Before my father married my mother, my maternal grandmother said, "Don't let her put you on a diet, Love, she'll starve you to death." Some suspect that my mother might be an undiagnosed autistic, but I also say that my mother is an extremely hard woman, just like my maternal grandfather was a hard man. My grandfather was self-centred.

When I was 12, and had a bout of asthma that lasted for months, and after I saw a respiratory specialist, she set me a program where I had to get up every morning and do certain exercises before going for a run (the one exception was when I went out to a restaurant with school and had a late night) and then had to do laps of the pool when I came home.

I cannot easily forgive my mother for defending a boy who assaulted me, either.

If my mother actually read some stuff about autism from knowledgeable people and fellow autistics, maybe she could say, "I wish I had seen these signs when Peter was younger."