autism taboos: smearing

smearing is a habit many of us on the severe or profound spectrums of autism have done or still do but very few people understand or want to tolerate it.

many of us have been punished for smearing which in some peoples cases leads to increase in smearing because they value all attention-negative and positive as the same,for some of us it leads to confusion and hurt because we do not understand why it is wrong.

some people smear purely because it is a way to direct peoples attention away from other things directly onto them,whereas other people smear because they do not understand how to express what is in them;they do not understand how they feel in a way that can be translated to themselves and others-am one of them.

am not a smearer of shit however,there was a few times had done it when young but am very intolerant of the smell of shit; have always felt throw up come up when around the smell of it.
the things have always smeared on walls and self are snot/spit and blood.

in own case it is a desperate form of communication;both for self and to the outside of self,and also a sensory seeking issue,though people always assume am smearing spit/cough up when its because am not able to understand what to do with it regardless how often people have a go.
non autistic people take their ability to understand what is going on inside them,their ability to translate their thinking [mine is purely image based so takes a lot of time and processing effort to translate into language] and communication for granted.

the incontinence nurse of mine has helped other autistics with smearing before by managing to replace body fluids with moisturising cream but for some of us that woud be a impossible concept-they are not the same thing so do not work in place of.

one of the worst stereotypes have seen of smearers is that we are dirty, in particular shit [formal-faeces] smearers,every single smearer have ever and still know are cleaner than neurotypical people,they take at least one bath a day; some people more than one bath and in own case am constantly wiping hands with baby wipes.