Autistic Hedgehog

RSS
Mar 3

Um hi. I was wondering if you could tell me what going nonverbal's like? I have times when I just can't get words together, and others when I can't regulate my volume. I'm working towards a diagnosis, but my psychiatrist tells me that it's not really worth pursuing because I don't have too much trouble (I'm diagnosed with OCD and agoraphobia, but it seems to match autism more). Thanks.

Anonymous

I’m not sure it’s precisely the same from person to person, but I do think it may be somewhat similar, at least. 

For me (since I can only speak for myself; if other Hedgies want to talk about their own experiences with it, please do) I know what I want to say. The words are in my head just fine, but they will not come out of my mouth. They just won’t. At my last blood test, I managed to croak out the word “crochet” (they were considering if they could take the blood from my fingers instead, so I pointed to my left hand, and eventually got that one word out, which my husband at least understood) and I’m almost never able to do that. Of course, what was actually going through my head was “Please use my left hand, since I need my right hand more for practicing my crochet” but that just would not come out.

It might not express itself in quite that way for you, though.

What I do find interesting is that you mention trouble regulating volume, which is a common issue for autistics. I actually have pretty good control with that sort of thing and yet there are still times when it happens.

If this diagnosis is important to you, don’t let your psychiatrist dismiss it. They are not you. It’s easy for them to say, from the outside, that you don’t have too much trouble, but that’s for you to say, not them. After all, they only see you once in a while. You live in your head all the time.