Autistic Hedgehog

Yes, actually.

First of all, communicate. Always, always, always communicate. Be literal and straightforward about what you want and feel. 

Be honest, even in cases where it might sting a little. We can be blunt and not always realize what we say may be hurtful, but don’t hold it in. We need to know there are problems if we’re going to fix them.

Don’t assume an autistic person behaves a certain way for the same reasons you might. A lot of times we don’t. I’ll often try to stop arguments with my husband and back away, and he tends to make the assumption that I’m using some kind of strategy to get the last word in, when in fact I’m just overwhelmed and my brain is shutting down and I can’t cope with it anymore. 

Sometimes we’re not very good at holding a facial expression, especially when we’re not doing much, or in a situation that lulls us into relaxation. This has led to many an occasion, for me, where I’ve had to reassure someone a thousand times that I’m perfectly fine. Take what we say at face value unless you have very good reason to think otherwise. It’s false to say we can’t/don’t lie, but even so, a lot of us don’t bother; we don’t see the point and thus can’t be arsed.

Finally, try not to take autistic behaviors personally. Sure, we come in all types, including assholes, but for most of us we just are that way. Sometimes we don’t return hugs or want hugs; that’s nothing against you. We may not like public affection, being in pictures, we may go through periods where we don’t want to kissed or touched, we may have meltdowns or freak out over changes or surprises, but don’t jump to the conclusion that it’s personal. Ask if you’re uncertain, but most of the time it’s just us being us.

(Caveat: Not really sure that I, of all people, should be giving anyone dating advice, considering my abysmal record. Just something to be aware of.)

Sadly, society encourages “high-functioning” autistics to hate or at least be ignorant about “low-functioning” autistics. Anyone perceived as high-functioning will be praised for their passing ability (“I hope my child is just like you someday”) and told they’re not like “low-functioning” autistics. If they don’t know anyone considered low-functioning, it’s hard to know what the differences are and are not. Like many things, it’s a problem on a deep, societal level.

I still haven’t quite figured out how to deal with people who believe Asperger’s Syndrome isn’t autism. It was never presented to me as anything but autism by the people who diagnosed and treated me, and I can’t understand how the idea got out there in the first place (but would not be the least surprised if Autism Speaks is somehow partially responsible).  

My best guess on the matter is this: Rather than being emotionless, autistic people have a tendency to feel emotions very deeply and strongly, and we can’t always hide that. Sometimes the reason we can’t hide it is because we don’t even realize that our feelings are showing in the first place. (There’s nothing wrong with this, even if society likes to act like there is. Don’t let other people squash your emotions.)

So what happens is, when we’re around someone we like—not necessarily, and in fact often not at all, in a romantic way—we’re happy and comfortable. We relax. Our happiness and comfort comes out, and for many of us it’s just easier to act like ourselves, and we’re often fun and funny people. Society has some pretty messed up ideas about socialization and the meaning of social cues (aspects of rape culture reflect this pretty well) and thus it gets read as flirting when it’s merely happiness and comfort expressing itself unrestrained.

Conversely, this would also explain why a lot of us have trouble flirting on purpose. If we’re romantically or sexually interested, we’re invested in a different way, one that makes it damn near impossible to be completely at ease. Instant recipe for awkwardness. 

A caveat: Those are simply my thoughts on the matter, and are based on observation, of myself and of other autistics. I can’t really back it up with science. 

Oh man, that blows. :(

This is what I mean when I say that autism doesn’t cause that kind of behavior. Allistics behave that way too, so it’s clearly due to other issues. Refusing to respect people’s boundaries is never okay. 

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.