Autistic Hedgehog

If you don’t like it I suggest telling him whether directly or indirectly, but get the message across that he’s going OTT. Sometimes just a simple ‘dude, quit messaging me all the time’ is enough. Sometimes you just have to ignore it until he gets bored. It sounds bad but if it really gets to the point where he will not stop then go to the head of your college or the counselor there and ask them to help. They might be able to knock some sense into them.

Unfortunately, there may not really be a good way to deal with these individuals. Whatever the reasons they got into that mindset, they need a certain level of insight and introspection to get out of it, and you can’t necessarily give that to a person.

The best you can do is try to explain why these ideas are problematic. Functioning labels have extremely limited meanings. They’re used by allistic people in an attempt to describe and sort us, and thus lack nuance and connection to our reality. As well, “functioning” is defined by what allistic people think is right, so if someone can communicate just fine, but cannot do so by actually speaking aloud, they’re automatically dubbed “low-functioning”. This is regardless of how they feel in their day to day life and how they actually function in society.

As well, there are huge assumptions about what “low-functioning” individuals can and cannot feel, based solely on the fact that the don’t meet an arbitrary definition of “normal” in how they express themselves. Society (and groups like Autism Speaks) works overtime to reaffirm these ideas, to brand them on the minds even of autistic people. Thus comes the assumption that “low-functioning” individuals wouldn’t be able to decide for themselves if they wanted a cure anyway, and that’s unfair. No matter how “high-functioning” anyone might be, they wouldn’t want anyone making those kinds of assumptions about them, and they have no right to do it to others.

Moreover, what would a “cure” even entail? Autism is pretty firmly entangled with our brainmeats. I doubt it would be possible to cure someone who is already autistic, which means things like in-utero detection and extensive gene therapy. Since it would be impossible to determine “functioning” level ahead of time (especially considering the meaninglessness of functioning levels in general) the only possible end result would be that autistic people wouldn’t be allowed to be born. Not even the so-called high-functioning ones. When “high-functioning” autistics support a cure, they think they’re safe because they’re agreeing with allistics, but in the end it’s allistics who have the real power right now. When we agree with them that a cure is necessary for “low-functioning” individuals, all we really do is let them take more power from us. 

The idea of autistic anti-vaxxers is a bit mind-blowing. But in the end, for the most part, there’s no reasoning with anti-vaxxers. They’re anti-science, counter-factual conspiracy theorists. No matter how many times you put the facts right under their nose, they won’t believe them, because those facts don’t support their bias. The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin is actually pretty useful for understanding how their attitudes have come about (but a warning, Mnookin has his own misconceptions about autism and some of the language he uses is upsetting).

So far, I haven’t gotten any response, and searching online hasn’t returned anything helpful. I’ve sent an email directly to ASAN.org in the hopes that someone there might know something, but so far I haven’t heard back. If they know anything, I’ll post it immediately.

In the meantime, if anyone out there knows of anything that might be helpful, please, please let me know. 

around school, even when I’m on the phone talking to someone else, or tell him I can’t speak, that I’m studying. I’ve tried to be friends, and told him that he needs to lay off a bit and he has. But the other day a girl came up to me and told me I need to “stay the fuck away” because he begins to turn almost stalker-ish. At first I thought she was overreacting, but then I realized he’s even told me he’s had multiple girls tell him they have this same issue with him. By now shouldn’t he know better than to impose on other people’s space so much? Everyone thinks he wants a girlfriend, which is what I think, because he continuously flirts after I’ve said I have a boyfriend, and no thank you. I ignored it all until someone said they were going to report him. Now I’m worried that he’s going to be unfairly reported, but the other girls think he’s using his autism to his advantage. Thoughts? He’s been talked to several times, but he continues with all the invasive behavior…

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Oh gosh, I hate these questions. Please don’t take that the wrong way, Anon, it’s nothing against you, it’s just that these are always so hard to answer, because I have the experience of being autistic and struggling to socialize. 

Some of it could be innocuous. A lot of us have the problem that we flirt without realizing it or intending to. (Like with everything, I have a hypothesis about why this happens.) And the constantly texting thing could be an extension of a problem many of us have: Because we always struggle so much with communication, when we don’t get responses, we sometimes freak out, worry if we did something wrong, perhaps worry if something bad has happened to the person we’re trying to contact, or any number of things. And it may seem like something we ought to know by that age, but I still had that problem up to college age myself. It can be very difficult to understand that there’s two very different brain processes going on in a situation like this, for an autistic person and an allistic person. 

I’m glad you don’t want him to be unfairly reported. The question is whether it would be unfair, and since I’m not there, it’s hard for me to judge (that’s another part of why I find these questions tough to answer; I can’t possibly know the full story). So then what is this stalker-ish behavior? If he’s going beyond not getting social signals, if he’s doing things like following people home or to other places, taking pictures without permission, violating people’s privacy in other ways, that is a huge problem. That’s not autism, that’s a sign of potentially dangerous behavior, and it does need to be reported. Like any other people, autistic people come in all types, including horrible jerkfaces and dangerous assholes.

If it seems like his behavior isn’t dangerous—and is just being treated that way because of misconceptions about autism—then it’s a bit trickier. What would be most useful would be having someone who knew him well, and knew how to explain things to him, since it seems like he’s getting his wires crossed. Barring that, when you try to explain to him, always say exactly what you mean. Be literal, never make promises you don’t intend to/don’t know if you can keep, and never do or say something because you feel bad that he has autism. 

Whatever you decide, keep in mind that autism is not an excuse. It might be an explanation for some things, but it doesn’t give a person the right to violate others’ privacy and comfort zones. It’s not carte blanche to be an asshole or a stalker, and if he’s honestly trying to act like it is—if he’s trying to use it to get away with doing things like following people to their homes, taking pictures without permission, etc.—that’s not cool. It’s unfair to you and other girls and it’s unfair to autistic people as a group. He might just be a misunderstood autistic or he may be a privileged jerk; I can’t quite help you figure out which one, though. 

Yes, but that’s because y’all are so awesome. :)