homeschool

Autism’s sibling, journal 2, part 3

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My mom said that Matt was a smart baby. He was speaking and knew the alphabet. Until he turned 2, that is. Then he quit talking altogether. Instead he screamed. He slept fitfully and had nightmares. For many early childhood years, Matt was nonverbal. Then something strange happened, he started talking.

Previous to the home bound years, my brothers and I attended the same grade school. I remember Matt being in the special ed room that was shared with the library. He spent a lot of time in the naughty box between the two rooms. He kicked and screamed in this box while the kids laughed when we went in for library. He also went out with us at recess. Some of the older girls mocked his bizarre movements and laughed at him. It made me very angry, but they were older and there was nothing I could do about it.

One day Matt told my mom that he didn’t like school. He said that the teacher was mean. He told us that she put him face down on the floor and sat on top of him. He said it was hard to breathe. The teacher also put him under her desk, then sat down squishing and trapping him inside. My mom asked me if this could possibly be true. By the time he could tell us what had happened, the teacher had already quit. The turnover was high and I am sure my brother didn’t help with that.

Matt was very hard to handle. He was so violent in the school setting that he had to be homeschooled for several years right around the time of puberty. We stayed at home 3 years, then Matt went back to school with me. My mom sent my youngest two brothers to two different schools. Some of the teachers at school gave my family a hard time for my autistic brother. They looked down upon us. Some of the kids weren’t much better. Like we wanted this? Or caused this?

When I came back to school my junior year, I was the first person in the school district to return to high school after homeschooling. They did not know what to do with me. They would not accept my transcripts from the accredited correspondence school. Some kids teased me by asking if I took off from school to have a baby.

After awhile Luke ended up going to high school with Matt. They graduated together. Mark graduated from a different school entirely. Matt took the short bus to school everyday. There was always a boy that would terrorize Matt on the bus. Sometimes he would get off of the bus with Matt and threaten to kill him. Mom was a little worried last summer that he would make good on his threat once he made parole for his violent criminal offenses.

After I graduated from high school, I came back to be Matt’s teacher’s aide. My best friend Shelly was his aide at school until she pressed criminal charges against Matt for assault when he pulled her hair. Matt was escorted out of the school in handcuffs. That was the end of Shelly’s employment and our friendship. The charges against Matt were dropped after his competency eval.

Then I was employed as Matt’s teacher’s aide for a short period of time. In the classroom, Matt had his own separate cubicle. Every time that I would try to get him to read or write he would grind his teeth and hit his head. Or sometimes he would hit me. He never did learn to read, write, or do basic math.

 

Autism’s sibling, journal 2, part 2

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“Did he touch you in a way that made you uncomfortable?”, asked my mom and her friend. “No” I kept replying. Although I do vaguely remember some lingering hugs with a little squeeze to the back side.

Something is wrong with Ann. She is acting weird. She loves Tim more than her parents. She bugs people. She is pretending a lot. She keeps hitting her dolls.

My mom got really close to Ann’s mom. Ann was a precocious 9 year old girl that was homeschooled. They didn’t have a TV in their house. They always wore drab clothes. The women and girls wore skirts or dresses. The women didn’t cut their hair. The girls wore their hair in braids and the women wore their hair up in buns. They were not Amish or Mennonite, their religious sect had an unusual name. Whenever I tried to look them up online, I always ended up on porn sites. I am sure that they do not embrace technology today any more than they did before.

Ann’s parents were really wonderful people. Her dad was very involved and excellent with the homeschooling kids. My mom started getting involved in their church. It really wasn’t like any church that I have ever known. It was a very closed group. You could only go if someone invited you. They would meet in back rooms of the mall that I never knew existed. They met in various towns in various locations. I remember it being a lot of preaching, several hours of sitting in a chair listening. They didn’t have pastors, instead they had brothers that travelled around in groups of two.

We started doing a lot of things with Ann’s family. Two of the “pastors” lived with Ann and her family for a couple months. There was a 28 year old man named Tim and an elderly man named Adolf. We went to their church. We hung out at their house. We also went other places like parks where we went hiking.

To be a part of this group, it was encouraged to take in these “pastors”. My mom had Tim and Adolf spent a few nights at our house. They slept in my bed. It really was a fun time. We didn’t have overnight visitors often. We were starting to spend a lot of time together. They took an interest in my life. Come to think of it, Tim and Adolf were the only adult overnight visitors that I ever remember having at our house when I was a child. Matt scared most people away.

Adolf liked to play the saw. He wanted someone to get him an old rag that he could put on his lap in order to play. My brothers came out with an old pair of my dad’s underwear. Ha ha. What goofs! Then he took the bow from my mom’s violin and played the saw. It made a rather eerie yet beautiful sound. Ann really liked Tim and always sat on his lap or was hanging on him. 

Once when we had homeschooling group at Ann’s house, she took all of the kids into her bedroom. She showed us a drawer that we should never go into. Then she would pop out of the room and come back in to find the boys looking in that drawer. Then she would cry, “Mom, the boys are in my underwear drawer.” She always got everyone in trouble. After awhile her behavior became a little less innocent. She started kissing and touching another 9 year old boy inappropriately.

Ann’s mom had a nervous breakdown. Tim likes Ann too much, but he had to leave.

Tim moved to Missouri to be part of another “church”. He still called me and wrote me letters for awhile. After he left, my mom was not interested in being a part of their church anymore.

Autism’s sibling, journal 2, part 1

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Back in the late 1980’s, I was homeschooled for 3 years from 8th through 10th grade. This is a time of my life that I never talk about. There is a gap when I talk about middle school and high school. I don’t fill it in. It was a time of great isolation and introspection. As an introvert, I really didn’t mind. It was just difficult explaining the reason that I was homeschooled.

My autistic brother Matt’s behavior was so violent that they no longer allowed him in school. Instead the school sent a retired school teacher out to the house. He was likely to physically attack someone that tried to force him to learn. It took the patience of a saint to handle that job. Since my mom had to majorly cut back her hours at work, she decided to take my younger brothers out of school and homeschool them as well. My mom gave me a choice because I was older. But I didn’t really feel like I had much of a choice. 

In the late 80’s, a vast majority of the few people that were homeschooling were doing it for religious reasons. My mom joined a group of these women. The kids were all a lot younger than me. My mom signed me up for an accredited correspondence school. When two of my friend’s moms heard that I was leaving school, they dragged their kids out of school for a few months as well.

My friend’s mom cited religious persecution as the reason for pulling her youngest two children out of school. But I never thought that was true. To be honest with you, the kids were just strange. Yes, my friend’s older sister read the Bible over lunch period at school. But she was also the girl that I often saw standing in front of the class room blowing her nose loudly. Then she would stand in front of the class while the teacher was talking and pick her nose for another 10 minutes. It also didn’t help that she had red hair, acne, was overweight, had coke bottle glasses that made her eyes look like pins, and had an obsession with math. Her younger brother had similar social issues. The kids on the school bus took a scissors and cut the shirt off of his back. That was because every time someone said gosh or heck, he told them that they were going to hell. My friend, however, was relatively normal compared to her siblings. 

One time while I was staying at her house, someone drove by at night and threw a bottle through their front window. It is unfortunate how mean kids can be to someone that doesn’t fit in. I felt a little sorry for them yet at the same time felt embarrassed to associate with them. Even though Matt was teased a lot, he didn’t seem to realize it as much as my brothers and I did. My friend and I had having outcast siblings in common. Who knows, maybe they were on the spectrum too.

During this time, my mom spent a lot of time with her new friends. We went to Bible study all the time. When I wasn’t with my friend, she was at church or meetings at someones house which was basically church. We even went to church camp together for two summers. We had to wear pants at all times and weren’t allowed to swim. I had the opportunity to visit my friend while we were in Texas last year. I asked her if she still went to church. She said that she didn’t because she spent enough time there as a child to last her a whole lifetime. 

In the home bound years, my mom actively sought support from her new friends by taking an interest in their church groups. We even were able to be involved with the Amish community. I had the opportunity to go to an Amish wedding. How many people can say that they have done that? I think that at one time my mom was ready to leave the Lutheran church. She probably would have if it wasn’t for Aunt Grace. 

Then something happened to bring it all to a crashing halt.