Thread by @erikaheidewald

Someone asked if any of my comedy is online and I’d deleted or privated all of it but I just rewatched this standup set and tbh it’s hilarious so I made it public. NOBODY REALIZED THIS GIRL WAS AUTISTIC?? 😂😂 that’s fucking hilarious #ActuallyAutistic

yes i look very different and no you should not mention it, i won’t like that

hmm a comedian with a very monotone voice, who makes jokes about not understanding social rituals, dresses like she thinks it’s the 1950s, sits in her room feeling COOL, and spends her time thinking about how names are weird and wondering what bees would say. so neurotypical!

holy mother of god this is a standup set from right after i graduated college where i joked about never leaving the house without a conversation topic. this is THE most autistic standup set i have ever seen in my entire life. i was straight up announcing it #ActuallyAutistic

that set is at the time right after my autistic burnout i thought was just depression (it was both ofc) where i gained 40 pounds against all scientific explanation & literally couldn’t take care of myself. i’d been seeing a therapist & psychiatrist for a year when i filmed that

i feel like now y’all can see what i mean that i really never have masked very much, knew myself very well, and was super open about what i was like - and NOBODY EVER THOUGHT I WAS AUTISTIC. my psychiatrist diagnosed me bipolar but said i was very unusual for a bipolar person

can someone please watch that and validate how looney tunes all of that is in context because i feel out of my mind right now. i told all that same shit to my psychiatrist and two therapists and they really did listen to me and help in other ways so it’s not like they’re just bad

and i’d seen doctors about all the physical stuff i experienced from the burnout. but nobody even thought of it. that’s how fucking execrable the medical understanding of autism is. i was describing autistic experiences in perfect fucking detail and suffering so fucking much.

i stopped doing comedy bc i finally saw the hierarchy behind it and realized why i was never getting above a certain level of success bc the people at the top didn’t like me and i couldn’t play their game. i worked so hard & got nowhere but man, i was fucking funny. that sucks.

if you don’t think i was funny that’s fine but you’re wrong and have a terrible sense of humor. that second video was probably like my third show ever and tbh i’m really proud of myself looking back at it. i was so poor & felt like such a failure. ableism sucks.

i wanna make clear that i don’t see this at all as the fault of my psychiatrist or therapists bc they were careful, respectful, knowledgeable, and always believed me. i see this as the fault of the overall medical misrepresentation of what autism is, based in biased research.

i blame simon baron cohen, autism speaks, and the anti vax lobby, not the people who genuinely tried to help me. but this is why i get so mad when people say self dx is harmful and you have to go to a professional. most of the time they CAN’T help you, even if they want to.

i couldn’t have been more clearly autistic or describing my experiences more clearly. but the medical model doesn’t understand us. we don’t actually exist in it. self dx is the only way most autistics will ever know and if they need professional dx, self dx has to come first

i’m glad i figured out i’m autistic on my own bc i know how i REALLY am & that how my brain works isn’t even a diagnosis at all. i’m a proud self-identified autistic. but dear lord am i gonna keep angrily fighting the medical model supremacists until i burn the whole thing down.

this thread is so chaotic but if you’d like another gem from my in retrospect deeply autistic comedy career - the first sketch i ever wrote, a parody of NuvaRing commercials (it got on the front page of Funny or Die, just sayin 💁‍♀️) based on my genuine concerns about the NuvaRing

i was so cute but i stopped going on auditions after i gained weight bc i kept hearing i had to lose weight to play leads or gain weight to play the “fat friend” 🙃 fuck fatphobia, bro!!!! i was adorable!! a lead!! i don’t play “the friend,” i didn’t even have any friends!!

i don’t share old pics/videos very often bc people always mention and make assumptions about my body that aren’t true and piss me off but i’m sick of feeling like i have to hide any part of myself or life so just don’t be fatphobic ever or i will be ruthlessly mean to you :)

i’m cute, always been cute, always will be cute, have always had pretty much the same diet & exercise habits, my habits aren’t correlated to my weight and no doctor or dietitian can explain it so they just accuse me of lying, and i love every version of my body bc i decided to.

i’ll end this meandering diatribe with this - stop saying autistic people are socially awkward if we’re not. awkward means uncomfortable. in this thread alone i’ve made clear that i find myself funny, cool, cute, and i talk to everyone at parties. i’m not awkward. just autistic.