Putting a few Hedgehogs in the queue
But man, my brain is tired.
A question for you or any other neuroatypical who reads this site: have you ever become so overloaded that your motor and speech abilities totally disappeared or became uncontrollable? At first the doctors thought I was catatonic and had thought disorder because of this, but now apparently it's just my autism. But I've never heard of this happening to any other autists, except the ones who got locked in the asylums back in the fifties. Maybe I'm just a throwback to the middle of last century...
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?
[If I have a meltdown
Don’t come near me]
Mod note: Anonymous creation.
Step awaaaaay from the hedgehog, people, step away from the hedgehog. Honestly, this is pretty good advice. I think some autistics like comfort during a meltdown, but as a rule of thumb this works best.
[Anti-vaxxers need no studies
Studies are tyranny!]
Mod note: Anonymous creation. Also, yeah, anti-vaxxer logic in a nutshell.
[You don’t make friends with a hedgehog
By removing its quills]
mod note: Anonymous creation. Also, word.
[“The stories of low-functioning autistic people who are burdens on their families are too often erased!”
Wow, have you even actually met reality?]
I can’t, you guys. I caaaaaaannn’t.
(And not just because my brain is tired from working so hard the last few days, either.)
[“Don’t touch me”
Doesn’t mean I hate you]
Mod note: Anonymous creation.
But man, my brain is tired.
(What's it called when you're an autistic prejudiced against autistics but think you don't count?) Placentas are cancer here, and I was wondering-- not judging, but curious. You posted my silly handflap meme, but the ones I thought were important (deflating the "just social awkwardness" and "but that's not a disability" stuff we deal with) you decided not to post. I was curious about why you had the opposite opinion of my stuff that I did. Too wordy? (You don't have to answer. Just curious.)
Anonymous
(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)
Is reading comprehension something other autistic people struggle with? I have a really difficult time understanding the things that I read. I can read the words but I get no meaning from them, I have to read it over and over to understand. Do any other autistic people have that same problem?
Anonymous
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?
I've read the original post on 'sibling with autism'. Your reading comprehension seems to be really low. You should go back and re-read it a couple of times until you realize that the OP is speaking against everyone who bullies and insults people who are different (eg. the girl with the wig) without caring about what their problems are or caring to get to know them, and she is sad that the world does this to people with beautiful souls like her sister.
Anonymous
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.