Autistic Hedgehog

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.

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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. 

after they said they didn’t wanna talk and try to sit with them anyway. I’ve told him I’m too busy with school and other activities to hang out, but he just keeps asking. Plus, trying to understand how to speak with him and be friends with him is extremely draining for me because I’ve never had experience with this before. I don’t want to dump him because of who he is, but I also can’t deal with a friend right now who makes me more tired than I already am. Am I an awful person for thinking this?

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Wow. Loaded question. I’m sorry it took me so long to answer, but this one is kind of hard for me on a personal level. I had to take some time to think about it, because my knee-jerk reaction is a pretty angry one, and that’s not necessarily fair. We all have feelings that might seem awful at times, but in the end, what makes someone a bad person or a good person is how they act on their feelings. No one is such a saint that they never think a bad word about another person. 

I wish I had a bit more information. Have you actually hung out with him, or did you say you would and then keep blowing him off? Let’s be clear: None of us, no matter how lonely we get, ever want anyone to say they’ll hang out with us just to make us feel better. Not if they’re not going to follow up. Whatever else, please don’t ever do that, no matter how bad you feel for someone. I can see that you meant well, but in some cases it really does more harm than good. Too many of us have experiences with people who were insincere in their friendship, who used us as entertainment or punching bags or various other things. Not saying you’ve done that, just letting you know that it honestly is better at times to leave well enough alone. 

Now, where I run into a problem in terms of telling you whether this is so awful of you or not is that I don’t know this kid. I look at the behavior you describe and to me, it can be explained both with autism and with the kid just actually being a bit of a jerk. We can be jerks, after all, and usually it has nothing to do with the autism. I see the thing about the text messages, and it could be that he’s just impatient and thoughtless and doesn’t care about whether it bothers you–but I also know that autistics struggle to communicate in modes like text. We have so little to go on and we can panic really easily when we don’t hear back from people, because we can’t begin to guess what you’re thinking. (This is even worse for those of us who have been burned before, because it’s very easy, due to how those circumstances often play out, to assume the worst.) As well, some of us get a bit clingy when we find a friend–heck, some of us get a lot clingy–because we’re used to being lonely. Me personally, I’ve had to learn to have acquaintances and casual friendships, and I often find those exhausting, because either I really like someone or I don’t. I don’t do inbetweens very much.

As I’m autistic and female, I don’t know what to make of his behavior with the girls; it could be an intersection of the social problems autism causes and male privilege. (Perhaps someone who actually qualifies for male privilege can give some feedback on this, because I don’t know how it works; I just imagine it has the potential to cause major issues.) It could be he’s genuinely an asshole who thinks he’s entitled to their company. It could be that they haven’t actually been clear enough with him–we’re all different levels of literal, generally–so he keeps trying because he really, really wants to reach out. In other words, it may be that no one is communicating clearly with him.

Allistics have this habit of dancing around what they want to say, because they’re taught (girls especially) that straight up saying something is impolite. It is not okay for autistic people to overstep other people’s social boundaries and make them feel uncomfortable–like ignoring them when they say they’re not in the mood or don’t have time to talk–so this isn’t meant to excuse any bad behavior, but a lot of times we simply don’t know we’ve overstepped (our boundaries can often be very different from and more fluid than allistic boundaries, which causes further confusion). We don’t read other people that easily, and implying it doesn’t work. You have to straight up tell us what you mean. This is why I struggled with this question at first. People never, ever told me their problems with me. Not even my friends. They just stopped talking to me without explanation. I was never given a chance to fix it. And I’m not in denial here: There were times that I was, unquestionably, far too clingy. I wish I had known then, wish I’d been given the chance to fix it. Now I just don’t make friends very much, and any friendships I do have are very tentative and quite distant. 

If he’s really making you uncomfortable and not having respect for your time or personal boundaries (or those of others) have you told him this? When you tell him you’re too busy, do you say “I am too busy with X, Y, and Z to hang out right now” or do you do that thing allistics do and say “I have X, Y, and X…”? Whenever you are trying to communicate, say what you mean, not what you think is polite. If you talk to him about this, tell him exactly what’s bothering you. It might upset him, but if he cares, he’ll understand and trust me, if he does care, he probably doesn’t want to be a pain in people’s asses. He just needs to know. If you haven’t given him this chance, you should. If you’ve been as clear with him as you know how, and he still steps all over your boundaries, perhaps he just doesn’t care, and no one is obligated to be friends with someone who doesn’t respect their feelings. We’re autistic, yes, but we’re human and that means we’re all different kinds of people: good or bad, respectful or rude, kind or mean.

I guess what I’m saying with all this is that the only person who can answer your question, really, is you. And it requires you to be honest with yourself, to a degree that may be difficult. Have you really made the effort and you simply can’t reach him, or, upon realizing there would be effort, did you decide you didn’t want to make it? Most of us are aware that we’re not always easy to deal with; remember, we have to deal with ourselves all the time, and believe me, you will probably never be more frustrated with an autistic person than we can get with ourselves. Unfortunately for us, we meet far too many people who act like they’re willing to make the effort to understand, then give up before they’ve really tried. And I’m sorry, but to me, that is pretty awful.

(Just a note to my hedgehogs: This was really hard for me to write, as I had to deal with both the way I’ve been treated and the way I’ve acted. The latter is often hard for me, because it forces me to acknowledge that I’ve made mistakes and that, even though I didn’t really quite understand what I was doing, that didn’t mean I had some excuse to not learn to behave better. I tried to explain it as best as I could, because I absolutely do not mean it’s okay for people to think autistics are just weird and horrible–I’m genuinely talking about the boundaries that are not okay for anyone to cross, but I know it might not have come off this way. I hope I haven’t offended anyone, and I’m very sorry if I have. If anyone has any idea how I can better handle these situations, please let me know. Now I think I need to go cry a little bit, because I hate revisiting this stuff.)