I remember seeing footage of mounted police, in Australia, and I innocently said to my father, "Mounted police wouldn't have guns, would they?" And he said, "Yes." I remember reading Bert Facey's A Fortunate Life where he rode his employer's horse down to scare some cattle off his employer's property and fired two shots into the air. The horse threw him off and bolted. And I said to my father, "But the horses could bolt." And he said, "They're trained not to."

I know that being forced to endure something as exposure therapy is mental torture. My brother plays the drums and he used to drive me mad because he'd play a vinyl record in the family room, a CD in his room, and bash around on his drum kit in his music room. I thought, "What in heaven's name is he doing?"

I even remember, from my schooldays, I used to dread the sensory overload of school sports days. Being forced to sit in the sun, hearing the starter's pistol at every damn event. I wished I could have worn noise cancelling headphones and maybe had one of the hearing impaired teachers teach me some sign language and say, "Okay, you take your noise cancelling headphones off for your event, and then, you can put them back on." When sports day had come to an end, I was overloaded and would have to just go home and watch some TV.

I remember, in Year Nine, for the school swimming carnival, I was overwhelmed (riding in an overcrowded bus, for starters) sitting in a crowded area, two idiots in front of me who kept pushing each other over and one kept falling back onto me, and being prodded and pushed and punched). The only thing that eased me on the trip back to school was, perhaps from a nearby car, I could hear Genesis's "In Too Deep" playing. When I arrived home, all I could do was listen to the radio and I sparked up a bit at the thought of watching Dr Elliot and Dr Fraser get married on A Country Practice that night. And that was while my brother went swimming for a club!

In the case of Ralph's mother, her intentions were one thing but her methods were wrong.

I remember, when I was twelve, having a winter of bad asthma. I have been watching some old episodes of A Country Practice and in four episodes, asthma was touched upon. In the first two, an asthmatic boy was a competitive swimmer and his mother was pushing him too far and he had an asthma attack in the pool during training! There was another asthmatic boy whom Dr Bowen suggested take up swimming to strengthen his lungs. In a subsequent two episodes, the second asthmatic boy was home from school as his asthma was playing up and Dr Bowen said to his wife, Vicky, the vet, "I taught that boy to swim and all." Vicky replied, "But stress at home wouldn't do his asthma any good."

My mother had to take me to a respiratory specialist and he might have known a lot about lungs, but he didn't understand much about other things. He proceeded to tell me about a young doctor who killed herself due to crippling anxiety, and I think a better doctor (some of the young female doctors who are the antithesis of the horrible neurologist come to mind) would have said, "Okay, stress from bullying at school would not be helping your asthma. Here's what we'll do. First off, I'll get you to see a gastroenterologist, as you may have coeliac disease. Then, we'll see what areas at school you're struggling with. (Okay, math, so you'll have to get some one on one tutoring there). Then, we'll look at the school environment and see if there are some changes that could be made to help you." My mother took this doctor's talk about exercise to extremes. For example, in December, 1987 (summer, in Australia), my brother had been annoying me and I'd just had a swim and was cool and refreshed and wanted to sit and read a book, but my brother was harassing me to play cricket and my mother said, wait for it, "The doctor told you to exercise as often as possible." What that doctor meant was,, "On most days, do something, even if it's just a little incidental exercise," NOT, "Okay, you've been for a swim and you're all cool and refreshed, so now, instead of reading a book while waiting to eat, go and run around and get all hot and bothered, again."

Granted, they didn't know much about autism back then, but, still, it left me vulnerable.