I Am SO Here For Autistic Matt Murdock!!!!

I am sO here for autistic matt murdock!!!!

Matt Murdock is an autistic, manic-depressive, disabled superhero with sensory processing disorder and i will fight the Whole World About All Of It 

some facts tho, like, canon facts gathered from comics and show: 

matt murdock sleeps under a thick heavy blanket 

matt murdock sleeps with silk sheets because “cotton feels like sandpaper on [his] skin” 

matt murdock is generally very sensitive to texture and feel of clothing and fabric and can’t life comfortably in ones that are Wrong

matt murdock is very sensitive to taste and texture of food and can’t comfortably eat things that are Wrong (oysters) 

“What I wasn’t taking into account was maybe my greatest weakness: sensory overload.” 

in fact let me just quote that whole section 

“For me, it’s not just about warmer weather or navigating traffic. Because of my hypersenses, everything out here is new to me. But the human brain, no matter how smart, can only process so much data at any given time. The more there is to learn, the more difficult it is to maintain your normal level of concentration.” –matt on the difficulties of moving to a new city 

incidentally i’m like 900% sure this is a big piece of why matt continues to use a cane even after his identity is revealed (so that he doesn’t have to devote so much of his energy and concentration to orientation and mobility)

matt murdock gets sound and smell sensitive migraines 

matt murdock hates crowds 

matt murdock has frequently gone manic in response to traumatic events in his life and has stayed manic for months on end

matt murdock is known to both himself and his friends as someone who struggles with severe depressive episodes and self-destructive behavior 

matt murdock literally word-for-word canonically describes himself as having depression. he uses the word depression to describe his experiences. i’m not gonna put the panels in here because they stress me out. 

matt murdock (on the show) is a massive fidgeter. he fidgets extensively with the handle of his cane and continues to make those same gestures even when he’s not holding the cane 

matt murdock (on the show) uses a script to describe difficult situations, even if that script is not 100% appropriate for the situation (he uses the same script of “world on fire” to describe his supersenses to both foggy and claire, even though it’s not suited to foggy; consistently says “i’m blind” as an excuse for superhero behavior things even though it doesn’t fit the scenario- although lbr nondisabled people are so awkward about disability he probably does this because it works 99% of the time. still a script tho)

fisk on the show is So autistic-coded that many many of the things that are like “you’re like me, daredevil” that fisk says/does/the parallels between fisk and matt are actually autistic-coded things

when in college, matt wears huge ear protectors and a dust mask to sleep in to mitigate the sensory input of trying to sleep in a room shared with another living person (who is the ever-loud, ever-smelly foggy nelson)

matt murdock has super extreme empathy levels for the people in hell’s kitchen, but only hell’s kitchen- which helps to explain why he’s pretty chill with crime as long as it happens outside his neighborhood

matt murdock develops extremely close, strong connections with a very limited number of people

even though matt murdock cares So Deeply about the people in his life, he is truly terrible at spoken, neurotypical communication

matt murdock’s emotionality is Off given his circumstances and the traditional/typical neurotypical response to those situations. foggy comments on this when matt is happy-go-lucky after tragedy, and he’s so known for it that they literally call him the man without fear (it’s not that matt has no fear- it’s that matt presents fear differently, responds to fear differently)

matt murdock has developed specific coping mechanisms and behaviors to respond to certain sensory input:

“Three-hundred-some pulse rates just doubled. I can’t unhear them, so I use one of my mental exercises. I picture all those hearts as instruments in a giant orchestra.” 

it’s kind of hard to make distinctions between the things matt does because he’s blind (textured suits, specifically organized desk, routines, etc) and things that he does specifically because he’s neurodivergent, and i know folks are going to challenge me on that, because how dare i headcanon a character as autistic. especially how dare i claim a character can be disabled and also mentally ill and neurodivergent

 but i think this difficulty of distinction makes sense, a) because supersenses, and who says that supersenses can’t also be described as sensory processing disorder and in terms of neurodivergence and b) intersectionality of experience; because guess what people can be autistic and blind and you can’t always separate out specific elements of why people respond to their world in certain ways because brains are fucking complicated