my disabled brother has ruined my childhood

this is going to be a long one, but its personal i guess. been thinking a lot about my life since its a year anniversary since the worst week of my life happened.

yea yea ik i made a promise that i wasnt gonna make more sappy blogs this year becuase im doing better, but i felt like i needed to make my statement very clear on this. cuz if said a lot of stuff about my family on here, but i havent said much about him. well, i have. just not in its entirety, ya know. which the same can be said to basically anyone outside my family. ive always felt ashamed, scared. 

my brother. ill call him H cuz i have 3 other brothers, is autistic. which isnt bad, i really want to make it clear this is NOT out of ableism. and i as well as my 3 brothers are also autistic. hes just severely autistic to the point he's non-verbal and has learning disabilities and cant perform basic day to day functions without help (toilet, showering, eating etc). he can walk and move and doesnt have any physical disabilities. 

but all of that isnt the problem. it isnt at all. when he got diagnosed, i didnt care. i was a little kid and i wanted to be best friends with my brother. i tried playing with him. understanding him best i could. he didnt give me anything. nothing. for years. when i started school and made friends i guess i stopped trying. i think an unspoken rule in my family is to never talk about what happens at home to other people and it goes for a lot of things. so when i started making friends and theyd ask how many siblings i have and which ones they were i would briefly gloss over H and talk about my other brothers. if they asked to come over to my house, id say no. "its so messy!" "its always loud, i have 3 brothers you know." "i dunno, my house is kinda small.". and.... i was always online as a kid. ive seen so many stories from all walks of life but never, ever, ever, EVER anything close to mine. i still haven't found anything. 

i dont really remember when the aggression started. maybe it was there all along. i dont know. but at some point in my life, when my parents started trying to give him healthier habits instead of giving him whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. then i noticed the aggression. hed scream his lungs so loud you could probably hear it two houses away. he would break things, my parents and my other brothers stuff. slap my parents, push people, bang on walls with his head. i cant remember if i was scared. i cant remember anything at all.

when i was 9 he was sent to a camp. for about half a year i think, maybe more. camp for people with disabilities, kids. people there would help him. help him get on the track to being better. the place was 2 and a half hours away from my town. the ride there was torture. the entire two hours i was terrified to he going to snap. i couldnt bring any of my technology with him since he had broken my other brothers ipads before. so i was sitting there alone. when we arrived at the camp, he was started to make muttering sounds and i knew he was close to snapping. i remember my dad saying to me "dont worry, these people are all professionals. they dont care if hes loud, they know what to do." or something along those lines. then i didnt see him for a few months.

home felt quiet. it felt like i could finally step out and walk around the place without feeling worried about him being there. i dont remember much except being freely able to watch tv without worrying about H coming into the lounge room and smashing the tv in and chatting happily with my parents. i remember even asking my parents if he was gonna come back home talking.

in the six months we would go up to the camp and stay and visit for a few days. i hated it every time.  I couldnt bring anything to distract myself like i had learnt to do around him (again cuz he was known to break tech). but the first time we went up we stayed in a wood cabin for a few days. the cabin was nice, i had harry potter and the goblet of fire to read while i stayed. but then the aggression started again. the banging, screaming. it came back after me all over again. for the first time i didnt feel stress. i felt pure, disgusting, helpless fear. that same fear when an intruder comes in your home. or when you see a monster. 

i hated those trips so much that when my mum put me into therapy and i told my therapist how much i hated those trips, my therapist at the time called my mum in to tell her i didnt want to go to them anymore. she said something along the lines of "i noticed you didnt like going there.". i didnt go to anymore after that and she didnt say anything about it. she didnt ask why i didnt like them.  or how i felt. she didnt say anything at all. at least from what i remember. because i dont remember. 

usually when you get sent to that place you go once. H actually got to go a second time. its funny

over the years that fear that i felt in the cabin only became more familiar to me. headphones and youtube videos were my only escape. but even then you still felt the screaming run through the walls. my parents tried everything. gave him routine, a school, funding for support workers. but id still overhear conversations about him hitting kids at school. or him pouring water onto the floor directly in front of my dad. and breaking things. the hygiene was vile too. can you guess what happens when your parents have to stand outside the toilet while he screams his lungs out cuz he doesnt wanna poop. can you guess what happens when he decides to do it somewhere else instead. can you guess what happens and i get literal shit thrown at me and when i start gagging im told that im overreacting. because, i should be used to this now. right? this should be normal.

and when i didnt know how to tell anyone, or knew that if i vented to my family that they wouldnt take me seriously, id go online. and when i couldnt find anything becuase ive never been able to find anything i would search up "how to deal with abusive parents/siblings". because when id hear stories about that fear they would feel in those situations, it was the only thing that id ever found that i could relate to exactly. 

my youngest brother has the same things. autistic, non verbal, learning disabilities. but hes not so cold. he cries when hes overwhelmed and breaks things because he doesnt understand what they are and just likes the way they feel. hes not like him. he has a soul, a something, a ANYTHING. when H hurts us i know he understands how it feels. when he breaks things i know he knows what it is. when i was 13 i realised i didnt love him anymore. not that i had for many years, really. i think i just saw him and realised that i didnt see him as human, or my brother. just something that lives in my house that ive learnt to be scared of. im like a fox, and hes a wolf. hes not out to eat me, but he would if he had nothing else left. he hurts me when hes annoyed. i have to hear his howls that can pierce through walls. i have to see and hear him hurt innocent animals. and the only thing i can do is pray i can leave this forest one day. 

i know ive been traumatised by him permanently. bad trauma. its so stupid, but you know that horrible 'music' movie by sia? the movie thats wildly known for being horrifically offensive to autistic people? well i was watching a video about it and i had to stop. when that character started screaming and hitting and when it was over no body talked about what happened and everything was "okay". it hit something deep in me. and now im so scared of loud noises and things that remind me of him. like that town where the camp was. maybe scared is an overstatement, idk. its underlying and apart of me thinks itll get worse when im finally away from him for good. my other younger brother told me hes scared of H too. in our old house they used to sleep in the same room. that he would wake up to H standing over him. he said to me that mum and dad told him that when they die that we have to take care of H. he said to me he would never do that, i said same. sounds cruel but for all i care he can go to some home or something. 

today something happened that triggered me to write this. i came home after my piano lesson, last one for the term. i got told i was improving so much, which i am. i can decently understand some sheet music now! my mother has this large piano made of wood and ivory. i decided to briefly play one of the songs i had learnt today. to see if i could remember how it went without sheet music. i was playing so softly, still trying to remember what position the keys were. then he came, stared at me for a moment and then tried shoving me off the chair. when i got frightened and jumped off, he walked away. his worker was confused, i awkwardly laughed and said "hah, whatcha do that for?". my mum asked what happened and the worker said "he just tried shoving them off the piano". she asked why and the worker said he didnt know. and my mum just said "guess he did it just cause he wanted to.". almost like a joke, or something casual. i remembered everything all over again. he doesnt love me. if he wasnt here, my life and everyone elses lives would be so much better. thats just the truth. 

but what do i know. im a fox, i should be used to being hurt.