Autistic Hedgehog

it kept telling me my ask didn’t work…

hi, i really like your blog! i tried to do this in an ask but it kept telling me i had links in it… but it didn’t. i kind of need help and i know that’s not exactly your blog’s point but i thought i should try. 

i am 20 years old. my parents and 3 mental health professionalfolk think i might be on the autism spectrum. the three people i love most and who know me best think it’s a possibility. one person i know on the spectrum does not think i am and this is what makes me particularly unsure. i am confused. there’s so much i identify with, so much so much, on the spectrum not-otherwise-specified slightly aspergersy. but as with all mental-psychology stuff, that could have a different explanation. especially since nobody said anything during my childhood, and whatever symptoms i have aren’t ‘extreme.’ no one has given me a solid answer.

i want so badly to have a real diagnosis. i want so badly to have a name for what’s in my head. i want so badly to find help and to find people who understand. but i would feel guilty identifying as being on the spectrum because i might not be there and i don’t want to offend or trouble people who are.

do you have any advice they can possibly offer on figuring these things out?

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Hopefully this goes through correctly. Tumblr can be a bit wonky at me when I edit submissions. >.<

Sorry it’s taken so long for me to answer, things have been a bit…rough for me lately. As to your question:

It sounds like you and quite a few other people you know feel you may be on the spectrum. Just because one person who’s on the spectrum doesn’t think so doesn’t mean very much. The thing is, we’re all different. It’s a spectrum because there’s a lot of variation, and it can express very, very differently. A good example: Autistic headcanons differ a lot. There’s a number of characters other autistics view as autistic that I don’t, and vice versa. No one character will read autistic to all of us, because our experiences of the world are all different, so if someone on the spectrum doesn’t think you are, that’s only one opinion.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting a diagnosis, and you shouldn’t feel ashamed by any of this. Even if you end up diagnosed with something else (ASD symptoms can overlap with other things), no one has a right to tell you that you should be ashamed.

And honestly, even if your diagnosis does turn out to be a different one? I for one would not be offended that you thought you might be autistic, and I don’t have much patience for anyone who would be. Because so many of us have been there, wanting to understand these differences in ourselves, needing to put a name to it. You’re not some dudebro looking at a list of Asperger’s Syndrome symptoms on the internet and using them as an excuse to be a jerk. You’re one of us, someone who wants to understand why their world seems different from everyone else’s, and your feelings are valid. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. 

Please sign and signal boost this petition!

TW: ableism, homophobia, murder

‘In the early hours of the 23rd of June, Steven Simpson was set on fire by 20 year old Jordan Sheard, who had gate-crashed his house party in Cudworth, near Barnsley. He had been verbally abused, stripped of his clothes and had phrases like “I love d*ck” and “gay boy” scrawled across his body. He was then doused in tanning oil and Sheard lit his crotch with a cigarette lighter, and the flames engulfed his body. Those involved fled as Simpson’s neighbour tried desperately to put out the flames. Simpson died the next day after enduring 60% burns to his body.

Steven Simpson’s murder was the result of the hatred and humiliation caused to him because of his sexuality, and his disability. He was bullied, de-humanised and then killed. It follows the format of many killings of LGBTQ people world wide.

Sheffield Crown Court’s view on the matter has been frankly disgusting. Judge Roger Keen dismissed the crime as a ‘good-natured horseplay’ that had gone too far, and sentenced him to a unusually short sentence of three and a half years in prison. Sheard’s defence lawyer called what happened to Simpson as a ‘stupid prank that went wrong in a bad way’.

This was clearly a hate crime. Simpson was being taunted for his sexuality and his disability. He was devalued so much in the eyes of those involved, that they thought setting him on fire was somehow acceptable. He was a bright young man studying at Barnsley College, but his last moments alive on this earth must have been dehumanising, painful and terrifying.

How Judge Roger Keen can dismiss this so flippantly as “horseplay” is beyond us. He is re-enforcing the same notions that lead to Steven’s death: that homophobic bullying is fun, rather than a crime against LGBTQ people, that it is okay to mock or take advantage of someone’s disability, rather than looking out for them and treating them with respect, that setting someone on fire and burning them to death is a joke gone too far, rather than one of the inevitable consequences of the way we still treat people like Steven in our society.

It makes us sick to the stomach to think someone so young has been killed because he was different – and the frightening fact is that could have been any one of us that lives with a disability, or who is LGBTQ. Many have commented on the lenient sentencing of Steven’s killer, however I think this misses the point. The point here is the criminal justice system is complicit in the oppression of LGBTQ people and disabled people, when it makes comments like those of Judge Keen’s. It is churning out the very same ideas that lead to hate-crime.

It is not a joke, funny, or horseplay to treat someone in the way Steven was and we should not condone it as such. If we do condone this behaviour we are sending out the message that LGBTQ people and disabled people are fair game to be bullied and preyed upon. We are sending out the message that this okay for other young people to do what was done to Steven. It appears it is all okay with Judge Keen, just as long as you don’t kill someone.

But the point is, the way Steven was killed, was precisely a result of how he was treated. If he had just been treated like any other young person, with a bit of decency or respect, it would never have happened.

This is the message that Sheffield Crown Court should have put out. 

We hereby condemn Judge Keen’s remarks, call for him to make a public apology, and to make a statement recongising the daily battle people like Steven face because of their sexuality and their disability.

Steven’s death should serve as a reminder of what our LGBTQ and disabled youth face today.

https://www.change.org/petitions/office-for-judicial-complaints-judge-roger-keen-apologise-and-commit-to-protecting-lgbtq-disabled-youth

I’ve not seen much about this on Tumblr, presumably because it happened in the North of England and not in the United States, but our disabled LGBT youth are important too! I encourage people to reblog so as many people sign the petition as possible.