In honor of Autism Awareness Month we invited our readers to share their stories with us. We are sharing the stories throughout the month of April. Today’s story is from 13-year-old Elly.

Autism is like a person knocking at your door, but instead of opening the door, you just listen to the knock. As it grows louder, and stronger you… grow more stressed, and upset. Every knock is an event involving autism that just breaks you, makes you cry, makes you hurt. The breaks between each knock are the happy times, laughing, forgetting autism is really there.

My twin brother, Trevor, has Autism.

I sometimes wish life had a remote. I would be able to rewind our birth, and backspace the Autism. It really hurts. Not having that sibling relationship. Sometimes it feels like nobody understands, what it’s like to feel alone.

“Full of broken thoughts, that I cannot repair” –Nine Inch Nails

Writing this, for the first time have I actually thought about what a simple statement like that really means. That quote from the song Hurt, by Nine Inch Nails, to me ties into how sometimes I can’t sleep at night, I just think. Most the time I think about what life would be like if Trevor didn’t have autism, if I’d be happier, if my family would be stress-free. Those thoughts I can’t repair, they won’t go away. I can’t just give Trevor some magic pill and make the Monster we call Autism fade away, as much as I wish I could, I cant.

Since music is my escape from the world, I like to tie in my feelings to music from my favorite artists like Pearl Jam.

“I’m still alive” –Pearl Jam

Eddie Vedder is alive, you’re alive, I’m alive… sometimes things make it hard to breathe, thoughts can make the air feel thin, making you feel dead… but you ARE alive. With the feelings I’ve felt in my lifetime so far I’ve come to realize that I am alive, no matter what happens to me emotionally, in the moment, I am alive. I breathe, I eat, I smile, I cry, and I hurt.

I can’t tell you how exactly to feel better when it comes to the situation I am in, and I know other people are in, because I haven’t figured out how to feel better yet. Sometimes crying helps, getting your feelings out.

“I don’t want to hurt, there’s so much in this world to make me bleed.” –Pearl Jam

I don’t want Autism affecting my life the way it does. I know you may read things like “It just makes me stronger” because it does, but on the road to becoming stronger there is hurt.

Even as an adult, I will still be able to look back on these days as a teenager, and I will be able to cry… wishing I had the life that I had always wanted.

Autism is a monster, devouring the thoughts of what could’ve been. Autism is a mask, covering up who Trevor really is. Autism is rain, pouring some days, sprinkling on the others.

People are mean. They do mean things. Not long ago on an app called ask.fm (a website where people can ask people anonymous questions) I got “hate” on my brother. I wanted to make the person that said the questions hurt, but I didn’t. I did what was right and stood up for Trevor, trying as hard as I could to not be rude.

Why do they get to have it all? What makes them think it doesn’t hurt me? Do they want to make me hurt?

Autism- the knocking, the monster, the rain, the mask.

This was the last story in our autism awareness series. Thank you so much to our authors for sharing and to everyone for such supportive comments- we’re all in this together.

Read the other stories that have been shared: