Dear readers,
My name is Amelia.  I'm a teenager with two older autistic brothers.  And no, if you're reading this and thinking that this is going to be another tragic tale about autism, it isn't.  My brothers are 18 and 17 and they may not be savants, but they are amazing.  The eighteen-year-old has sensitive hearing.  He can hear police sirens before anyone else does and when it storms, he has to go into his closet or the upstairs bathroom and turn the fan on so that he can't hear the thunder.  The seventeen-year-old is incredible with maps and such.  He can tell you what direction you're facing, which way you're going, anything like that.  Also, what's really cool is that you can ask him, "What day of the week was January 5, 1994?" and he can give you the correct answer.

If anyone saw CNN today, you'd have seen the stuff they did discussing autism.  My mom gave a talk in my church concerning autism and she asked me, "What would you say to them?  What's your take on living with autism in the home?" And I told her, "I don't really consider them autistic."  I mean, sure, they don't function quite as we do, but they're amazing in their specialized fields. 

When I was younger, it used to bother me a lot when my brothers would always get the cooler stuff and I always felt so deprived of attention.  I'm getting over that now, but it still hurts when my mom will jump on me for stuff that she never gets on my brother for.  Being the youngest, I have to take the responsibility as though I was the oldest.

It is frustrating, living with autism in the home, but I can't imagine life without my two autistic brothers.  I can't imagine them "normal".  Sometimes I wonder what my life just might be like if they were, and it makes me wonder if they would look any different.  I would probably never say this to their face, but I appreciate them.

Thank you for reading,
-Amelia