Autistic Hedgehog

Oh boy. I’m not entirely sure I, personally, should be answering this question. My relationship with school was uh, rocky, to say the least. Usually when people bring up education, especially education for people like me, my communication skills go all kind of…camel-like. 

What I think is that the way schools divide children up into “good kids” and “behavioral problems” is majorly problematic and fucked up, and that right there makes the question a bit tough. However, basing it on the system as it currently stands: I think it’s a horrible idea to put autistic children with rowdy, loud children for long periods of time. I was always, always in with the wrong group of kids in one way or another and now I can’t go into a school building without having panic attacks. 

Mind you, there are a lot of reasons kids are loud and troublesome, and just saying they have behavioral problems and handling them all that way is in itself a very bad idea. But autistic people especially have an extra issue when it comes to all our sensory problems. No autistic person should have to be in a loud, chaotic situation they did not choose to put themselves into. Ever. 

Well, I do occasionally get so overwhelmed that I can’t speak. It happened recently, too.

Last week I had to go for blood work. I loathe needles; they terrify me, due to some trauma I don’t even remember. It’s gotten worse as I got older, especially since I moved to Sweden, since for some reason people here have a damn hard time finding my veins. One of the last few times I went, they ended up with three people crowding me trying to find a vein. They had to stick me three or four times in several different spots, and one of them refused to listen when we said they couldn’t take blood from my wrist (I bruise badly) and caught the spot where my RSD is.

This time went very smoothly, but even so, by the time it was done I couldn’t speak for a little while. I knew what I wanted to say, but the words simply wouldn’t come out. All I managed for a while was a few little squeaks.

So these sorts of things can and do happen to us, I think. Anyone else experience these kinds of things? 

(Not a clue. If you’re referring to who I think you’re referring to, though, I think the word ‘asshat’ fits said person nicely.)

I’ll try not to ramble too much. Basically, as of this point, I don’t get a lot of submissions; most of the hedgehogs come from my time spent on tumblr and other places online. 

But you see, this year I’m doing NaNoWriMo. For me, it’s a discipline exercise. I’ve been having all sorts of writing discipline problems and–well, it’s a long story. But I’ve discovered that part of my problem is that I’ve allowed myself to get too into the habit of being distracted by the internet. In order to succeed, I need to keep my browser closed and really focused. Thus, I don’t know how much time I’ll have to spend on hedgehogs.

So I kept those two in reserve. Because I don’t know if I’ll get submissions, and that way I’ll have at least a couple of things to post in November, so AH won’t be completely idle the entire month. 

(I’m a resource hoarder like that. Seriously. I’m the easiest person to beat in games like Monopoly and Carcasonne because I hold onto everything. Because what if I don’t have it later!? XD)

I’m not sure, but it sounds plausible. I don’t tend to have such problems, so I can’t really comment reliably about it.

Anyone else find they have similar issues? 

Also, the lack of empathy that autistics are notorious for is very apparent in you - the OP has a case of cancer in the family, ill parents, suffers from depression, tries to handle college and create some stable future so she could always be helpful to her sister. But YOU twist her words like she is some crybaby making her sister’s autism ‘all about herself’. You make it sound like all of the OP’s REAL LIFE PROBLEMS are irrelevant and she has no right to be sad, worried, or depressed I’m one of the rare (it seems) autistics with a lot of empathy, so I understand that people get sad, depressed, worried when faced with a very difficult life. It shocks me over and over again, the hypocrisy of autistics who demand unconditional acceptance and respect when it comes to their feelings and behavior, but have utter lack of respect for feelings of others, and no compassion for any allistic’s problems, no matter how difficult. Acceptance and respect should be RECIPROCAL Anyway, won’t be visiting your blog anymore. If you want to convince people that autistics can have a happy life, you can start by showing that you yourself are a positive and happy person, well-grounded and with a good character, without crabbing about petty things and belittling anyone’s problems except your own.

——–

I find it funny you criticize my reading comprehension when you a) chose to completely ignore that I was talking about multiple of those types of posts (of which there were several in the autism tag this morning alone) and b) apparently didn’t read the part where the poster in question complained about what they would do if something happened to their parents, as if said sibling would just never be able to do anything for herself. As if she would never be able to cope with the world, as if all was lost.

What makes you think you have a right to come here, insult autistic people by saying they have no empathy, pat yourself on the goddamn back for what a special empathetic autistic person you supposedly are, and then call us hypocrites? You think you’re better than us because you can be nasty to us when we don’t want to be treated like we’re burdens, like life is never going to be good for us? 

Let’s get something straight: I do not have to be a happy cheerful rainbow barfing sideshow puppy. I’m not going to be nice and suppress my every negative feeling to spare the feelings of the poor allistics who will never experience what it’s like to be me. Been there, done that, owned several different T-shirts on the matter. I do not have to be positive about people who whine about how horrible it is for them, that someone they know is autistic. None of us do. 

Please, go, and don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. This is a place for autistics to express their frustration with the way the world treats us; it was made for that and it is in fact stated right on the blog that that is it’s purpose. It is not a place to pander to the feelings of allistic people, not a place that demands we change how we think and hide who we are. You want a place that doesn’t offer you that? Go just about anywhere else in the world, you’ll find it.

I’ve actually seen a lot of your posts to Autistic Kitten and it’s so nice to see a parent doing it right. I just wish there were more parents and family members like you. It makes such a huge difference when people get it. 

I aim to misbehave please. :)

As to the fan mail button…I’m not sure. I think it might be because this is a secondary blog. I can’t find anything in the settings to change it, so that’s my best guess. 

I can’t speak for other places, but the community here on tumblr is very accepting of self-diagnosis. 

Anyone else know of any other good places?

Not only is it possible, but a relatively recent (and, to my dismay, considered “radical”) hypothesis is that autistic people feel too much empathy. This fits with my own experiences, and I’ve seen a number of autistics on tumblr say the same.

The thing is, this hypothesis states that the problem isn’t lacking emotions, but feeling them too acutely and struggling to process them. As well, we just don’t necessarily process them in a way that allistic people recognize.

The two attributes combine to cause a double problem: First, that we tend to shut down when emotions get too strong, or detach ourselves from the situation, thus making it look like we don’t have emotions or empathy; and second, we internalize the allistic idea of empathy to such an extent that it’s easy even for us to assume we don’t have it.

It’s true, autistic people have empathy to varying degrees, but we do tend to have it. We may not have it in all the situations allistics think we should, we may not know how to show it, or even how to feel it in a way that we understand what we’re feeling. But there is absolutely nothing to stop someone on the autism spectrum from being empathetic and it’s my sincerest wish to see the notion that autistic people have no empathy die a very swift and brutal death, very soon. 

You know what? I just don’t buy that at all. That is stinkin’ bullshit.

The people who put so much time and effort into Autism $peaks can damn well put some time into researching them. In fact, they should. A lot of charities are bogus, a lot of them don’t do what they say they do, and if possible, one should always do the research before donating to such organizations. 

The app, if you look at it, is for people invested in A$ or for people looking for information. They really don’t have excuses and I’m getting tired of excusing people on the internet who can’t be arsed to type in G-O-O-G-L-E. 

I think that’s one of those things that kind of depends how you look at it.

A lot of autistic people tend towards being introverted, but I’d question how much of that comes from the autism. I think a more serious study, divorced from the stereotypes of autism, is needed to really get a good perspective on that.

I was a very outgoing child and quite gregarious, in many ways, given the chance. I played by myself a fair bit when I was younger, but a lot of that was simply that I had yet to develop any concept of needing others to be happy. But I always tried to make friends, and liked being around other people, and I’m much more introverted now, as an adult, after everything I’ve been through.

So I guess what I’m saying is there’s some sort of connection, but whether it's related as such, I think that requires a much more complicated and nuanced answer. A lot of so-called researchers wouldn’t hesitate to consider them related, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. 

Um…yeah, that is pretty ableist. And generally no, you can’t. If you know what to look for you might see some signs, but these are things like an unwillingness to make eye contact or stimming behaviors. And it’s important to note that none of these things are guarantees that someone is autistic. 

If you’re concerned about potentially upsetting someone with autism and are hoping to find a way to avoid that, a good rule of thumb is to respect everyone’s boundaries. Don’t yell or scream or make other loud noises, don’t touch or hug people without their permission, avoid dousing yourself in perfume or smoking in public (we have a tendency to be very sensitive to smells) and if you see someone you suspect is having an autistic meltdown or is stimming, don’t stare and don’t judge.