A LETTER TO MY GRANDPARENTS.

Dear Nana and Grandad,

At the time of writing this, I have my autism identification. 37 years ago, last week, I, as your undiagnosed, burnt-out autistic kid, came to see you with my parents and my brother, and had to mask heavily to appease my mother. I have written a story whereby you knew what was going on, and Grandad defended me against Mum.

Had I done everything that my mother wanted on that day, you could have drawn one of three conclusions, the first two were wrong. The first was that I was sports mad like my brother. The second was that I was compliant. And the third was that I was a reluctant and defeated person who was under pressure and just wanted someone to understand me. The latter is right.

Over a year later, my brother lamented that he couldn’t understand why he loved sport, but I hated it. I hated sport because I wasn’t good at it, and I also hated the violent aspects of it. I hated it when my brother wanted to play tackle football and would run at me wanting me to tackle him, so I just stepped out of his way or tickled him instead. Every day, during the holidays, I was forced to swap the demands of school for the demands of a brother. Two things that I wished I could tell you were that my mother was trying to force a role of a typical male onto me that didn’t suit me, and two, one day, a year later, my mother told me because I was tired of my brother wanting cricket every weekend that I was just as mean as her father. The truth was, I was just frustrated with having to spend time doing things that I detested at my mother’s and brother’s behest.

I wanted to be able to sit down with you and talk about what was happening, and wish that Grandad had intervened on that weekend, and said to my mother, “No, wait. Do you want to go out and watch your brother ride the bike?” “No, thank you.” “Okay, you don’t have to.” And for my mother to have left me alone. I wanted you to say, and follow through, “You can come out here one weekend by yourself to have a break from your brother.” It didn’t happen.

It’s difficult for me as a person who did not have the self-knowledge then to be able to advocate for myself.

Love Peter.