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My Sister, Mariah (As Written By Big Sister, Kelly, aged 11) (WARNING! Sensitive Subject Matter!!) by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Rated "PG" by the Author.
A big sister writes about her little sister, who suffers from autism and emotional trauma stemming from severe physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her birth parents.
My name is Kelly Maureen Williams, and I am 11 years old. My sister, Kim, and also my little sister, Mia, both mentioned yesterday that Kim and I are twins, but this is NOT the case. We ARE related by blood, we are blood cousins, but we are NOT twins. She goofed. Sure, we may LOOK a lot alike, and we may BOTH have spina bifida, but we are NOT twins! We live in Soulbysville, California, which is 50 miles from Sacramento, and it is pretty hilly country. It is also football country; football is big here, but as for me, I could really care less. For one thing, there aren't many places that are accessible to us disabled people, and it really makes me mad. I am especially mad about it because my cousin (and now SISTER!), Kim, and myself, are both disabled with spina bifida, and I am in a wheelchair, and she uses one too, but she also can walk on crutches and leg braces. Sometimes we both get headaches, but I have them more than Kim does, and sometimes the pain is so bad I have to lie down, and mom has had to go to the hospital because her headaches are so severe. She recently had surgery, and she is now back home recovering, but for a while, we thought that she was going to die; and it was a scary time. (Our headaches are caused by hydrocephalus, or water on the brain, and the fluids in our brain don't drain properly, so this is why we have these headaches. We do have shunts to help drain the fluid, but sometimes the shunts can get blocked up somehow, and this was what happened to mom before she went to the hospital and had her surgery.) It is hard for us to get to a lot of places, and a lot of times, we often have to be carried in to a place or have to look for a place that has elevators or a ramp, and it rally makes me mad! Some people really don't know how to use their heads!!
Now, my cousin (and now sister!) Kim is more outgoing than me, but I am the moodier, quieter one. I am too serious, mom says, and everyone I meet says that too. But I am NOT here to write about myself. I am here to write about my sister, Mariah Lee, instead.
Mariah Lee is a great little sister, if you can get past the fact that she is in her own little world a lot of the time and doesn't act like most nine-year-olds. She doesn't talk but very little, and she doesn't look at you half the time, so half the time you really don't know if she is listening or paying attention to you. She gets her mind fixated on one thing, and sometimes she will be interested in the weirdest things. For example, she will find little pieces of stuff on the floor, and she will stare at it for over an hour, or she will flap her hands in front of her face and just stare at it; and she will be also doing stuff like rocking back and forth or making weird noises that can get annoying after a while. Or she will repeat words she will say on television, and she will also laugh at the weirdest things. One time there was a car wreck in front of our house, and when she saw the crunched up cars, she started laughing like nobody's business. It was embarrassing! Or she will lie on the carpet, and grind her face in the carpet until it is rubbed raw, or she will spend half the night awake and she will spend it banging her head against the wall until I am ready to wring her fool neck!
Mariah has something called autism. Autism, to the best of my knowledge, is a neurological disorder that can affect kids, and it manifests itself in very strange ways. In a nutshell, autism can cause serious developmental delays in a child if it is severe enough, and it is like the kid is growing backward somehow. Symptoms of autism can include limited socialization skills with other people, abnormal behaviors such as frequent hand flapping, body rocking, inappropriate behaviors, or abnormal fixation on objects or people. Mariah doesn't talk much, and when she does, it is words she hears on tv, and sometimes she will pick up on bad language, which really upsets all of us, but in particular mom. Mom is raising us in a Christian environment, and some of the language that Mariah uses is NOT appropriate! Once at church she shouted the F word when people were at the alter for prayer, and when I looked at mom, she was red in the face, and I could tell that she was really embarrassed and wished that she wasn't even there! She was also running around, pinching people, and Francie and Linda got all upset and started crying, and Linda wet her pants, like she does when she is upset, and it was NOT a very good time to be at church THAT day! Oh, it was AWFUL!!
Mariah really doesn't understand that it is bad to do things like use the F word in church or pinch people, or act up; we try to tell her not to do these things, but I really don't think she understands. She is too involved in her own little world, and it is like she is tuning us out, and it really bothers me. It's like she is on another planet somewhere, and it is sometimes scary to see because she has no sense of danger, and she isn't afraid of most things, but what she IS afraid of are things that are harmless to most people, things like dust bunnies (just the sight of them can cause her to scream or burst into tears), food touching one another on her plate (she does NOT like food touching on her plate; if it does, she will throw a huge duck fit!!), or shoes. For some reason, shoes scare her, and if she sees any shoes, she will cry. (This is one reason why she goes barefoot so much, even in public places.) She won't stop until the shoes are taken away, and it is really weird when one thinks of the things she is afraid of. She also doesn't like dogs, and she also doesn't like mustaches or beards on men; those will cause her to get upset too.
Mariah isn't toilet trained; she wears diapers and is scared of the toilet when it flushes; I guess she thinks she is going to be flushed down it, so she is continuing to wear diapers, and sometimes if she has an accident, she can smell pretty bad, and it is embarrassing when I have to explain to other kids why my nine-year-old sister wears diapers. That is another thing about her: when she poops in her diapers, I guess she likes the feel of it, so she will smear her poop all over, and make a horrible, smelly, disgusting mess; and yet, we can't get mad at her because as I said earlier, she doesn't really know how to behave or know right from wrong, and it is really hard for mom to have a kid like Mariah. Mariah is a challenge, and she can definitely try one's patience if one isn't used to her odd ways!
Mariah came to us when she was a few years old, and she came to us from nearby Truckee, California. Unfortunately, she was abused, and I think this is one thing that may have contributed to her odd behavior; she definitely doesn't act like a typical nine-year-old, and she has a lot of emotional problems. She is scared of a lot of things, and when one goes to hug her or reaches above her, she will flinch or start crying, like she thinks one of us is going to hit her; and that is always upsetting to see. It's like she doesn't even trust us, and it really bothers me. (Her body is covered with old scars from burns from matches or cigarettes, and you can see old fractures she had. Her legs are bowed and deformed, and she still has pain in her body when the weather is going to change.) It's really horrifying to think of what Mariah has had to endure from her parents, and now, whenever I see her act in her weird, odd manner, I can understand why she acts so peculiar, and why she is the way she is. She is a scared little girl who was treated horribly in life, and it damaged her; and it is going to have to take an awful lot of work on our part to try to bring her out of her shell and hope that God can bring her a Healing for her mind, spirit, AND her body, and FINALLY give this troubled little girl the peace of mind she rightfully deserves!
this is a wonderful story, but I must point out one minor detailm Truckee is about six hours away from Soulsbyville, but this is an excellent story...
God Bless
~Michelle~
educational write, but heartbreaking to read of this young girl's problems...people shouldn't judge unless they've been in another's shoes...and in this way, you make the reader feel like they are there, experiencing the life of your character. great job! *applause*
The familiar lament of dual-career parents raising children is, "I just can't do it all." The Libra Solution provides an alternative - a more satisfying and sustainable work and life approach - to the overwrought modern day norm.
The familiar lament of dual-career parents raising children is, "I just can't do it all." The Libra Solution provides an alternative - a more satisfying and sustainable work and life approach - to the overwrought modern day norm.
The familiar lament of dual-career parents raising children is, "I just can't do it all." The Libra Solution provides an alternative - a more satisfying and sustainable work and life approach - to the overwrought modern day norm.
My name is Kelly Maureen Williams, and I am 11 years old. My sister, Kim, and also my little sister, Mia, both mentioned yesterday that Kim and I are twins, but this is NOT the case. We ARE related by blood, we are blood cousins, but we are NOT twins. She goofed. Sure, we may LOOK a lot alike, and we may BOTH have spina bifida, but we are NOT twins! We live in Soulbysville, California, which is 50 miles from Sacramento, and it is pretty hilly country. It is also football country; football is big here, but as for me, I could really care less. For one thing, there aren't many places that are accessible to us disabled people, and it really makes me mad. I am especially mad about it because my cousin (and now SISTER!), Kim, and myself, are both disabled with spina bifida, and I am in a wheelchair, and she uses one too, but she also can walk on crutches and leg braces. Sometimes we both get headaches, but I have them more than Kim does, and sometimes the pain is so bad I have to lie down, and mom has had to go to the hospital because her headaches are so severe. She recently had surgery, and she is now back home recovering, but for a while, we thought that she was going to die; and it was a scary time. (Our headaches are caused by hydrocephalus, or water on the brain, and the fluids in our brain don't drain properly, so this is why we have these headaches. We do have shunts to help drain the fluid, but sometimes the shunts can get blocked up somehow, and this was what happened to mom before she went to the hospital and had her surgery.) It is hard for us to get to a lot of places, and a lot of times, we often have to be carried in to a place or have to look for a place that has elevators or a ramp, and it rally makes me mad! Some people really don't know how to use their heads!!
