Patricia Matsuda and Cody Matsuda
Patricia “Pattie” Matsuda and Cody Matsuda are younger sister and older brother. Pattie repeatedly defended Cody from classmates who exploited his trust, but during childhood she struggled to understand the exhaustion caused by his ME/CFS. After his 1995 suicide attempt left him nonspeaking, she learned ASL to communicate with him. In 1998, Cody used his AAC device to advocate for Pattie when pregnancy rumors and school discipline placed her under growing pressure.
Overview
Pattie was born on November 3, 1982, three years after Cody’s February 15, 1979 birth. Both siblings were autistic; Pattie also had ADHD. Cody was gentle, intellectually gifted, vulnerable to social manipulation, and limited by ME/CFS. Pattie was physically active, impulsive, and fiercely protective. Her willingness to fight classmates who targeted him led to repeated suspensions. Yet she could also demand, “Why are you always sleeping? Just TRY harder!” because she mistook his exhaustion for a failure of effort. Their different capacities caused pain alongside their loyalty to each other.
Origins
Pattie was the third child of Ellen and Greg Matsuda, after Susie and Cody. Cody loved reading and increasingly needed extensive rest; Pattie sought movement, climbed, and found sitting still difficult. Their different needs shaped their interactions before the family had an explanation for both siblings’ neurotypes and illnesses.
Cody was twice-exceptional, with an IQ above 140 alongside autism that had not been diagnosed during childhood. His intellectual gifts did not protect him from classmates who lied to him, tricked him, or disguised cruelty as sincerity. He often realized what they had done only afterward and felt humiliated. Pattie recognized the pattern and physically confronted students who exploited his trust, although she struggled to understand why he seldom fought back.
During their school years, Pattie’s physical retaliation often led to suspension. Ellen challenged the bullying and the discipline Pattie received, while Greg tried to help Cody recognize manipulation and Pattie find responses other than fighting. The schools’ failure to protect Cody and their repeated punishment of Pattie left both children bearing the cost of needs that were poorly understood or accommodated.
Dynamics and Communication
Pattie’s speech was blunt, loud, and often immediate. She asked Cody, “Why are you ALWAYS sleeping?” “Just TRY harder!” and “Why won’t you FIGHT BACK?” Even when she intended to help, her volume and urgency could overwhelm him. During childhood, she did not understand that pushing harder could worsen his illness rather than overcome it.
Cody spoke gently and with care before his 1995 attempt, but his explanations of fatigue did not always reach Pattie. Acquired motor apraxia of speech after the resulting anoxic brain injury made him nonspeaking without reducing his intelligence or language comprehension. He used AAC, ASL, writing, gesture, and vocalization; typing or signing could require time and energy that Pattie’s rapid speech did not allow for unless she slowed down.
Pattie often intervened before Cody asked her to, defending him from bullies and from people who treated his disabilities as evidence of lesser worth. Her protection coexisted with frustration that he could not simply retaliate or remain awake as she could.
For Cody, that defense provided safety, but Pattie’s demands also hurt. He was already exerting himself to function each day; being told to “try harder” or “stop being weak” made his gentleness and exhaustion feel like failures in her eyes. He could appreciate her loyalty and still feel pressured by the way she expressed it.
Cultural and Family Context
The siblings’ different autistic presentations developed within a mixed Japanese American and white household and in Pasadena schools during the 1980s and 1990s. Their experience also differed by gender, physical capacity, and the way adults interpreted their behavior.
Cody’s quiet, intellectually focused presentation fit the gifted-student image that schools rewarded, even as staff dismissed his disabling fatigue. Pattie’s impulsive, physical presentation, shaped in part by ADHD, was repeatedly treated as behavioral defiance. Gendered expectations also influenced responses to a girl whom adults described as aggressive, uncontrolled, or “too much.” Neither sibling’s childhood experience was adequately explained by the labels adults applied.
Ellen used documentation and institutional advocacy; Greg approached problems methodically. Pattie’s first response to harm often came through physical action. Her impulse was immediate: ‘’someone is hurting my brother and I will stop it now.’’ The same schools that disciplined her for fighting had failed to stop students from exploiting Cody. Ellen understood both the harm in Pattie’s violence and the institutional failure that preceded it.
Pattie also absorbed the assumption that enough effort could overcome any obstacle. It reinforced her childhood reading of rest as laziness and made Cody’s inability to stay awake or fight back difficult for her to understand. At twelve in spring 1995, she had not yet learned to distinguish effort from physical capacity.
During Pattie’s pregnancy, Cody advocated for her through his AAC device, defended her choices, and recognized what it meant to be dismissed or judged for circumstances beyond her control. Their family made room for support to flow in both directions: when Pattie needed protection and Cody could provide it, he did. The brother who had once received his sister’s fists as shields offered his typed words in her defense.
Shared History and Milestones
Early Childhood (1982–1990s)
From Pattie’s birth, the siblings lived with different needs for activity, quiet, and rest. Cody was gentle and often tired; Pattie was physically fearless and quick to protect him. Those differences sometimes strained their time together without displacing their affection.
School Years and Bullying (1990s)
Classmates repeatedly deceived or bullied Cody, and Pattie’s physical retaliation led to suspensions. Ellen advocated for Cody’s accommodations and challenged responses that treated Pattie as the sole source of the problem, while also addressing the harm caused by her fighting.
Pattie did not understand why Cody seldom fought back. To her, a physical response could seem like the direct answer to an attack; his fatigue and gentle temperament placed that response outside his capacity or preference. She mistook the difference for a choice.
Cody’s Suicide Attempt (Spring 1995)
When sixteen-year-old Cody attempted suicide in spring 1995, Pattie was twelve. Ellen gathered the family to explain what had happened. On hearing the word “suicide,” Pattie punched a hole in the living-room wall and screamed. Her response expressed terror at nearly losing him and anger at the suffering he had endured.
While Cody was hospitalized, Pattie fought students who said cruel things about him and reacted angrily to adults who whispered about him. Ellen had to address Pattie’s violence while supporting Cody’s recovery.
After Cody became nonspeaking, Pattie joined the family in learning ASL. The slower pace was difficult for her, and she took longer than some relatives to learn it, but she kept working until they could use both ASL and English together. She could not yet fully understand the dismissal, exhaustion, and hopelessness that had preceded his attempt; learning another way to speak with him was a concrete response within her reach.
Recovery After 1995
Cody rebuilt his life with Andy, AAC, and the Matsuda-Davis Homeschool Cooperative. Pattie remained protective and initially watched Andy with suspicion. Cody’s evident happiness with him gradually eased her concern, even while she was still learning to understand his fatigue. She sometimes joined the cooperative’s lessons when suspended or in need of a break from traditional school.
Pattie’s Pregnancy and School Change (1998)
Pattie became pregnant at fifteen and experienced severe nausea described as borderline hyperemesis gravidarum. Her clinicians discontinued her ADHD medication; later in the pregnancy she developed severe preeclampsia. Cody understood being dismissed and judged for circumstances beyond one’s control. He supported her decision to keep the baby and advocated for her through AAC and signing.
Main article: Cody Matsuda CHSPE Proposal (Spring 1998) - Event
After Pattie punched Clarissa Smalls amid escalating pregnancy rumors in April, Cody used his AAC device to argue for withdrawing her from the unsafe school environment and preparing for the California High School Proficiency Examination. Drawing on his and Andy’s experience, he offered to tutor her. His proposal gave practical form to the protection he could offer without fighting as she had fought for him.
Public vs. Private Life
At school, Pattie’s defense of Cody was often recorded as fighting and discipline. Ellen tried to make administrators recognize both the bullying Cody experienced and the reasons for Pattie’s response. The suspensions alone did not explain what had happened between the students.
Through Ellen’s advocacy work and the family’s wider network, others saw the siblings’ loyalty alongside the difficulties created by Pattie’s methods. Both children needed support that school discipline alone could not provide.
At home, Ellen and Greg saw the love and the misunderstandings together. They explained Cody’s need for rest to Pattie and addressed the hurt her demands caused him without dismissing her concern. The household made room for Cody’s quiet and rest, Pattie’s need for movement, and ASL after 1995.
Emotional Life
Pattie’s love for Cody could coexist with anger that she did not know how to help him. She understood his intelligence but initially mistook his inability to fight back or remain awake for weakness. His 1995 attempt frightened her because she had nearly lost him; her anger at the dismissal and cruelty he faced often emerged as further fighting and school discipline.
Cody knew Pattie would defend him, and that knowledge gave him some safety. Her repeated demands also made him feel that his illness and gentleness disappointed her. He felt gratitude for her loyalty alongside the pressure of needing protection he could not reciprocate in the same physical way.
After he became nonspeaking, Pattie’s effort to learn ASL mattered to Cody. It meant that she would adapt to his communication rather than require speech from him. Their frustration over fatigue did not erase that act of care.
Health and Communication Access
Cody’s ME/CFS required rest and accommodations that could clash with Pattie’s activity, rapid responses, and difficulty pausing before action. Their shared autism did not give them identical needs, and Pattie’s ADHD added another difference. Cody’s illness and Pattie’s autism were not fully understood during their childhood; she received her autism diagnosis in adulthood.
Cody’s acquired motor apraxia of speech after 1995 made AAC and signing central to family communication. Pattie learned to slow down enough for his responses, although her own style remained direct and energetic. Ellen and Greg sought quiet and rest for Cody, movement and ADHD accommodations for Pattie, and communication access for the household. The differing needs and repeated school crises added to their practical and emotional labor.
Changes in Their Relationship
The 1995 crisis exposed the force of Pattie’s fear and loyalty, as well as the harm her physical responses could cause. Her continued work to learn ASL marked a change in how she could support Cody. In 1998, Cody’s defense of Pattie and his plan for her education showed that protection could move in both directions and take different forms.
Long-Term Influence
Pattie’s relationship with Cody shaped how she understood loyalty, disability, and protection. Learning ASL taught her that care could require changing her own approach. Her protective instincts later informed how she cared for her daughter Lila and advocated for others.
For Cody, her fierce loyalty after his attempt, willingness to communicate through ASL and AAC, and eventual support for his relationship with Andy carried enduring reassurance, even though her demands had hurt him. As adults, they gained better language for disability and neurodivergence. Pattie came to recognize his fatigue as a real disability rather than a character flaw; Cody could value her protection while also being overwhelmed by it.