Autistic Hedgehog

But sometimes I think that I just have social anxiety, but I’m still neurotypical. And then I think the opposite. I’m so full of self doubt and I don’t want to offend anyone, but this blog just seems to click with me.

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I don’t really see why the answer should be any different in your case than it is in anyone else’s. It sounds like you have a legitimate reason to not want an official diagnosis, and that’s fine. There are all sorts of reasons to be wary of being officially diagnosed. Just, as I always say, do your research. There’s various reasons for this, and perhaps one of the most important is ensuring that you’re identifying in a way that you feel comfortable and confident in. 

Though to be completely frank, you don’t have to be autistic, officially diagnosed or not, to relate to this blog. If it resonates with you, that’s all that matters. Even if “all” you have is social anxiety, that can be very difficult to deal with, and it’s no small wonder you relate to things on this blog. Even if, in the end, you decide that social anxiety is a better fit for you than autism, you’re always welcome here. 

Honestly, if at all possible, it’s time for you to find a new therapist. This is a woman who has no place calling herself an “autistic specialist;” she ought to be fired. 

She’s wrong. Full stop. She’s ignorant and she’s doing you actual harm, and really, if you’re seeing her for things like depression, then it will only get worse with her treating you like that. You’re not in any way in the wrong here. She, however, is incredibly shitty at her job. 

I’m always happy to answer questions to the best of my ability here at Autistic Hedgehog (and sometimes my hedgehogs help out too).

There are also organizations like the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network that can prove information, and the askanautistic tag right here on Tumblr where you can find actually autistic people willing to answer questions. 

Just remember to be polite and you’ll find there are people (here or elsewhere) who are willing to answer your questions. 

Unfortunately, I’m not a very good person to ask for this. I stay home and work on my writing; we live off my husband’s (pretty darn good) salary, something we can get away with in part due to living in a country with universal healthcare and stuff. I’m very lucky that he’s supportive like this, because I’m not very well equipped for working. I never learned any good coping strategies.

But I know some of my hedgehogs have jobs or have held jobs, and have some experience with this sort of thing. If anyone has some advice they’d be willing to lend, please don’t be afraid to chime in. 

Not necessarily. We all have differing feelings about cuddling and touching. Some of us like it a lot, some of us hate it pretty much all the time, some of us fluctuate.

I’m very much a fluctuation type myself. Generally, I don’t like being hugged or touched much, but I usually don’t mind if it’s my husband. But even then there’s times I just don’t want to be held or hugged in any way, or times when all I want is to cuddle and be close. 

Like everything with us, it’s a spectrum. :)

It’s been a while, I think, since someone has asked about the hedgehog, so I don’t mind explaining.

I think a hedgehog is a good animal for representing autistics. Hedgehogs might look spiky, but if you treat them right, they can be very sweet and affectionate—something a lot of people never grasp about autistics. At the same time, treat a hedgehog poorly, scare it or make it angry, and it curls up in a tight ball with its spikes out. 

It reminded me very much of my own moods and on the day I decided to make AH, I was feeling quite prickly. I felt like a hedgehog was an accurate representation of how I was feeling, and when I brought the idea up to other autistics here on Tumblr, they agreed. Thus Autistic Hedgehog was born. 

Well, generally, I think part of the problem lies with the differences in our brains. I think we have a tendency to jump from point A to point C, whereas most brains stop at point B first. It’s an offshoot of our tendency to be literal, I think.

That might not seem like a bad thing (and for some situations it’s very useful) but it does mean that we say literally, and often succinctly, what we mean, without realizing that point B might in fact be very necessary. We know what we mean to say, and because we mean each word with such literalness, it’s hard to fathom at times why other’s might find it offensive.

But there can be all sorts of reasons for that, ranging from the fact that it simply doesn’t sound the same to their brains, to more complex matters, like we’ve accidentally hit on something personal to them in some way. It’s true that in some cases it’s impossible to avoid doing that (in which case the best solution is to apologize) but in a lot of situations, one can find a better way to state something. It’s helpful to have someone who can point out where you might be going wrong (I still have my husband vet a lot of my emails and the like) but if you don’t have anyone who can help, text is the best form of practice. Study your own emails, posts, text messages, whatever, and examine what you say. Try to see where something could perhaps be clearer or better stated. 

You might mean something in a nice way, but the words you pick may sound rude. You might say “So and so has a loud voice” and know that you mean it as compliment, because you’re dealing in a situation where having a loud voice is useful, but that could sound insulting to someone else—a better alternative might be “So and so has a nice voice that carries well.” You’d still be saying what you wanted to say, in essence, but in a way that explains in a little more detail what you meant. 

It’s not easy. It can be hard to know what might and might not offend, and some situations will put you between a rock and hard place. Sometimes there’s no polite way to say something because you’re in a situation where someone is a bit of an ass and will take something as an insult—like if you politely ask someone to stop smoking a cigarette but they’re that sort of smoker whose a jerk about it. That’s not really on you. 

One other thing to look out for: I don’t know if you ever have this problem, but it was huge for me growing up. My brain observes. It makes observations of things, very literally and dispassionately. The thing is, even though your brain may observe it with the sort of dispassion one observes “That’s a stop sign” it doesn’t mean that the observation itself is not offensive. 

Like this one time my husband’s ex-wife visited, and while we were all talking, my brain went, all matter-of-factly, “Hey, she looks like the kid who plays Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies.” Happily, I’d had enough experience at that point to realize I should not actually say that out loud. But when I was younger I might have gone ahead and said it, because my brain wasn’t making the observation out of spite—it was just noticing it—and I didn’t understand back then that simply because my brain meant it unoffensively didn’t mean it wasn’t, well, offensive. 

Those sorts of things can be very hard to filter and again, if you don’t have anyone who understands and can point out when you’re doing it, then practicing in text can be useful. But don’t be too hard on yourself—it’s not easy to learn, and it’s something even allistics have trouble with at times. It’s a cliche, but it’s very much true that Rome wasn’t built in a day; do your best, but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get it down perfect right away. 

(I thought, you might like to know, since you’re writing an autistic female character, and this is a comic about a futuristic world. Though now I think of it they don’t really delve into it too much, so it might not actually be helpful.)

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Interesting. I might check it out regardless, at least to see what it’s like. One of the best things a writer can do for their craft is to read, and to read all kinds of things. 

I’m not really a Vlog watching kind of hedgehog, but I did do a little Googling and came up with Arman Khodaei. Now I don’t know anything about him, but Googling on him doesn’t reveal anything immediately negative and it sounds like he’s got his head on straight, but my followers may know differently.

If anyone else knows of vlogging autistics, let me know.