know how to let it go.
This is my life. This is my life every day. Some days are
good and some are terrible.
Bedtime can be the worst. And last night it was one of the
bad times. Mike was handling everything with James as I had just returned from
the grocery store and was putting the food away. I was supposed to be taking my
baby sister to the movies after I was done with the groceries, so I actually
didn’t have to stick around for most of the meltdown. This may sound callous but: I was pretty glad for it.
Because these meltdowns usually happen at bedtime, the
mornings can become particularly difficult when it comes to getting James out
of bed for school. This morning was no different. We regularly struggle with
what kind of clothes will be worn for the day – some days it has to be a certain
color or a certain fabric, others he’ll want to wear the same outfit for a
second or third day in a row. Today we wanted to wear red. ALL red. Red pants
and red shirt. Today is a warm day here in Virginia. It’s 80 degrees. I told
him he could wear shorts. Red shorts and a red shirt.
The moment James got downstairs Mike told him he couldn’t
wear the shorts he had chosen (the red shorts) because they were too small.
They were slightly too small. Not overly small, but slightly. However, I knew
this would spur another meltdown, one we didn’t have time for since it was
almost time to walk out the door. So instead of arguing with James, we argued
with each other.
I got incredibly angry. I couldn’t believe that this was the
battle we were going to choose to fight. They are SHORTS. Just let him wear the
goddamn SHORTS.
I lost the battle over the shorts. Mike ended up telling
James he had to change. James melted down.
I punched the microwave. I broke the glass on the microwave
door. The microwave had to go out with the trash. Now I have to go spend $70 on
a new microwave. $70 I do not have.
My husband hasn’t spoken to me except once today. I scared
the hell out of the baby and made him cry.
Sometimes your 7 year old acts like a lunatic, and sometimes your sister disappears because she feels like it.
Sometimes I
feel over-stimulated by life. Sometimes you just have to punch a microwave. The difference is: I know better. But sometimes
knowing better doesn’t make it better.
Sometimes eating an entire movie theater box of Junior Mints
does.
