My brother has autism.

When I tell people this, I often get “aww's” and many sympathetic “oh, really?” I don’t want a pity-party for the way my brother was born. All I ask is that you treat him as a human, for that is what he is.

Growing up with my brother wasn’t necessarily “easy.” At first, I had a hard time understanding what was so “special” about him; every time my mom tried to explain that my brother had a disability, I would ask why I wasn’t special too. Then, as the years went on and I became more exposed to other people with disabilities, I started to understand what it meant to have “special needs.”

My brother is on the autism spectrum, something best explained as a learning disability. There are different severities of autism, from verbal to nonverbal, high functioning to low. My brother is verbal, and can communicate quite normally, though he lacks skill in certain areas like counting money, telling time, and dealing with change in routine. I can best explain him by saying he’ll have to live with my parents for the rest of his life, but he has a girlfriend, is able to participate in hobbies, and goes out of coffee and walks with a worker to get out of the house.

My brother is quite comical to be honest. He loves to be lazy, but who doesn’t? This guy can sleep like a rock. The only time he’ll get up is to use the bathroom, and ask for food. If it’s just me and him at home, it's pretty much just me, since I don’t see much of him unless he asks me what’s for dinner. He HATES eating healthy, salads are his worst enemy, and exercise is not his forte. Though, I must say, he is an excellent cartoon artist, Lego collector, and as soft as this is-- brother.

I remember sitting up in his bunk bed every Cartoon-Cartoon Friday, hosted by Cartoon Network, and eating popcorn with him, laughing at corny jokes with our mouths full. I remember having Pokémon duels in that same bunk bed and merging my Barbies with his GI Joes for an epic “undercover spy” adventure. We would turn the basement into “Lego-Land,” and use my doll houses as really big Lego clubhouses. My childhood is filled with happy memories of my brother and I tearing the house apart, one Nerf-war fort at a time.

Woven in with all the good times, there lay the bad times too. He had problems expressing his feelings growing up, and this often led to aggression. I was sadly at the receiving end of these physical outbreaks, and I became a human rag doll. It has taken me a while to understand that he still loved me despite the scratches and bruises, that he still cared even if he pinched and kicked. We still had playtime as usual the next day, but I always stayed on high alert just in case he started to get frustrated.

I was able to unveil the anger for the problem that lay inside at a young age, which has given me the insight into the world of disabilities. I think this experience has shaped me into the accepting person I am today. I don’t see “different” as weird, I see it as unique and interesting.

I think what bothers me the most are the people who glare at adults with disabilities out in public. They’re just like you and me- they need to get out, smell the fresh air, and hangout with their friends. They look human, have human emotions, and live pretty normal lives, so discriminating or looking the other way when someone with a disability approaches you hurts the same way as if someone were to do it to you. Some people may have speech problems, but if you really listen, you can start to understand the conversation- which is most of the time completely normal small talk. Humans thrive on human interaction, and they’re just people trying to live their best lives.

No matter the race, ethnicity, size or shape-- people are people. A human is someone with a beating heart and a brain. Let people with disabilities live as you would like to live. Let them be the best they can; they grew up hearing “they could never do this” or “they won’t be able to do that,” and yet they’ve surpassed this goal. Humans are amazing, and some struggle more than others, but it doesn’t mean they’re any less of a person than you and me.