Please Don't Hug Me

by Kay Kerr

  ‘Is quitting your job something you had been thinking about, or wanting to do for a while?’ she said.

  I should have just told her I’d been contemplating it, like a normal person would before making such a huge decision. That wasn’t the truth, though.

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it until I did it, and I didn’t mean to do it, anyway,’ I said.

  I could tell she didn’t believe me. ‘Why do you think you made that choice in that moment, then?’ she said as if she was trying to make me realise that it was a choice.

  For the record, I really find it hard to believe anyone would happily clean up a shit in a change room like it’s a normal thing. I don’t think I opposed the idea of cleaning up human waste because I’m autistic, which is what I think she was getting at. It’s what she is always getting at. I did my best to be honest and direct, even though I still can’t really figure out how I ended up quitting my job.

  ‘I don’t know, it didn’t feel like a choice. I didn’t want to clean up a shit and then my mind was just jumbled and Great White Molly was saying one thing with her words and something else with her face and I just left. I wanted to get out of there.’

  Dr Lim barely listened to my response if her follow-up question was anything to go by. ‘Do you think you might have trouble with someone else telling you what to do?’

  Ugh, what! I’m a teenage delinquent rebelling against authority. Give me a break. I’m perfectly happy abiding by authority. I live for it really. Maybe I will end up being a cop, which is what you always called me when I told Mum what I’d seen you get up to. You never told me not to tell her. I didn’t realise my fourteen-year-old brother shouldn’t have been smoking in the mango tree after school. If you’d told me not to tell, I wouldn’t have, by the way. So I told Dr Lim that authority is not something I have trouble with, because it isn’t. Mum and Dad and my teachers and Dee and the bus driver and Mitch and you tell me what to do all the time, and I don’t mind. People love to tell me what to do, and what to think, and how I should be acting. I’m used to it. Dr Lim said I need to think about it anyway. It’s funny to me when people say ‘think about it’ as though I need any reminder to go over things in my mind again and again and again. It would be more valuable to tell me ‘don’t think about it’, but nobody seems to worry about that.

  Dr Lim also wanted to talk about Schoolies. She always wants to talk about Schoolies. She wants to talk about it nearly as much as everyone in year twelve does. She wanted to role-play what a day at Schoolies would be like for me, ‘to get me thinking about the reality of it,’ she said. As if I’m not already thinking about it almost as much as I think about my cringe list. But I did the role-play, because I don’t want her thinking I’ve got a problem with authority when I don’t. I just think her suggestions sometimes miss the mark. So, a day at Schoolies—you could help me out with this one. I told her I’d probably get up and have breakfast and read the news, like I do at home, and maybe go to the beach for a morning swim. She said the beach would be very crowded, but I told her I’d just walk along the sand until I found a quiet spot. Then maybe we’d make lunch and go shopping or to one of the planned activities. There are competitions and games and heaps of stuff, I read about it on the website. Dr Lim told me those would be crowded too. Maybe though, maybe we’ll stay in our apartment and play board games and swim in the pool and go in the spa and just enjoy not having to be in class. It’s going to be so good.

  That led us back to the job thing. She asked if I’m worried about not having a job. If she knows me at all she knows I’m worried. I’m worried because I need to pay board to Mum and Dad as well as save for Schoolies. I need to find a new job and save at least $100 a week, and that figure goes up by $10 a week for every week I don’t have a job. I’m worried because if I go two weeks without a job I won’t be able to find one that pays enough to cover board and Schoolies, so I’ll have to choose one and Mum needs the board money so I’ll miss Schoolies, and everyone is supposed to do Schoolies when they finish school. As I was explaning all of this, Dr Lim put her hand up to stop me.

  ‘Stop there, Erin,’ she said. ‘Remember we talked about cycling like this. You are working too many steps ahead and causing yourself unnecessary anxiety. Let’s focus on the next step only. Getting a job. Have you started looking?’

  I told her about the job I saw online for an animal trainer at Australia Zoo. She laughed, which I thought was a bit rude. She said my next job doesn’t have to be forever, just good and stable enough to get me to the end of the year. As if I hadn’t already figured that I need to find a job to work for ninety-six more hours. That doesn’t sound like too much does it?

  My ideal places to work, if I could choose anywhere at all, would be:

  The library

  Book shop

  Cinema

  Museum (preferably in the dinosaur section)

  The antique centre.

  Dr Lim says I’m struggling because I’m about to finish school, but I don’t even like school so I don’t think she’s right. Sometimes I think she is the best psychologist in the world and I wouldn’t get through my days without the things she has taught me, and other times I think she’s like a psychic at a market stall and I just want to believe what she’s telling me. Psychologists work with people whose minds need help, so of course we’re going to want to do what they say to get better.

  I asked if I could keep my cringe list if I also keep writing you letters, and although Dr Lim didn’t seem happy she decided that was okay for now. I didn’t tell her I was planning to keep it up anyway even if she said no, because then she would think I was having trouble with someone telling me what to do. She did say writing to you is especially important for the next couple of months as I finish school and ‘transition to the next phase of my life’. She thinks our sibling relationship needs ‘healing’—that’s what she keeps saying. We need to see each other as fully formed people instead of only through the lens of ‘brother’ and ‘sister’. I don’t think things are that broken, but I guess the whole ‘not being here and not talking to me and not answering my letters’ is probably a sign that things are not great. So I’m going to keep writing, if that’s okay with you. The whole thing was her idea, and Mum thinks it’s great, but I’m pretty sure if Dr Lim told me standing on my head and reciting the alphabet backwards while playing the tambourine would help manage my outbursts, Mum would be down at Billy’s Music Hub buying the whole percussion section at the first opportunity. She trusts everything every person with a professional title tells her. She trusts everything she reads on Google. She trusts too much.

  Mum was waiting in the car when I finished up with Dr Lim and she was blasting that Adele song she likes, but she wasn’t singing. Who doesn’t sing to Adele? She asked if I’m still happy with Dr Lim, and I said I am.

  Dr Lim and I have a shorthand that makes talking to her easy. It would be exhausting to go back through everything from scratch with someone new. When I started seeing Dr Lim I felt so overwhelmed talking about myself I cried for the first three sessions, with no real reason to be crying. As you know, I didn’t have a traumatic childhood or anything. Our childhood was about as excruciatingly normal as they get. She probably assessed me as emotionally unstable because of all the crying, and she treated me like a sick old lady for a while. Finally, after three visits, I explained I didn’t ever cry when I was upset, only as a reaction to being overwhelmed or frightened, and our sessions have been much better since then.

  When I got home I decided to practise nice talking to myself, but I couldn’t get the hang of it. I can’t imagine you ever talk to yourself, nice or not, but if you have any tips I’d be glad to hear them. You seem like an ‘outside your head’ kind of person to me, but maybe that’s just because I’m not in there.

  ‘You are a good person who deserves to be happy,’ I said to myself. It sounds so strange saying it aloud. The problem is though, my mind is much quicker than my mouth so before I’d even finished say
ing it, my thoughts reply: ‘No you’re not. Of course you’re not. Remember that time in grade six you laughed when Miss Piggy Peggy wet herself? That was awful. She will probably never be happy because of that.’

  I don’t mean that I hear voices or anything, just that my thoughts seem have a mind of their own. Maybe that’s because of how my brain works. Maybe Dr Lim can control her thoughts, but I can’t control mine. So maybe the exercise would work for her, but it doesn’t for me.

  I think of my brain as having fewer wires than other brains, but those wires have to work harder than other people’s. My wires make me really good at remembering numbers and different kinds of dinosaurs and facts from the news. I don’t think I have the wires that help with remembering faces, which is why I use my nickname system. And I definitely don’t have the wire that helps with talking to people, or making ‘small talk’ as Mum calls it. If someone wants to talk about books like Harry Potter or TV shows or types of dinosaurs I have a lot to say. I can talk for hours. If they ask what I’m up to on the weekend or talk about other people, then I go with my scripted conversations, or I just say I have to go to the bathroom and find a way to get out. It’s too exhausting, all of that analysing of tiny cues and faces and voices, and then my brain mulls over every social interaction for days afterwards.

  It’s easier to limit conversations so I have less to worry about. It’s why I want to live with Dee next year if we both get into uni, because then I’ll have someone familiar to interact with when all of the newness gets too much. Dee wants to study marketing, and I’m going to study law. It seems like a good fit for someone like me.

  Dr Lim used to call it my Aspergers, but now she just says ASD, which sounds like a secret code or a children’s charity or something. Mum and Dad never call it anything, they just talk about my ‘challenges’ as though not saying autism might make it go away. I think they think it’s separate to me, like there’s a normal kid hiding in here somewhere, just being smothered by that pesky ASD. But it’s not like that, not at all. Without ASD there is no me, because it’s as much a part of who I am as my skin or my blood. I wish they’d get it. Do you get it?

  I’ve got to go because Ollie is standing at my bedroom door with that look on his face that makes you want to hug him, and holding his Batman and Spiderman figures. Let me paint an adorable picture for you.

  Ollie: (in just his undies and Spiderman mask) ‘Want to play Spiderman and Batman go camping?’ (excitement level 100, cuteness at 99.9).

  It’s a game he has just invented. You’d love it.

  Talk soon.

  Love, Erin

  August 18

  Dear Rudy,

  Have you ever been embarrassed? I can’t remember a time when I think you would have been, even when you ripped your pants at the basketball court that time and those girls saw your bum. You laughed harder than anyone, and it was real, not the fake kind I do when really I want to rip my guts out with humiliation. I guess what I’m trying to figure out is whether I’m living an embarrassing life, or I just feel those feelings more than other people, like my threshold for shame is lower or something. Writing it down like that doesn’t really make sense, so I’ll just tell you what happened today.

  At lunchtime Pointy Kathy and Dee and Jessica Rabbit were talking about Schoolies—as if there is anything else they can talk about these days. They were listing the drinks they were going to bring, like vodka and tequila and Bacardi.

  ‘And milk,’ I said, speaking for probably the first time all lunch hour.

  Dee looked at me like I had shit on my face. She mouthed ‘WTF’, and she laughed a different laugh to her normal one. It was meaner.

  I hesitated, then explained. ‘I mean for cereal… In the mornings.’

  That didn’t make things better. Dee and Pointy Kathy started cackling and Jessica Rabbit sneered. Dee used the voice she usually reserves for people she doesn’t like. ‘Okay, well, you can bring milk like a weirdo and we’ll bring drinks that will actually do something.’

  They were talking specifically about alcohol, even though no one said that. I still don’t really know what was wrong with suggesting milk, because we WILL need it, but my stomach has been churning since that conversation and I feel worse than I would if a basketball court of hot guys had seen my bum. Sometimes Dee is my biggest advocate, and sometimes I feel like she’d break up with me if there were such a thing for friends. Usually it’s when other girls are around. I wish it could be just Dee and me in the apartment at Schoolies, because I’m starting to imagine what might happen if I say the wrong thing or buy the wrong drink and make a mess of the whole week.

  Your friendship dynamic at school was different, Rudy. It seemed easier. Maybe that’s a boy thing, or a personality thing, or a not-autistic thing. It’s hard to say. You and Tom and Damo and Matt all seemed to like each other a lot, but you also liked giving each other crap. Everyone was on board with that, though, and no one got more crap than the others. I kind of feel like I get most of the crap. Maybe I should tease Dee more often, but teasing always feels mean and not like a lot of fun to me.

  I saw Tom today, by the way, after school, in town while I was buying shampoo and earplugs. They didn’t have the little white ones that come in the yellow container that I like, which was a shame. He was walking past the chemist and he saw me and came in to say hi. He was asking about you, and asking about how I’m going. He seemed pretty sad. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, I’m just saying how it was. His skin was grey and he’s shaved his head. He looks like a prisoner. He said he might call over soon to see Mum and Ollie and to look for a flash drive he thinks he lent you ages ago. Maybe you should get in touch with him, even if you don’t seem to want to be in touch with me.

  I don’t know, I’d probably be mad if you did that. Maybe you should get in touch with everyone, all on the same day. Think about it.

  Love, Erin

  19 August

  Dear Rudy,

  We went to the movies tonight, as a family but not quite a whole family obviously, because you weren’t there. It was weird, but also kind of nice.

  Here’s what didn’t happen: we didn’t run late because you took too long getting ready, picking out the perfect combination of very old clothes to sit in a cinema with the lights off. Dad and Mum didn’t have a fight because she defended you and he wanted you to ‘get your act together’. Ollie didn’t make a big announcement about wanting to sit next to you and end up sitting on your lap. We didn’t get ice cream and walk along the waterfront afterwards like we did when you insisted on taking some time to look at the full moon.

  Here’s what did happen: we arrived ten minutes early and hung around in the foyer not really talking to each other. Mum and Dad held hands. Ollie made a big announcement about sitting next to me and ended up, well, sitting next to me. We went straight home afterwards and everyone went into their own rooms.

  We saw the new Marvel one, because Mum said Ollie could pick and of course that’s what he picked because he is obsessed with the Hulk still. I can’t remember what we even saw the last time we all went to the movies together, can you? Maybe it was around the time things were sad for you and hard for me and Mum and Dad were not getting along and Oliver was wetting the bed. I don’t think we’ve been since. We saw The Last Jedi which was very cool. Much cooler than the Marvel one we saw tonight, and not just because you were there, so don’t get a big head about that, okay.

  I was wondering today if things ever really got better for you after that, or if you just got better at hiding them. It seemed like they did, and maybe time is giving me too much perspective. I know I’m not supposed to think that has anything to do with…you know, but it’s hard when we just don’t know. Mum and Dad probably know more than I do, and I definitely know a lot more than Ollie, but it’s not a competition so I guess it doesn’t really matter. My brain just likes things to be a certain way, so that I can trace over the lines when I need to and know how things are. I don’t know where th
e lines go for this, so I’m trying out all the different ways they could go so I can convince myself one is right. It was just a bit sad tonight, Rudy, even though we all got to share a large popcorn. I hope you make it to our next movie night. Your pick, I promise.

  Love, Erin

  20 August

  Dear Rudy,

  Okay, so don’t laugh, but I got a job at Robins. Not because of what Dr Lim said, or Mum either, although Mum thinks she can take full credit for suggesting it in the first place. I wasn’t contemplating applying for a job there, I was just walking past, but there was this girl, Rudy. I saw her and I had to go in. That sounds like one of those movie ‘love at first sight’ moments when I write it like that, and I guess it was a bit, but for friends. Her name is Aggie, which is short for Agnes. I know, it’s an old-lady name for an old-lady shop, but she isn’t old and it suits her just right. I don’t have a nickname for her yet; she’s too many things. The best thing she is, though, is my friend. Mine. Not yours. I’ll never get over how annoying it was when I’d bring home someone new to play with and by the end of the day, they were hanging out with you. Even Dee has always thought you were the cooler one. It’s hard not to think you did that on purpose. I know it probably had more to do with you being good at asking about people’s weekends, but still. I don’t think your friends even knew my name until last year.