Autistic Hedgehog

Autism has a range of symptoms, including the ones you’ve described, and not every autistic person has all of them. But there are also other disorders that can have very similar symptoms. 

While I’m not in any way, shape or form a doctor and maybe not the person to be giving out medical advice, it does sound like your symptoms are extreme and disruptive enough that you should talk to someone about it. Even if it’s not autism, it might be something else that you could get treatment and/or support for. It sounds bad enough that I don’t think you should write it off as social anxiety. 

You may also want to try doing some reading, checking out some blogs of autistic people here on tumblr. 

I honestly don’t know. I would venture a guess that it depends on the individual in question, but it’s not something I know much about. Though they do sound like the kind of stims that may be exacerbated by something else, like some kind of anxiety disorder. 

Here’s the thing. While in a sense your parents are right, I also think they’re very, very wrong.

They’re right that there will be people who call you a faker. That’s because there are people in this world who are ignorant and who probably won’t change no matter what any of us says or does. It’s something autistics deal with a lot: people who think we’re faking, or people who dismiss us because we appear to be “high-functioning” and thus don’t fit with what they think autism is supposed to mean. I won’t lie to you; you are going to encounter those people.

But I think your parents are wrong that it’s a bad idea. I think it’s a great idea and if it’s what you really want, you should go for it. Raising awareness is important, especially raising the awareness that autism means many different things. That we’re all different people with all different strengths and weaknesses, capable of accomplishing an enormous number of different things.

In the end, though, it comes down to you. There will be people who will call you a faker. There will be people who use you as inspiration porn. You may have to keep it quiet until you actually land a spot on a team–which in and of itself won’t be easy–to avoid discrimination. But if it really means something to you, don’t let ignorant people stop you from doing it. If it’s worth it to you and you’re willing to face what hurdles may come, more power to you. 

Whatever choice you make, make sure it’s the one that suits you, the one you pick for yourself, regardless of what others might say or do, because it’s what you want. You’ll always find support here at AH no matter what choice you make. 

There could be a lot of reasons behind this that you should take into consideration way before misdiagnosis. 

First of all, it could be that you’re prone to shutting down rather than melting down (which might explain the lack of crying). Both tend to occur from overstimulation of some kind. I was very prone to shut downs whenever a family member or friend died (which happened a lot for me). If I cried at all, it was very little, and I’m sure my reactions came off very cold to other people. There was so much grief going on around me that I couldn’t cope with it, so it was a bit like I disconnected a part of myself. Maybe you do that instead.

Maybe it’s as simple as you’ve managed to, one way or another, keep yourself free of situations and spaces that cause you to meltdown. That’s pretty hard to do for anyone, though, as meltdowns can be caused by anything from a place that’s too crowded to a day of snowballing disasters (even if they’re small disasters).

Or maybe you’ve learned how to deal with things enough that you don’t have meltdowns. I don’t have them very often either. There’s complications from autism that I’ve learned to deal with quite well. I used to be the kind of person who couldn’t handle any change in her routine; literally, if I burnt my breakfast, I wouldn’t go to school. I don’t know exactly what happened since then–I think, on some subconscious level, I realized how little I got out of giving in to that–but these days I can roll with most changes, and recover from the ones that do get to me. 

Maybe you’ve learned to process what’s happening to you and avoid meltdowns without even realizing it. It’ll take some self-examination to find your answer, but don’t assume it’s misdiagnosis until you’ve looked at all the other possible answers. We’re all different, we all learn and process differently, we grow to be able to cope more with some things and sometimes less with others.

(Small caveat: I don’t go to school anymore, and I don’t have to work, so not having to deal with those upsetting environments has likely done a lot to help with my lack of meltdowns and the like. If I had to get a day job, I don’t know if I’d be able to function as often and as well as I do. Just the thought makes me sick to my stomach. Just pointing out that learning to cope is great and wonderful and all, but what therapists and the like–who will try to teach you these things–forget is that environment counts too.)

Stimming can help you stop a meltdown or recover from one, or may occur during one–it’s generally a repetitive movement done for comfort (though plenty of us stim out of happiness or excitement, too). Classic stims are things like rocking or flapping one’s hands, but a number of other behaviors count as well (I tend to like to rub satin ribbon).

The thing about defining a meltdown is that a) they’re not precisely the same for all of us and b) I suspect they change shape and form from childhood to adulthood.

How you meltdown depends entirely on you. You might get angry (this is common in children and is, sadly, often dismissed as tantrums), you might cry, you might scream, you might go completely numb. The most important factor and the thing that distinguishes a meltdown more than anything else, though, is this: You will not care what other people think about you while it’s happening.

This is very important for recognizing what a meltdown is to you. Me, I tend to cry (though in certain situations I cry until I get angry, at which point I often find the strength to get myself through, which is different from when I was younger) and I will sob my eyes out without noticing or caring that there are people all around me. 

In the end, a meltdown occurs when you’re so overwhelmed by something that you can’t handle it anymore, and the response is usually an outburst of emotion (but can be the complete absence of it). Knowing when you yourself are having an actual meltdown is going to take a bit of time and thought on your part. After the dust clears on a particularly emotional moment for you, look back at it. Were you somewhere others could see and didn’t care what they thought of your behavior? Even if you were alone, did it matter to you if someone saw you? Learning to recognize these things will tell you when you’re having a meltdown. 

I’ve never experienced this problem myself, so I have absolutely no idea.

Anyone else have any sort of experience with this kind of thing and/or advice on how to deal with it?