Text on screen at beginning: Matthew is 14 years old. He has been diagnosed with severe autism, profound learning difficulties and ADHD.
It's hard to explain to people what Matthew's like and how severe his special needs really are... it tends to confuse them a little bit. Basically his autism means he can't communicate or more accurately doesn't see the necessity or feel the need to communicate.. that doesn't mean he doesn't get frustrated though... trust me when he gets frustrated you know about it! It's strange really, because there's so many times throughout the day where Matthew's trying to tell us something, but he's just like pointing, making noises and we don't know what he means... so he gets angry which makes us frustrated... sometimes I feel like shouting at him 'this would be so much easier if you could just talk! Can't you see you need to?!' But I guess his brain just doesn't work that way.. His learning difficulties mean he'll probably never learn to communicate like other people his age. Right now, aged 14, Matthew can only say single words. This doesn't mean he's quiet though, I mean he's always making noise, but not anything that resembles a sentence. It's hard to put a sort of 'mental age' on him because, admittedly he can't read or write or count to ten, but he's so clever in other ways... I think he's got more intelligence than we give him credit for. Although it might not seem that way when he's playing with noisy books or watching Postman Pat. His ADHD is the simplest one to describe, it just means he's hyperactive; can't stay focused on one task for more than 5 minutes... if that.
Living with Matthew isn't easy. He's very challenging... he's got more challenging as he's got older. He's become more controlling... I think that's what I resent the most, how much control he has over everyone in the house... it's not even that he thinks he has control, he does have that control. We either do it his way, or we don't do it at all! People find it hard to understand, why we give into him, why we let him do this... but most of the time it's just easier to let him have it this way than to suffer the consequences.
His tantrums really are horrendous. I mean he doesn't have them all the time, at the moment I'm happy to say that they're not a regular occurrence, but he does go through phases where... he'll have an outburst at least once a day. Those times are the hardest.. for everyone. We don't even always know what's brought it on because obviously, he can't tell us. I just feel so helpless. I normally just hide up in my room while my mum and dad deal with it. I wish I could help but they say they'd rather I didn't get involved because I'd just end up getting hurt. He's gets really violent and now that he's older it's started to actually make an impact, he really does hurt my mum and dad. It's horrible to see Matthew like that as well, with my mum and dad restraining him, it makes me think 'they shouldn't have to treat him like that he's their son!' They don't want to handle him like that.. but they have to, not just for their safety but for Matthew's as well. He's violent towards himself it's almost like he realises that something's wrong with him and that's why he feels this way so he takes it out on himself. He makes me really angry, sometimes. I know he can't help it, but I don't want to always excuse him as some of the things he does are just so out of order, but at the same time he's my brother... he's my only brother and I love him. Underneath all the anger and frustration that he directs at us is vulnerability, he needs us. I do feel very protective over him because he can't fight his own battles, he needs people to fight for him. And that's me, that's my job. I'll always look after him, always be there for him. Always.
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