Junior mints, microwaves, and losing my sister

Today is Chelsea’s birthday. Her 21^st. 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.