Autistic brother had aggressive episodes with sister — she refused to give up and the result was incredibly astonishing

It can be hard to communicate with people who have autism but the secret lies in realizing that they have the purest hearts — all you need is patience. A woman (@euwenandme) shared that her 23-year-old older brother, Euwen, who has autism, also had quite a challenging time figuring out how to communicate with her. The initial days were devastating due to aggressive episodes that caused him to get impulsive and violent. It was tough for her to get through to him but she refused to give up. She remained patient through the exhausting and trying process and the result was heart-melting. 

In a video, the woman mentioned that her brother was diagnosed at a very young age. Sharing the story of her brother on Instagram, the young woman explained that the initial days were tough. Sharing glimpses through time, she noted that it wasn’t always emotional and happy. There were days it was frustrating, anger-causing and annoying. Recalling an instance, she said, “There was a day, I sat in my living room, looking across at Ewen. His head bowed, grunting beneath his breath, plucking the hairs out his eyebrows with his own fingers.”

Her brother was having a meltdown and was mad at his sister for not being around. She, at the time, was spending her hours studying for exams. She abruptly “awoke to be smacked across the face — For simply being asleep,” she recounted. Shocked, the sister tried to calm her brother down but in vain. “I looked at him. His eyes felt as if he genuinely hated the human being I was,” she said. She was hurt and thought she had triggered the meltdown and that it would be best if she left. “Except it wasn’t and Ewen became angrier and angrier,” she noted. She sat back down and her brother stopped screaming but he was still angry.

“My innocent existence was still making him punch himself blindly in the face,” she recalled. She was heartbroken to see his reactions and couldn’t understand how to respond. “Our ‘unbreakable’ bond felt like it was finally broken,” she wrote. Every time the woman tried to leave, he’d get more and more aggressive so she had to sit in the room. “I sat down. Without making a sound, and genuinely believed this was it forever. This will be my life from now on,” she wrote. It was devastating to be confused and exhausted at the same time.

“A broken home, parents afraid of their son and a brother I couldn’t breathe the wrong way around. It was like a life sentence of pain,” she remarked. She showed wounds she had from the extreme episodes her brother had. But things changed. In a video, the woman showed how she’d been clinging to her older brother since she was a toddler. She was never forced, it was her love that had her running to her brother from that little age and even years later. It took a few years, it took a lot of effort, it took failed attempts and small victories but “we made it to the other side.”

The brother learned things had to be different sometimes and the sister learned to accept and hold on because beneath that aggression, there was love. Her videos encapsulate it all — the challenge, the resilience and the love. Sharing transparent hope with fellow caregivers of autistic people, she wrote, “Our days are still very tough but we’re living proof that you can make it.”

You can follow (@euwenandme) to learn more about autism and caregiving and for more content on family relationships.