Autistic Hedgehog

Well, Jay, my question for you is: Do under even understand why it makes you uncomfortable?

It’s important to understand why you feel the way you feel, even if facing it might be uncomfortable. You’ve been honest with yourself that you have this problem to begin with, which is good.

Now, do you feel this way because someone else’s stimming or meltdowns, which can be loud or distracting or numerous other things, overload your own senses? Is it because you, like everyone else, have been taught your whole life that this sort of thing is supposed to make us feel uncomfortable? (Hooray, ableism.) Is it because there’s a part of you that fears that somehow anyone around you might see this person and make some sort of leap that you, too, are autistic (even if you’re not stimming or having a meltdown at the time)? Maybe it’s all of those things. Maybe it’s a combination of two of them. Maybe it’s something else. But discovering the reason will help you if you really want to change how you feel.

You’re also going to need patience and understanding, both for the other people and for yourself. This isn’t something you can change overnight, so don’t get too frustrated with yourself when you can’t stop those feelings right away. We’re often raised in societies that teach us that it’s rude to stare at people who are disabled, rude to ask questions, etc. etc., but really what we end up being taught is that it’s rude to acknowledge the existence of disabled people and, if we do, it’s rude to feel anything but discomfort and pity. We’re taught that there’s a stigma just by being near or like disabled people, and even when we’re disabled ourselves, we can’t easily escape having those lessons etched into our brains. 

This doesn’t make you a bad person, it really doesn’t. You’d be a bad person if you didn’t give a damn, but clearly you do. Now you need to accept that you’re not perfect, that you probably won’t change your feelings and get this right instantly, and that will help. 

And like I said, patience and understanding for the other person(s) involved. You know what they’re going through, you’re in a better place to empathize than anyone else. You actually understand, to some extent at the least, what drives their behavior, so you know there’s no real reason it should be so stigmatized. You know, somewhere inside you, that society is in the wrong for judging people, and part of getting over this will likely be learning not to give a damn what society thinks of you.

It’s hard to get away from what society teaches us; even when we’re autistic, a lot of those lessons burrow their way in. Shaking them off takes time, patience and acceptance, and what you need to do more than anything else is give yourself (and other people like you) all three of those. 

(Cont.) the annoyance of friends and family. And myself. It’s frustrating sometimes, but I can get some level of control over it so I’m not pacing or darting about in public.

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Well, I don’t know if it's exactly the same, but I do my best thinking and imagining when I’m moving in some way. I end up doing a lot of planning for my stories while I’m walking, or when I’m in a moving vehicle (which has led to me having to assure people, over and over again, then I’m fine while in a bus or car–I’m just thinking).

I’ve learned to control my movements, because if I’m, say, thinking through a conversation between two characters in my head, I sometimes follow through with their gestures and stuff. People tend to stare when one does that.

Anyone else?

Stimming can help you stop a meltdown or recover from one, or may occur during one–it’s generally a repetitive movement done for comfort (though plenty of us stim out of happiness or excitement, too). Classic stims are things like rocking or flapping one’s hands, but a number of other behaviors count as well (I tend to like to rub satin ribbon).

The thing about defining a meltdown is that a) they’re not precisely the same for all of us and b) I suspect they change shape and form from childhood to adulthood.

How you meltdown depends entirely on you. You might get angry (this is common in children and is, sadly, often dismissed as tantrums), you might cry, you might scream, you might go completely numb. The most important factor and the thing that distinguishes a meltdown more than anything else, though, is this: You will not care what other people think about you while it’s happening.

This is very important for recognizing what a meltdown is to you. Me, I tend to cry (though in certain situations I cry until I get angry, at which point I often find the strength to get myself through, which is different from when I was younger) and I will sob my eyes out without noticing or caring that there are people all around me. 

In the end, a meltdown occurs when you’re so overwhelmed by something that you can’t handle it anymore, and the response is usually an outburst of emotion (but can be the complete absence of it). Knowing when you yourself are having an actual meltdown is going to take a bit of time and thought on your part. After the dust clears on a particularly emotional moment for you, look back at it. Were you somewhere others could see and didn’t care what they thought of your behavior? Even if you were alone, did it matter to you if someone saw you? Learning to recognize these things will tell you when you’re having a meltdown. 

I’ve never experienced this problem myself, so I have absolutely no idea.

Anyone else have any sort of experience with this kind of thing and/or advice on how to deal with it?

Allistic simply means not autistic.

I don’t hate allistic people. Or more specifically, I don’t hate all allistic people, but I certainly have low patience for the ones mentioned here, who behave in these ways. A lot of times we (that is, autistic people) are told we’re supposed to be nice, to appreciate our so-called allies even when they treat us like crap and say horrible things about us, and those are the allistics we tend to have issues with. (Or the ones who are straight up asshats.)

Anyone is welcome to follow AH, whether they’re autistic or not. However, in the end, this is a place for autistic people to vent their frustrations, and this often means that we’re going to be frustrated with allistic people. If you can understand that and are okay with it, you’re more than welcome to stay. All I ask is that you don’t try to tell us how we’re supposed to feel or act.

I don’t really know for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I have some similar issues. The biggest problem I have is that if my mood is already bad or if I’m not feeling well in some other way, I get terrified to be out on my own. But also, when I’m depressed, it’s easier for me to miss certain social cues and I can be more sensitive to other issues as well.

Anyone else experience something like this?

I have no idea, but probably. Well, unless one flaps for reasons other than happiness. I tend to flap out of some form of anxiety. I think. I don’t fully recognize the emotion that causes me to flap.

But I suppose if it is your happy stim, then it makes perfect sense that doing it more means you’re happy more often. 

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?