How many Siblings do you have?

[Rev. Rye]

The closest I have/had was a Westie my mother liked to call my "fuzzy brother." When I was in the first grade, the teacher asked if I had any brothers or sisters. I said I had a "fuzzy brother." She was concerned that it seemed I couldn't tell the difference between dogs and humans, and my mother had to explain that was her idea and I, as someone on the autism spectrum who had yet to grasp the metaphorical subtleties that should have been obvious in the phrase, just misinterpreted. As far as I could tell at the time, "fuzzy brother" was probably just a normal way for kids to refer to their pets. Surely, there wasn't anything unusual about Mum, I thought at the time. It took a while before I grasped how unusual (read: brains garnished with heavy chunks of the DSM-IV) my mother and I were.

Honestly, I think my parents figured out that having to deal with me (autistic and born the year Rain Man won the Oscar) was enough of a stressor without having to put someone else into the equation.