blorbo of mine 🌹

Hello, Laurence! I am writing a novel and I need your help. I am writing a character with autism, and I most definitely want to portray him as accurately as possible, seeing that I don't have it myself. The story is told through his best friend, Zyah, and I was wondering how to portray his autism through his friends without butchering it. You do not have to answer this question if you don't want to, but it would certainly be helpful so I can his autism as accurately and real as possible!

Hello Anon! I can’t answer very well in just one ask, but I can vaguely give some tips on stuff some people tend to slip up on/not think of! I really don’t mind this so don’t worry, I’m happy to educate people! If you would like something more in-depth or accurate to what you’d like to know, feel totally free to come off anon asks and message me, or you can send more asks like this. It’s up to you. c:

Don’t try too hard to shove it in there. To be honest, a lot of people just think I’m a little bit weird if they don’t know, all they see is a guy who gets a bit excited sometimes and is a picky eater and other very small details like that. Unless your character is severely autistic, remember that he’s still just like any other person too.

On the other hand, I still stim in public and touch things a lot if I think they’d feel good, so there’s no shame in him showing it either. It depends. I also sometimes get overly excited in public and my mother says I raise my voice or talk very fast, and once I calm down and look back on it I notice it too. Excitement and stimming are hard to stop even in public! So are negative sensory experiences, but I’ll get to that.

Stimming can be anything really, but we do it a lot and it’s most commonly flapping our hands (”Happy flaps”), making small noises (Clicking, tapping, rubbing clothing fabric together), touching or adjusting our clothing, touching something we like (A keychain, shirt, rock, etc), rocking on our feet, bouncing, swaying… You can be creative! I wave/shake/jiggle my hands in front of myself and my mom calls them “Jazz hands”, and I sometimes do them with a fist instead. A little bit off track but my mom finds it really funny and laughs and waves her hands too because she knows it means I’m happy about something. Even if he won’t do it in public, most of us will do it with our friends and around others we feel safe with. 

Bad sensory can be anything too, so be creative. Though it’s most commonly food, clothing, lights, sounds, or showers. Some of us may not like a certain fabric or shirt cut. Some of us may HATE crunchy foods. Some people hate certain noises. When faced directly with the bad feeling, as a child I would literally find something sharp like a pen and stab myself with it or rip my flesh out in chunks just to focus on any other feeling. I got angry and screamed and cried. Some of us gag, some of us get violent, some of us just cry in a ball… I’d rather have my finger chopped off than eat a hamburger, to be honest. I won’t go into detail but I hate the texture and flavor and it makes me sick for DAYS just thinking about it. Sick as in like… HURK– BLEEEEGGHHH. Now’a’days I can hold it together kinda but if I wear a fucking sock I’m gonna bawl my eyes out and find something to destroy as violently as possible even if it’s just an empty cereal box. That shit does NOT feel okay. Your main character may have to help his friend with this a lot, so be prepared to think of what calms your autistic character down. Pressure stimming (Hugs or heavy blankets), soft talking, etc?

Onto a lighter note! Let’s talk about special interests and obsessions. An autistic person can have more than one, contrary to popular belief. Usually though they’ll have one BIG one, a favorite thing, and one or two other smaller things. For me, my big thing is Armin and my smaller things are taking care of animals (I particularly love fishkeeping and dogs though) and cooking. They can also change! When I was a child, my special interest was Pokemon! I would memorize all the names and numbers and Pokedex entries in English AND Japanese and look up every bit of information possible and buy ANYTHING Pokemon I saw regardless of WHAT it was and I would never shut up about it and I’d talk about it until my mouth got dry and my spit foamy. Special interests can be ANYTHING. I know of a boy who’s interest was trains. I know another who’s into dinosaurs. I recently talked to one guy who was into Lush products. Literally. ANYTHING. A person, an animal, a hobby, an item, a machine… Anything can be a special interest. What are your character’s special interest(s)? How do they react when they see it or talk about it?

How about childishness? This can be controversial. Some autistic people are mentally younger than their physical age, while others aren’t affected. It depends on severity of the disability, and what symptoms they have. For example, I have an adopted cousin in his mid-20′s but he’ll always be an 8 year old boy mentally. Meanwhile there are people like me. Some people even temporarily regress in age. Autistic people being cutesy-wootsy babies is a very harmful and popular stereotype, though it’s true for some. Just not NEARLY as many of us as you may think. I myself have a LOT of childish habits, to be honest. I can ignore it and fess up but I feel like most of us do temporarily or partially regress at least SOMETIMES. This does not discredit us from being functioning human beings though, and it does not make us actual children if we aren’t literal kids. I can like my stuffies and blanket and being babytalked and still get my taxes done, and so can other autistic people. Is your character mature? Are they mentally stuck at one age? Do they act small and young and vulnerable when they’re upset or after calming down from excitement? Do they secretly or even openly carry stuffed animals around, watch kid’s shows, etc? Does this affect them in any way?

F O O D. Most of us will practically jump off a bridge for food, or at least certain ones. Maybe it’s the texture, or flavor, or smell, or the fact that they stim with their mouth, but food is a Godsend. I like to feel things with my mouth but I know better than to do that because of germs or choking hazards. So when I eat, I LOVE EATING!!!!!!!!!!!!! CRUNCHY FOODS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALSO GRAINY FOODS!!! We will eat anything we like, it seems. Sand is one of my favorite things in the world, and as a kid I used to go to the beach hungry on purpose so I could eat as much sand as possible. To this day I still drool thinking about the texture, it’s so GOOD in your mouth. It is not pretty, no, but it is funny in a gross way and I joke about it a LOT. I had to be curbed off literally eating sand and rocks, and now I cope by putting way too many bread crumbs on my mac ‘n’ cheese (My mom says my personal mac ‘n’ cheese bake is like eating on the beach on a windy day, haha!) or eating grits, or crunching hard candies into that texture. I also now have to portion my food very carefully and with rules because I would over-eat SOOOOO badly. A ton of us over-eat because we love eating SO much. What foods does your character like? Do they eat non-food items, or want to? Is this an endearing trait of theirs, or a weakness/gross one? Do they find it funny, or is it embarrassing? Does it make them chubby?

Last but not least, read through the first thing I said again. People tend to try too hard when writing autistic characters, which only pushes them to seem like the fake stereotype. Write a person, not an illness - We’re just people with interesting quirks and like I said most people don’t even KNOW I’m autistic, they just think I’m a tiny bit eccentric. There are definitely challenges or noticeable things when you have an autistic friend or loved one, but all in all we’re just people. 

Good luck, and feel free to message me or something if you need more or I didn’t answer how you needed.