I outlined my own struggles in the area I highlighted in my piece "TWO DAYS, TWO SIGNS."

I remember, April 24, 1987, I was in my first year of high school and had regular bouts of asthma, which the stresses of school (the kids not the subjects) probably exacerbated. It had been a mixed bag day at school (I had Social Science and Japanese in the middle session, which I loved, but I had an incessant bully in my class. I had to go to the doctor that afternoon, and I begged my mother not to make me see a particular doctor. She said she'd try her best. So, we had an appointment to see a doctor I thought was okay, but she was running behind schedule a little. The receptionist asked if we'd like to see the doctor my mother KNEW I didn't want to see and she said yes! I had a meltdown in the waiting room!

Three things that I take into consideration here. One, my mother said I wouldn't be going to the doctor during school time (she had tennis with some friends), two she wanted my brother to get his haircut, and three, was what would I have wanted done differently? I don't want to be selfish and yes, I understand my mother didn't want to disrupt my education, BUT, what I say there is, the second semester of Year Twelve, not unless it's absolutely necessary,, but the first semester of Year Eight, you can afford to be a little flexible. I go here on what the former Deputy Principal said about school jumpers. She said, "Okay, if we had an unseasonably cold day in the last few weeks of Year Twelve, we'd say fine, but any other time, no."

I had started tennis lessons at the same time, reluctantly, and I say, (for me, not my mother) if you were training for an upcoming tournament, okay, but regular tennis lessons, you can always do a make-up lesson.

Two, as I was older, if I had been my mother, I would have said to my brother and I, on the Thursday, "Okay, Peter, you keep your keys on you. I'll come and get your brother from tennis and take him to get his haircut and you go home, have a shower and get started on your homework." And, two, even if that hadn't have happened, and my mother had have waited, she would have still had plenty of time for my brother to get his haircut.

Three, had we known I am autistic back then, I would have wanted not my mother, but an autistic peer support worker to go with me to the doctor. Why? Well, my mother could have explained the basics to my peer support worker (okay, at twelve, my peer support worker or mentor would have had to have been around 17) and my peer support worker could have said, "Okay, I'm here as Peter's support worker. He has asked me to tell you that he doesn't want to see that particular doctor, and that I'll be accompanying him." Then, if the receptionist had asked my support worker that question, my support worker could have said, "It's okay, just leave it to me.," and gone across and said, "No, thank you. Peter would like to wait for his preferred doctor."

If I had been the doctor, and I'd seen it all, I would have said to my mother, "I would like you to please leave the room, and Peter to stay." Then I would have said, "There's no right or wrong answer to this question. Would you be happier if I let you go back out to the waiting room to wait for my colleague?" As I would have said yes, I would have then called my mother in and said, "The Hippocratic Oath requires me to treat anyone and everyone, but if a patient would prefer to deal with my colleague, I respect that, too."

The following night, we had a attend a 50th Birthday Party for my father's work colleague's husband. The colleague's husband came to collect us, and if I'd had my time again, the afternoon would have gone like this. Colleague's husband arrives. "Is Peter coming?" "Yes, he'll be following, in a minute." I get into my support worker's car, and tell them which way to go. I arrive at the party and my father's colleague says, "Who's that with Peter?" "That's his support worker." "What?" "Okay, we tried to tell you that Peter finds these situations overwhelming. And you said you could fix it. Professor Tony Attwood tried to tell you that the way to fix it is to let Peter go into your older son's room and read a book, rather than play with the kids. But you wouldn't listen." Anyway, I sat at a table with a middle-aged lady, whose daughter was a teacher. She didn't talk down to me and I could talk up to her. The colleague's younger son was a pain in the neck and he drove my sensory issues to high levels. If I had been lucky enough to have Professor Tony Attwood as my support worker, and my mother had come across and told me to sit with the kids, hopefully, Professor Tony Attwood would have said, "Either you withdraw that, or, I will ask the host if we can have our tea in the games room." And if my mother had said not to argue, Professor Tony Attwood would have hopefully said, "Listen, I'm the support worker. Why are you trying to break up a successful situation and replacing it with a failure?"

Then, Professor Tony Attwood could have said to my mother, "Tell me what you see over there?" And then replied, "An immature man can't hold his own with older people. Your son's not yet a man, but he can hold his own with a woman old enough to be his mother. The colleague's younger son comes down to a younger level because that's where he is. Peter is not."

The following year, we went to see my paternal grandparents, and I always wanted to just sit and talk to my grandparents. My grandparents lived on acreage, and had a horse. Where I wanted to go out there to just spend some time and take in the silence to regulate, my brother, if we went in summer, wanted to play cricket and in winter, he wanted to kick a football. So, no sooner would we get there and we'd say hello, and my brother would agitate for my father to open the boot of his car so that he could get the stuff out. And I would be sent off with him. Then, we'd have lunch and my brother would want to ride one of the old bikes from the shed up and down the car tracks and my mother would send me out with him! Then, my brother would want to go for a ride on the horse and my mother would nudge my father saying we should go home! So, it was a wasted journey!

I wish I could have seen my kindred spirit cousins, instead!

I struggled with math, but I flourished in English and History. My teacher, in Year Four, told me I could, after some testing, read to the standard of an eleven year old, and my mother was annoyed that my teacher also said I lacked some self-control. Looking back, an autism diagnosis was staring us in the face, even if my mother denies it.