When it came to screaming, my mother had the ultimate revenge. She used the vacuum cleaner. I had an intolerance, even an auditory phobia to, and even now almost never vac… all polished floors here, sweep it, mop it, Chris vacs.

I never screamed the house down at my mother… you joking, she was already deadly… but I did scream like I was being murdered at my two brothers… the older one for daring to try and converse with me, not letting me control the knobs on the TV (stimming, quickly rolling the channel changer quickly left, right, left, right, the contrast, brightness, volume, up, down, breaking up the pictures, the words so I could laugh myself laugh-drunk at the surrealness). Screamed my head off too at the younger one for daring to enter my room without invitation (loved him but my room was my world)… I was functionally non verbal until I was 9-11 years old so you couldn’t reason with me, get agreement and I was determined to be queen of my domain. What a pain in the arse.

And fact is it really harmed my older brother to be almost friendless, lonely and have the only sibling his age being the nutter who stuffed her mouth with all of his monopoly houses, and screamed my head off every time he tried to converse with me.

My mother would just lay into me, I never understood that… after all it was between him and me… I didn’t understand she couldn’t hack it, or how isolating it was to him… and that he was too ashamed of me to make or bring friends home… after all I was just me… what was there to be ashamed of?

Sure, I had my undies on my head standing on a six foot pillar by the front gate singing arias to four lanes of traffic but what’s embarrassing about that? I was freeeee… free was not embarrassing… Don’t get me wrong, a psychopathic alcoholic will deck you for nought anyway, but being an intolerant screaming schizotypal autistic banshee didn’t help.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.