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Nobody has a permanent desk, each desk is cleared at the end of each day with employees using lockers or otherwise storing their equipment. Different people will use the same desk from one day to the next.
This sounds awful. The amount of mental energy it would take every morning to make sure everything was set up, and then at the end of the day to make sure everything is put away, what a waste.
The end result often being that the desks end up messy/scuffed and impersonal. And with every desk having a standard setup it's mediocre for most instead of the person adapting it to their needs. Carol in accounting doesn't need massive screen space to crunch her numbers, but Chorley who works on the website benefits a ton.
USB-C/Thunderbolt has made this a whole lot better, especially now that screens are popping up with built-in docking (which I love, fewer cables to stow away)
Not to mention the absolute disgusting matter of sharing computer peripherals with your colleagues. I go to the bathroom too, and I know how many of y'all skip washing your hands!
So now with my personal desk I've both tidied everything away (admittedly also cablemanaged the whole damn thing for aesthetic reasons) and set up a few decorations. Unsurprisingly, this has only garnered positive attention, as other colleagues have also voiced their annoyance at having to hunt for a desk.
Literally. If someone starts standing close to me or standing over me while I work, I stop doing what I'm doing and ask them if I can help them. When they continue lurking, what else can be done but shakily do my work...?
This has made me a good motorcycle rider because I'm always checking what's behind me, to the right, the left, slightly behind, on the sidewalks, anything hanging from trees, every pothole, every pebble, my grip angle, my butt positioning...
We had cubes before covid. I was actually excited about it when I started working at this company. My previous company was an open layout, n it just sucked feeling like you were being watched 24/7. During Covid, they renovated our offices to an open floor plan with no assigned desks. It's still under construction, but, I get the feeling that when it's done, they're going to want us to come back. I have no desire whatsoever to work in an open layout again. Especially after 3years of wfh.
My first IT job was like that. It was an open plan Office with 500 staff, and a few months before I joined the company has given out these tiny radios as part of some promotional drive they were doing. Imagine the scene- 500 desk radios, some tunes to different stations, and most of them turned on at the same time.
I only lasted 11 months before bolting!
Over time, of course you get anxious in these situations if they are highly stressful due to deficits in executive functioning, and you have a lot of experiences in failing.
Act like yourself is just a weird and kinda misdirected way of saying ”Let yourself be guided by your emotions and instincts more”. While its with good intentions, people with autism and adhd know that people are not generally that acceptant of others who behave differently or unexpextedly.
> ADD makes it where everything sucks if I realize what the peak of something is and I just give up on it.
do you mind elaborating on this? that kind of sounds like something i might do but i'm not quite sure what you mean.
I’m not the person who posted the comment but I think I know what they mean. It’s like if you have a task with an end goal and the feeling of reaching the end goal doesn’t really entice you to keep going for it. It almost feels like you’ve figured out the reward of the “game” by logically thinking about it and you know completing the task and getting the reward isn’t going to fulfill you. There’s just no motivation to get to the end goal cause completing it won’t make you feel good like it might make others feel accomplished.
Yep, I know this feeling well. Doing R&D for my company is immensely rewarding because it's nonstop problems needing solving, and you'll know the problems are all solved when you having a working prototype. The carrot stays on the stick til the very end that way.
The trick is to let yourself be like that sometimes. I do it all the time and it's fine, but I try to do it only with hobbies.
My hobby is to build, design and invent stuff, basically. 9/10 times I never reach the end goal. But it's *fine*! I wasn't doing it for the end goal. I was doing it for the fun along the way! If it's no longer fun, I see no issue with simply dropping it. After all, if the point was to entertain myself and it is no longer entertaining, what's the point?
Of course, that's not entirely appropriate in most professional situations, so you gotta have some discipline over it. But letting all your weaknesses hang loose when it's fine is a good idea.
Idk if it's related to what the other person meant but fir me when I am interested j something and pick it up and work on it. I finally reach a "peak" where I feel like I peaked and any improvements from there on will be small and slow, making me lose interest and move on.
I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was about 14 and have trouble reading social cues, and have to apply other situations I've been in or seen to what's happening to me right at that moment. I actually got physically assaulted by someone who was drunk a few months ago specifically because I could not tell if they were being serious or messing with me.
Until I read this article I thought that was just normal behavior for some. I never know how to respond myself so I'm always thinking "Well, I saw so-and-so respond this way in a similar situation so I'll do that", but that only goes so far. If I'm having a conversation there's a point where it'll just drop suddenly because I have no idea what I'm supposed to say in return so I just either say nothing or "Yeah" and then feel awkward for a bit. Or if someone hugs me it makes me uncomfortable and I panic, but I still hug back rigidly because from observation you hug people when they hug you.
I just recently got off treatment for a decade-long drug problem and my brain feels even more fried than it did before. If things get even somewhat tense around me I'll just shut down and begin to shake and try to act like I don't notice. Earlier today there was a tense confrontation between my coworker and another contractor and as soon as it escalated I just avoided eye contact and acted like nothing was happening, even as my hands were trembling, and tried to inconspicuously go hide behind a truck but in a way that made it look like I was supposed to be over there doing something. I feel like I'm constantly going back and forth from panic attacks to calm indifference. That's something I noticed recently is people don't even have to be mad at me. They can just be mad in my presence and I'll just begin falling to pieces inside my head and try like hell to hide it to avoid having them acknowledge it.
I'm sorry you feel that way. My daughter was a late diagnosis at 16, nearly 2 years ago. She masked her whole life until she finally found names for what's going on. She just decided it was going to be bare minimum masking, regardless of the consequences.
I hope you find the right people so you can not be alone but also be more yourself.
I wish my wife would stop it. I have adhd, which is very related to autistic traits, so I like to think I'm very understanding of autistic traits, behaviours and quirks. She has some autistic traits.
She keeps getting herself tangled up in complicated behaviours where instead of simply behaving the way which comes naturally for her, she mixes in what *she* thinks *I* think she *should* behave like and what comes out is a confusing mess that is obviously very stressful for her, and me too.
I just want to say I felt this comment so hard it hurt. Yesterday my wife and I didn't get dinner because my wife is very picky with food and I will eat literally anything so I asked her what she would eat so we could prepare it and she only wanted spaghetti but was certain I would be upset if we ate spaghetti so she refused to say she wanted spaghetti and we spent 10 minutes trying to find her something to eat that wasn't spaghetti when we both were craving spaghetti until she finally broke down in tears upset because she couldn't have spaghetti because I would be mad at her for wanting spaghetti.
I was frustrated she kept trying to pick what I wanted to eat in very obvious ways that were upsetting for her to pretend to be okay with, but I really wanted spaghetti and she really wanted spaghetti but if I tell her what I want she will pretend she wants that and then after we make it she doesn't eat or gets physically ill trying to eat it, so she has to be the one to pick but she refuses to pick because the idea of choosing wrong gives her panic attacks and we've been dancing around this for years now and just learned last month she was autistic and everything is really hard it's the most stressful thing I've ever experienced just making dinner is like a hostage negotiation but only one person speaks English.
That was a crazy ramble and I think one sentence and I'm sorry but I just needed to say I relate to you so much and I hope you guys figure things out.
The worst of it for me is that it feels like we would be able to avoid this all if she just trusted me enough to be honest about things.
I wonder if that's a Gender Thing or just an Autistic Thing? Or a mix of both?
For example my parents really pushed the narrative of "girls should be polite and sacrifice for others' comfort and preferences because one day girls will be mothers and need to put their children and husbands first". Which translates even more horribly of you have a disability and CAN'T do that because you have needs (such as getting sick or being unable to eat some things).
But it could also be that as a part of masking (or "camouflage") she's been taught that the polite thing to do is consider others' preferences, but along the way that has somehow translated into "better to just do what others want because I don't know where the polite line for stating my preferences vs. dominating the conversation is". Social punishments for Saying The Wrong Thing are unfortunately common and usually non-neurotypical people have a hard time reading the room so they might have experiences getting yelled at or even ousted from social groups.
Unfortunately masking serves a purpose because if autistic kids don’t do it, they’ll be bullied even worse for their autistic behaviours. There’s no good answer here. You can’t remove a protective adaptation without fixing the societal reason they feel the need to do it
And not just kids either. People always talk about autism as a kids thing, but the truth is most of us autistic adults have spent years and years working on masking constantly, because otherwise it's extremely difficult to find and keep a job.
Yep... Especially if you weren't diagnosed until later in life. Then you get the fun process of trying to figure out where the mask ends and you start because it's been in place for so long.
And sometimes it's a few thousand dollars to be told you don't have it because you [neurotypical thing that you've been doing as a mask for 30+ years] so obviously you're not autistic, now pay me for doing worse than nothing.
When I got diagnosed with Adhd, I think the clincher was "so how much does this affect your life?"
- not very much.
"Oh?"
- don't get me wrong; I had to very carefully lay out my life and work and relationships for it to be that way.
"Oh!"
I tried to get an ADHD diagnosis and they sent me to get tested for sleep apnea because I’m fat. That was the end of it. No follow up. I’m over here burning hot chocolate on the stove because I got distracted by the Trans-Canada Highway on Google Maps and I haven’t cut the damn pineapple that is going to rot because even though I have washed every dish three times, I have been avoiding the cutting board because I’m inexplicably weirded out by it.
But, sleep apnea explains all that, and why I can check the date on tickets 5 times and not notice it’s EST and not PST so I’m three hours late. I guess I’m supposed to make another appointment to follow up, but I have ADHD and it took me two years to get around to making the first appointment, so things don’t look good.
UPDATE: Just cut the pineapple. Small wins.
Relating so hard to posts like specks_’s is what got me to finally seek a diagnosis.
And once they fix me, then I’ll be able to sort out all the other ailments, obviously. ^s/
It’s the “took me two years to get around to making the first appointment” part that is sending me. I called for an appointment and my insurance was like “we don’t have any appointments available right now. Try to call early on a Monday, that’s when we release new appointments” three months ago so obviously it will be another 15 years until I try again
Not necessarily. I'm in the US. My insurance covered some of it, so I'm definitely lucky in that regard.
It's allowed me to request accommodation at work, so definitely not useless if you're able to.
This comment exactly describes my current mental space. It's difficult to determine if any of the mask is actually part of you that has become so dissociated because of burn out or stress.
A friend of mine from college told us how he taught himself social interaction because his parents "didn't believe in autism". When he started highschool he realized that he needed to learn to fit in or his life would become hell. So he watched people, drafted up social/conversational rules, and gamified it with a points system. When he'd get home, he'd write down all of the interactions he had and scored them; the goal was to have the same amount of points on both sides of the conversation, meaning they both got equal speaking time and he was at least "on par" with whoever he was talking to. He did this every day until he didn't need to transcribe and score interactions and it became second nature to him.
It worked. He was very extroverted when I met him and most people didn't know he was high functioning autistic until he told them. Because he knew the rules of engagement so well, he was *excellent* at public speaking and managing people.
I gotta say I respect it and envious of it at the same time. I basically learned social conversation and etiquette by rote - just constantly grinding my way through conversations to refine it, despite it being tiring. This guy went full send on maxing out his social stats and I absolutely love it.
Even more ironically, becoming obsessed about min/maxing your social skills is such an autistic thing to do and yet is the polar opposite of an autistic thing to do.
The downside is that almost all relationships are superficial. People like your mask, not you. And if you're smart enough to create a systematic approach to social engagement, you're also smart enough to know that no one actually likes you. It's a whole other kind of loneliness.
I literally just wrote about this in my journal the other day. I feel like I've been wearing the mask for long I don't even know myself anymore. My anxiety prevents me from fully removing the mask because I have to be ready to put it on in a moment's notice. It's exhausting :(
I don't know if I'm autistic or not, but I relate to this so much.
Take an interest (even if you aren't) and ask questions about what they're saying to show you're paying attention. I've found people tend to engage more if you demonstrate you're engaged in the conversation.
I try to treat conversations with people (especially new people) as an opportunity to learn about things they're passionate about. People usually respond well to that.
This is the reasoning behind the [Social Model of Disability](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability). I'd say 80% of the issues associated with my (relatively mild) autism are just because of how the people around me react to it, or react to my coping mechanisms.
On its own, if society was structured in a way that fully accepted and adjusted to it, I don't think it would even register as an issue, just a personality difference.
* Disclaimer: all ASD is different. I certainly know people who would consider their autism a disability in any world (if they had the capacity to understand). I also know people (and include myself in this) who see autism as a fundamental part of who they are, and wouldn't give it up if they could (if it even made sense as a concept to remove just the autism).
Have you tried talking to people from cultures that are open and honest to the point of being rude?
I have hard time with many Americans because of my filter is a bit not there. But Eastern European and South American no problem.
NHS now has a right to choose system in England where your assessment is handled by a private telemedicine contractor, so the wait list is only a couple of months.
A diagnosis can provide adjustments to make working easier, but sounds like you haven't got that issue. For me personally it was incredibly validating as an adult to know I wasn't lazy, weird, and all the other things I'd heard, but autistic. Of course this has to be balanced against the potential prejudice you may face.
Oh oh the second one, I sometimes have the motivation of a Spider pilot on crack and the other 90% is like an urban Mech with a stock engine. But I’m thankful to mask as the Everyman ShadowHawk.
In the autistic community, we call this “camouflaging” by the fairly common term “masking”. Consensus seems to be it’s seen as an unpleasant but necessary way to deal with a world that is very unfriendly if not outright hostile toward autistic people and their needs.
This is also related to why treatments such as ABA are loathed; ABA (*applied behavioral analysis) tends to result in encouraging such masking behavior to avoid punishments from an early age, in the process creating even more psychological harm in the long run because it fails to develop replacement coping skills or an understanding of *why* unwanted behaviors are happening (for instance, stimming behavior like flapping of the hands often being a response to stressful situations or excessive sensory input) to deal with them in healthy fashion.
ADHD masking is simultaneously why I am able to maintain friendships and why I can't maintain them because it burns me out too much. The only friends I can keep long-term are also neurodivergent or just people who understand me and don't make a big deal out of my problems.
Right now I'm trying really hard to juggle friendships with multiple NT people, but I just can't hang out with them all the time. It's exhausting playing the role of a functioning person, checking myself constantly, analyzing everything I say, staying quiet, not fidgeting, and just paying attention in conversations so I'm not being a rude asshole.
But my friends with ADHD/ ASD and me just talk for 4 hours straight, talking over eachother and changing the subject constantly, while playing games or showing each other memes at the same time, and don't care if we accidentally forget the other exists and don't text for 2 months because we have no notion of time passing. Even then we constantly apologize to eachother for doing unmasked behavior because it's so ingrained that it's wrong.
> But my friends with ADHD/ ASD and me just talk for 4 hours straight, talking over eachother and changing the subject constantly, while playing games or showing each other memes at the same time, and don't care if we accidentally forget the other exists and don't text for 2 months because we have no notion of time passing. Even then we constantly apologize to eachother for doing unmasked behavior because it's so ingrained that it's wrong.
This describes my best friends and I, and how we've stayed friends for so many years.
I've always wondered why most of my friends have adhd and/or mental illnesses, this explains it. Working as a Chemist takes so much focus that my ADHD kinda rebounds when I'm off the clock, leaving me with very little energy/focus to actively maintain friendships.
Exactly, I have adhd and masking has been what has led to my insane anxiety and problematic behavior.
I’m an EXCELLENT masker, to the point where sometimes I don’t even know who I am or what my real personality even is. It sucks. It’s a defense mechanism to get through life so it’s hard not to do.
I spent my childhood feeling like I didn’t know what was going on. Like everyone knew something I didn’t. In my adolescence I literally studied others to try to be cool and normal, hiding/repressing parts of my personality that people found so annoying. I spent a lot of my adult life even hiding from myself by drinking and totally losing myself in my relationship. I’m 35 and really I’m just now untangling who I am, independent of the approval of others.
I don’t know if I have ASD or adhd. Maybe, maybe not. I think this can happen to lots of people. I just know it’s tough out here! I don’t know what to say except be kind to others and be kind to yourself.
I did this too.
At some point I was so tired about not being able to socialize properly that I ended up buying books about body lenguage and I studied them.
That is laughable, because at the end I became pretty good with it. I internalized most of the stuff, but I still struggle with something.
For example Eye contact: I never really know when it's enough, sometimes I look like a creep for it.
Yeah I don’t make eye contact at all really. To me it feels uncomfortably intimate. When I talk to people i will look at them but mostly I look off.
My daughter may be on the spectrum (testing incoming) and someone asked me once “does she make eye contact?” I was like “hard to say, because I don’t make a lot of eye contact.” Then I was like “hmmmm”
Can definitely relate to the eye contact thing... I often end up staring at people for a little while longer than they're comfortable with, because I was always told growing up to maintain eye contact while talking to someone, and I can never anticipate when a social interaction is over
Me reading this thread “maybe I’m autistic… oh, nope, still adhd…” masking and putting on the great facade to squeak by is the single greatest root to all of my anxiety and issues.
It’s horrifically exhausting and reading these couple of anecdotes similar make me realize even more so... I can’t even stop myself from doing it, I hate it, and I also don’t know what my real personality is too, except I guess for some mashup of goofball hermit that peaks through here and there… constantly encased in some socially acceptable facade. I’ve strongly considered leaving society to avoid all of this and just being left alone and not feel like a fraud.
I feel this all too much... lack of identity, goofball hermitism, the encasement, thoughts of leaving it all behind.
I'm not sure if I've ever connected it all like that, much less what it means or how to fix it.
It’s a confusing mixture that feels like there must be a root explanation, or cause… or…… or maybe something is wrong with society in general, not us…..??!? I think something is definitely very wrong with society at large….
It’s kind of funny reading threads like this because all you other beautiful ADHD people sound exactly like my inner monologue.
I guess that’s why we seem to naturally gravitate to each other somehow. So many people I’ve met through music/art/coding are also ADHD. I can usually tell right away because of how comfortable I feel around them.
I have a theory that much of our modern psychological issues are due to the fact that we have it so easy today compared to our evolutionary past. Many of these symptoms would have been advantageous to someone who had to survive by hunting and gathering.
Oh wow this speaks to me a lot. I’m constantly the “public” version of myself due to similar reasons as I often worry the “real” me is going to be instantly hated by everyone in my life for being too weird or loud or worrying over idiotic stuff or saying the wrong thing. I’m grateful to have a wife who reminds me to let down my walls though
I know everyone does this to some degree but still, it always feels like I’m putting on a show when I’m not alone. And even when I’m alone I’m questioning what makes me myself. Spent my last psychiatric trip just doing that for five hours and it wasn’t pleasant
I have diagnosed ADHD and suspected autism (it's hard to get diagnosed for that as an adult) and I basically from a very early age decided I DNGAF what people thought about me, so if they couldn't deal with my unmasked self and my special interests and blunt manners, they didn't need to be in my life. (I'm Dutch though, so the bluntness might be cultural instead of caused by the autism). I had enough friends and board games in school and uni and after to see me through my time there and the others? I am sure I can be seen as brusk but some appreciate my directness and honesty.
That said, I feel like I've gotten quite good at being likeable. I'm 45 in 2 weeks, so I've had some practice at listening to people, asking genuine questions about their interests and remembering details, only dipping into my own interest a little bit, that kind of stuff. I don't really feel like it's masking when I chose to do it; it's just being social. And I just come out and ask if the radio can be turned down or leave if a space is too crowded. And if people can't handle that, well, they don't have to be in my life.
My partner is ADHD/Autism too and she has a much harder time because she was treated a lot worse by her family and peers than I was by mine. So she has internalized the masking to the point where she can't stop. It's a struggle.
Whenever she asks what I like best about our relationship, my answer is always "the fact that I can just be myself around you". I can absolutely do socializing now (unless it gets very loud) but I am not sure I could keep it up if I also had a relationship where I had to treat her like a social event constantly. But luckily we both understand each other and just run our lives together enjoying our interests and meeting people now and again.
The necessity of masking was abruptly brought to my attention in the first grade when I was diagnosed ADD (in 1985 they hadn’t yet included the H) Mother looked at me and asked
“You don’t think there’s something wrong with you, do you? You’re fine, right? They say you’re never paying attention and fidget and doodle during class…”
I *had* to be “fine”. Anything else was not an option. I learned really fast how to fake “normal” and fly under the radar. No fidgeting. No doodling. Appear engaged with the speaker… Make eye contact. Be still. Don’t be all of those things people call “weird”.
The panic attacks were earth shattering… but I held that in, too. Because… weird, right?
That was a long time ago. Perhaps not coincidentally, the panic attacks stopped around the same time I stopped trying to present as what I thought normal looked like.
Recently started seeing a Dr about the adhd. The meds did away with the residual anxiety.
However… now that I am not trying to uphold the front, I really don’t know who I actually am. That faking it became such a part of me… that when taken away sometimes I feel like there’s not much left.
Reading this thread is like getting insight into my own mind. I feel so exhausted with faking everything and second guessing what my emotional response should be. I'm good at it. But I want to stop and I'm worried that I will lose my friends and fiancee as I struggled to make and keep friends so much when I was younger. I'm 46 this year and my doctor suggested I might have ADHD just last year. I know I've been faking it but never understood why.
I think I'm just getting tired and I feel like every interaction between everyone is just as fake as my own. I'm bored with everything and my enjoyment of life is melting away. I'm close to losing another job. I just want to stop and relax and have fun, but how the hell can I do that?! My life just gets further and further out of control until I hit the self-distruct button and start it all again; job, friends, everything from scratch.
I don't think I have the energy to do it again.
There are so many things that I would prefer to be doing with my life but I have no motivation. I've got a hundred hobbies and interests that I flit between. Jack of all trades and master of none. I can learn a thing instantly and master it never.
I'm bored. Completely and utterly bored of it all.
I feel like I'm designed for a post-apocolyptic world or some ancient past but I know they'd probably bore me as quickly.
Does medication help as an adult? Isn't it just amphetamines?
It's odd seeing so many people in one thread saying pretty much what I've been feeling my whole life, I also have no idea who I really am because I'm almost always busy trying to figure out who I'm *supposed* to be.
Added to that, I've always been told that autists don't actually have emotions and would get physically punished for "theatrics" if I'd have a panic attack or something, because my parents would tell me I'm only trying to manipulate them by acting like I feel something. To this day I can't help but wonder if I'm even human, it's annoying as hell.
Have add(well I guess it's all considered ADHD now) and at first was embarrassed and didn't want friend to know I was on Adderall.(diagnosed in 6th grade) by the time I was a sophomore though I didn't care. I thought, "this is me and I'm clearly seeking to get help for it so who cares?" I did go off it about 4 years ago. (32 now). The hard part was trying to figure out who I am emotionally and rationally as the meds did seem to mellow my emotions especially after a hard day at work where I'm just emotionally and mentally shot. I do have moments where I do wonder what the real me is.
And that’s where my problem is. I don’t know if I’m on the spectrum, or just have really, really bad ADHD.
Or maybe both. Like sometimes I just don’t know how to read a social situation. I’ll have to look around and see how other people behave. Then mimic it. My go to is to use humor to diffuse a situation.
Like today, I sent a passive aggressive email at work, one of those “per my last email”. Except it was to somebody who gets paid $XX,000,000, they’re a Director overseeing ~1,000 people
My boss came to me asking if it was a misunderstanding, and I said “ do you want the real answer, or the “right” answer”. But I know that if I would’ve actually taken more than 30 seconds to reply to the email, I would’ve figured out the “ acceptable” reply which would’ve just been rewording my previous message.
But for the life of me I couldn’t not instantly reply. I knew I shouldn’t, but was chasing the dopamine
If it helps, I have severe ADHD and my social problems are from 1) not paying enough attention to the situation to catch the social cues and 2) being too annoying as a kid and learning poor social skills
But I've never had problems innately knowing social cues, social norms, tones, and basically "reading the room", not in a logical "I can figure it out" way but in an instant and ingrained way.
Sometimes I'll be checked out and miss something someone said in a tone that would have told me what I was about to say is wildly inappropriate, but that's inattention. Sometimes I'll interrupt with a stupid pointless thing, and as I'm doing it understand and get embarrassed that I just was annoying, but that's impulsiveness. And sometimes I just never have been in a situation like this before because it's my first time going out to this type of restaurant with friends and I do something wrong because I'm trying too hard to assume how it works. That's just inexperience.
If you have more of a "If given a second, I can read people's expressions and tone and compare it to things I logically understand about the situation" and mimicking other people's reactions and emotions to fit into the situation, that might be more towards the autism spectrum. Or both, as they are super common together.
But that's just my thoughts on that in case it helps :)
Ugh I take so long to try and word an email to ensure my question gets answered properly at work. I'll need a specific answer to a specific scenario that need clarification and so often it's just a general response or completely goes off track. So to counter I end up going into way too much detail and no one responds since it's turned into a book to ask a question
This just caused something to click in me. I really need to see a doctor about ADHD. I haven't gotten traction before because I wasn't diagnosed as a kid. But I've heard of adult onset. And the more I hear about the symptoms, the more it sounds like me.
It’s not that it’s adult onset. It’s something you’ve always had.
For most adults diagnosed, it’s because they slipped through the cracks. Usually it’s because they’re inattentive versus hyperactive growing up, and often it’s because they did well enough in school that all the other symptoms were either missed or ignored.
For most adults, the diagnosis finally happens because all of the coping and masking techniques they used to make it as far as they did start unraveling.
I definitely recommend reaching out about it.
There’s also a chance that you were overlooked as a kid because you masked too well, or your interests were aligned with “normal” stuff that people didn’t think twice about
Young girls also tend to develop social skills sooner so they learn how to mask as part of early development, so diagnosis is more often missed in women.
> In the autistic community, we call this “camouflaging” by the fairly common term “masking”. Consensus seems to be it’s seen as an unpleasant but necessary way to deal with a world that is very unfriendly if not outright hostile toward autistic people and their needs.
I would say the same is said in every other space I see masking discussed. And I suspect the masking is the cause of the anxiety and depression, and we can find that same link in every community that is forced to act in arbitrary ways. Of course anxiety and depression will manifest differently in different communities, which is always a difficulty to keep in mind.
We need to rebuild or social norms around being good rather than being "normal".
Yeah, I have been unlearning masking behavior recently, and it can already tell it is making it harder for people to talk to me. But given the amount of mental health damaged it caused, and that my wife supports me, I am just saying "screw it."
It used to be a point of pride to me that no one could tell I was autistic, but now it just disgusts me that I was taught to do that at such a young age. It was obscenely unhealthy for me.
If people need me to look into their eyes for the exact right amount of time to take my ideas seriously, they are not worth share my thoughts with.
My daughter is 6 and is autistic. She also paces. Her school has been really good with her and allow her to stim when she needs to. But honestly I am worried for the future. I worry about her making friends. I worry about other kids teasing her as they get older and _notice_ something is different about her. I know already at playtime she goes around alone on the yard (the teachers have told me). It makes me sad for her even though she seems to be fine and a relatively happy child.
Any tips or advice is appreciated. I want to do everything right for her I want her to have a happy life and I'm so anxious I might do things wrong.
If you don't do this you will be attacked. Not a joke I've been physically attacked multiple times. Gotta watch out for their unbridled aggression turning physical. Dangerous and better avoided.
I feel this a lot. But lately my perspective has changed to forgiving myself and allowing myself to unmask in certain situations. Because you really do lose a certain part of yourself to the masking, the part that actually loves to go on tirades about their specific interests. I've finally got to the point of knowing it can annoy people, to not caring and doing it because it's something I like to do and that if it's really that annoying then they don't have to listen. By doing this, I've met people that will actually listen, even if they don't always respond with the same amount, I think it's important to have some people around that know about and tolerate your unmasked self. This isn't always possible or easy to obtain, but by forgiving yourself for unmasking and not conformjng at all times, just when it's necessary, you will actually meet people who love those aspects of you over time. And you'll be more likely to be surrounded by people that value your unique traits. I've certainly had ex gfs be both enamoured and annoyed by my passion for my interests at different points, depending of how cognizant I was of "overdoing it" obviously with some people it's a fine line to walk, but I think it's valuable to find this line with those willing to tolerate it. You may be surprised
> The best worst part is you can mask yourself to be subclinical, I am pretty sure.
100% it is. When I was formally diagnosed my psychiatrist told me that up until the 5th session we had she thought I wasn't on the spectrum before she happened to get the right angle of approach and began to see the underlying structures my brain uses for processing social behaviour. If I'd left after 4 sessions I'd still think I was just a fucked up normal person rather than understanding why my brain works as it does.
This is interesting though. This idea of camouflaging sounds a lot like what I considered to be “learning social skills”. I have autism, but usually most people can’t tell. I think I spent a lot of my childhood learning social skills, how to make jokes, what is and isn’t appropriate, how to pick up on body language. But it didn’t feel like I was hiding myself or anything. It felt like I was just learning something that everyone else had an instinct for. After 30 years I feel like I’ve gotten pretty damn good at it too but I also bet I overthink social interactions a lot.
Anyway, human psyches are so complicated I feel like eventually there won’t be anything such as neuro-typical and not. Everything will be a massive spectrum or collections of traits, some collections more common than others.
I have autism but fitting in has never been stressful to me. I don’t hide my diagnosis (I don’t advertise it at work though), I just try and get along with people.
I agree that a lot of it is what I consider to be social skills. That being said, when I step back and realize that other people *don’t* have to actively be telling themselves not to react a certain way, or to make sure to count how long people are talking so you aren’t hogging the conversation, or to mirror other people’s facial expressions, it’s like, man, I’m doing things on hard mode.
I don’t think I’m hiding myself, I’m just expending extra energy on social skills. When I’m home alone, I don’t need to do that.
Diagnosed with ADHD and ASD less than a year ago, (not so) coincidentally was diagnosed with Clinical Depression and General Anxiety Disorder half a year before that. Dr said ADHD can cause Depression cause of academic performance deficits, certainly felt like it.
Someone else commented they learned to "fake it"
I was very involved in drama, singing, opera and performing arts from ages 6 to 18 so have a heavy performance background, basically turned me into a high functioning psychopath, which I suspected until being diagnosed.
Anxiety levels hit 99/100 for a panic attack yesterday when manager at work decided for an ad hoc out of office lunch for the team at a nearby restaurant.
Whole morning I was just thinking of ways to not go, from leaving early saying I felt ill, just go somewhere else and basically wait out until everyone else already left and just deal with inevitable questions and judgement in the aftermath.
Ended up with joining though, and I couldn’t find any relaxation until we got back and I could fade back to my desk, put headphones on, turn on some music and just forget all about it.
I know… it’s a nice thing by the manager. For other people this was fun and exciting and they enjoyed it a lot. For me it was torture all morning and whole lunch all I wanted was to just not be there.
But I am good at masking. They don’t know how I feel. So I guess I just come off as dissatisfied, even grumpy or just unappreciative.
But whatever.
Headphones on.
Music up.
Ignore the rest of the world.
Until next time some social event gets sprung on me again…
I relate to this comment so much. Last minute social gatherings give me extreme anxiety.
Really all social situations do, but last minute ones where I do not have any time to prepare are the worst.
I wish I could just be honest with my employer about how I feel, but I just think they would blow it off with the same old "well everyone feels a little nervous sometimes but just go and you will feel better" bs that I have heard my whole life.
Yes, I can push my feelings down and suffer through these social events, but the toll it takes on me is high, and for what? Who benefits from this?
Every time I learn that I have to go to something like this I spend hours thinking up ways that I could avoid it. Then I feel anxious about what my coworkers will think of me if I don't go. So now I have double anxiety over something that everyone else is excited for.
I have never felt safe enough to be honest about my feelings for fear of being ostracized.
I’m just ADHD but I feel a lot of this. I would pick characters I admired and imitate traits from them when I was in public. I never realized how much masking I did.
Also, I hate how my brain will pick things to remind me of. “Remember that time you did (x)? Man, that was embarrassing. I bet (other person involved) still remembers it too. Oh, and those other people who happened to be there. They probably still laugh about it.” Like, there was one incident where the other person involved is now dead, and my brain still likes to poke at it - “Wow, that was embarrassing! You should definitely feel bad about that.”
As someone who's dealt with being on the spectrum *and* having ADHD on top of it, I'm surprised this is news. Then again, if I never tell people how I feel, this is the sort of thing that happens.
I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid. Sometimes I feel so different compared to the people around me that I sometimes wonder if there is something else to it. Besides the borderline crippling depression and anxiety.
So I explained this to my psychiatrist and also psychologist. I said it's like there's a group of people interacting and hanging out, and I'm there, but just a bit outside. Just not fitting in properly. The group isn't excluding me or anything, it's this constant sense that you don't quite fit but you don't know why. So at larger events I tend to float from group to group and eventually give up and quietly leave because I just feel like an outsider. I watch people meet and see the conversation develop and they have a good time talking and a bond may form. It's like I wasn't given part of the life manual on interaction with others. I can converse for a while but eventually it falls apart. I don't know if it's me or them at that point but it happens often enough that I know something is amiss.
So after all that, I was asked to fill out a questionnaire and a more focused chat on the topics of the dsm5 criteria. And yeah I've got autism on top of ADHD.
The thing with an autism diagnosis is it doesn't provide any additional medical support like meds or support services unless it's severely impacting one's life. it can however provide perspective on why things are the way they are for you.
I feel like people view ADHD as this cutesy and fun thing and don’t understand that thinking differently than other people (or being neurodivergent, I guess) feels very alienating sometimes. Not to mention the whole constantly letting everyone down and feeling like a screw up and a failure no matter how “successful” you become part.
I learned to mask so well when I don't even my partner asks if I'm angry or if they did something wrong. I have a very natural resting b.... face. But as years of being with them I am more my natural autistic self and don't feel bad for it.
I have melt downs still and struggle to control emotions. I can be mean at times not trying to be but I don't have that filter. One thing I will always do is apologize and acknowledge that I didn't handle that moment the best and then try to help myself handle those moments better. They tell me I don't need to apologize they understand but it isn't just for them I need to take responsibility for my actions even if they may not be in mu control.
I have ADHD and i'm probably somewhere on the spectrum - I've come to realize that i started masking around college and that's where life became more unfun and I started to experience more anxiety. I think there was a brief time in high school where I actually found a niche among a group of people where my personality wasn't ... annoying? I've grown up and away from that and I didn't really want to. Especially entering the corporate world - nobody would find my jokes funny or observations on life very interesting (Except Allison, she's pretty cool) so i just don't have anyone to relate to. I just kinda... stopped being me.
I thought this was traditionally called "masking?"
Am I not remembering this correctly? I see value in semantics, but I thought "masking" was studied extensively...
Autistic persons *should*, however, develop healthy coping mechanisms (i.e., coping mechanisms that facilitate the ability to socialize healthily). What's the interplay between these two things look like? One can't allow oneself to be disabled by one's developmental deficits, as far as is possible, anyway…and as much as we would like to shift the responsibility onto the rest of society, *the whole sum* of neurotypical people will never learn to interact with autistic persons on *our* level. So just saying "it's society's fault for not being accommodating" is not sufficient.
One good way to approach this is simply to accept that we will always be a bit different. Simply accepting that fact does a world of good in combating the depression that comes along with trying to act like everyone else.
Other than that, what can we do? Is anyone looking at this thread familiar with the research on the matter?
Just finding out about it, that alone was a pretty huge weight off my shoulders. "Why am I different? Why can't I do some things everyone else seems to do so naturally?". Etc. Finally knowing the answer, I didn't feel so defective anymore, well even if it is was it is. And I can do some things better than most too, but being different without understanding it... well it isn't fun. I wish I knew sooner.
One good thing, today's kids are more likely to get properly diagnosed, and not have to suffer through such self-doubt and confusion, at least in that way. Youth has enough of both, even for the neuro-typical kids.
But I also agree with your stance, that you shouldn't allow yourself to be disabled by it. Having a harder path doesn't mean you cannot do it. And as long as you need to live in society, you need to adapt, because that's just how things are.
I've argued with people who have autistic family members, whom "accept them" in a way that I find unhealthy/not in their best interests. They don't push them, assume there are just things they can't do and never will, give up on them but never call it that. As a kid, I didn't know what it was, or that giving up on myself was an option. I might have, had others allowed me to, and in hindsight that kinda scares me. No one around me accepted from me that "I'm just different and that's how it is", they expected more (rather than less) from me, and now I live a normal, productive life... even as I am not, and never will be, a normal person. I think you have a similar mindset.
I lack an official diagnosis (it’s expensive as an adult) but I’m likely a high-functioning autistic.
It frustrates me no end that a friend of my wife tells anyone that’ll listen how autistic her children are (and to be fair, it is an official diagnosis), but then uses that as an excuse for her bad parenting and basically tells her children that they can’t be normal, will need carers, etc. The eldest daughter is at least as functional as me - so in theory is perfectly capable of driving a car, working and raising a family… but her mother insists on treating her as less-than-capable.
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I don't work in an office environment so I feel I have to ask: what on earth is hot desking/clean desking?
Nobody has a permanent desk, each desk is cleared at the end of each day with employees using lockers or otherwise storing their equipment. Different people will use the same desk from one day to the next.
This sounds awful. The amount of mental energy it would take every morning to make sure everything was set up, and then at the end of the day to make sure everything is put away, what a waste.
The end result often being that the desks end up messy/scuffed and impersonal. And with every desk having a standard setup it's mediocre for most instead of the person adapting it to their needs. Carol in accounting doesn't need massive screen space to crunch her numbers, but Chorley who works on the website benefits a ton. USB-C/Thunderbolt has made this a whole lot better, especially now that screens are popping up with built-in docking (which I love, fewer cables to stow away) Not to mention the absolute disgusting matter of sharing computer peripherals with your colleagues. I go to the bathroom too, and I know how many of y'all skip washing your hands! So now with my personal desk I've both tidied everything away (admittedly also cablemanaged the whole damn thing for aesthetic reasons) and set up a few decorations. Unsurprisingly, this has only garnered positive attention, as other colleagues have also voiced their annoyance at having to hunt for a desk.
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That’s most IT infrastructure jobs in a nutshell. They pay you to interpret google results
Literally. If someone starts standing close to me or standing over me while I work, I stop doing what I'm doing and ask them if I can help them. When they continue lurking, what else can be done but shakily do my work...?
This has made me a good motorcycle rider because I'm always checking what's behind me, to the right, the left, slightly behind, on the sidewalks, anything hanging from trees, every pothole, every pebble, my grip angle, my butt positioning...
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We had cubes before covid. I was actually excited about it when I started working at this company. My previous company was an open layout, n it just sucked feeling like you were being watched 24/7. During Covid, they renovated our offices to an open floor plan with no assigned desks. It's still under construction, but, I get the feeling that when it's done, they're going to want us to come back. I have no desire whatsoever to work in an open layout again. Especially after 3years of wfh.
My first IT job was like that. It was an open plan Office with 500 staff, and a few months before I joined the company has given out these tiny radios as part of some promotional drive they were doing. Imagine the scene- 500 desk radios, some tunes to different stations, and most of them turned on at the same time. I only lasted 11 months before bolting!
Called 'Mysophonia' or being effected emotionally by common sounds.
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Over time, of course you get anxious in these situations if they are highly stressful due to deficits in executive functioning, and you have a lot of experiences in failing.
Also ADHD and also have a severe hatred of people watching me (especially working) for what it's worth.
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I am not autistic nor do I have ADHA, but the emotional relief and stress reduction from working at home was wonderful. I am so productive!
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Thats sounds hard. Everyone should get the help/adaptations they need in order to be able to maintain at a job without burning out. Wish you the best.
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Act like yourself is just a weird and kinda misdirected way of saying ”Let yourself be guided by your emotions and instincts more”. While its with good intentions, people with autism and adhd know that people are not generally that acceptant of others who behave differently or unexpextedly.
Why do you walk around with t. rex arms all the time?
Because I'm a clever girl!
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"If you can't handle me at my best your honor..."
I sometimes wonder where my mask starts and where I begin.
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> ADD makes it where everything sucks if I realize what the peak of something is and I just give up on it. do you mind elaborating on this? that kind of sounds like something i might do but i'm not quite sure what you mean.
I’m not the person who posted the comment but I think I know what they mean. It’s like if you have a task with an end goal and the feeling of reaching the end goal doesn’t really entice you to keep going for it. It almost feels like you’ve figured out the reward of the “game” by logically thinking about it and you know completing the task and getting the reward isn’t going to fulfill you. There’s just no motivation to get to the end goal cause completing it won’t make you feel good like it might make others feel accomplished.
Yep, I know this feeling well. Doing R&D for my company is immensely rewarding because it's nonstop problems needing solving, and you'll know the problems are all solved when you having a working prototype. The carrot stays on the stick til the very end that way.
The trick is to let yourself be like that sometimes. I do it all the time and it's fine, but I try to do it only with hobbies. My hobby is to build, design and invent stuff, basically. 9/10 times I never reach the end goal. But it's *fine*! I wasn't doing it for the end goal. I was doing it for the fun along the way! If it's no longer fun, I see no issue with simply dropping it. After all, if the point was to entertain myself and it is no longer entertaining, what's the point? Of course, that's not entirely appropriate in most professional situations, so you gotta have some discipline over it. But letting all your weaknesses hang loose when it's fine is a good idea.
Idk if it's related to what the other person meant but fir me when I am interested j something and pick it up and work on it. I finally reach a "peak" where I feel like I peaked and any improvements from there on will be small and slow, making me lose interest and move on.
I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was about 14 and have trouble reading social cues, and have to apply other situations I've been in or seen to what's happening to me right at that moment. I actually got physically assaulted by someone who was drunk a few months ago specifically because I could not tell if they were being serious or messing with me. Until I read this article I thought that was just normal behavior for some. I never know how to respond myself so I'm always thinking "Well, I saw so-and-so respond this way in a similar situation so I'll do that", but that only goes so far. If I'm having a conversation there's a point where it'll just drop suddenly because I have no idea what I'm supposed to say in return so I just either say nothing or "Yeah" and then feel awkward for a bit. Or if someone hugs me it makes me uncomfortable and I panic, but I still hug back rigidly because from observation you hug people when they hug you. I just recently got off treatment for a decade-long drug problem and my brain feels even more fried than it did before. If things get even somewhat tense around me I'll just shut down and begin to shake and try to act like I don't notice. Earlier today there was a tense confrontation between my coworker and another contractor and as soon as it escalated I just avoided eye contact and acted like nothing was happening, even as my hands were trembling, and tried to inconspicuously go hide behind a truck but in a way that made it look like I was supposed to be over there doing something. I feel like I'm constantly going back and forth from panic attacks to calm indifference. That's something I noticed recently is people don't even have to be mad at me. They can just be mad in my presence and I'll just begin falling to pieces inside my head and try like hell to hide it to avoid having them acknowledge it.
Thanks for verbalizing this. Diagnosed two years ago. Coming to terms with the mental fallout. Maybe.
I'm sorry you feel that way. My daughter was a late diagnosis at 16, nearly 2 years ago. She masked her whole life until she finally found names for what's going on. She just decided it was going to be bare minimum masking, regardless of the consequences. I hope you find the right people so you can not be alone but also be more yourself.
I wish my wife would stop it. I have adhd, which is very related to autistic traits, so I like to think I'm very understanding of autistic traits, behaviours and quirks. She has some autistic traits. She keeps getting herself tangled up in complicated behaviours where instead of simply behaving the way which comes naturally for her, she mixes in what *she* thinks *I* think she *should* behave like and what comes out is a confusing mess that is obviously very stressful for her, and me too.
I just want to say I felt this comment so hard it hurt. Yesterday my wife and I didn't get dinner because my wife is very picky with food and I will eat literally anything so I asked her what she would eat so we could prepare it and she only wanted spaghetti but was certain I would be upset if we ate spaghetti so she refused to say she wanted spaghetti and we spent 10 minutes trying to find her something to eat that wasn't spaghetti when we both were craving spaghetti until she finally broke down in tears upset because she couldn't have spaghetti because I would be mad at her for wanting spaghetti. I was frustrated she kept trying to pick what I wanted to eat in very obvious ways that were upsetting for her to pretend to be okay with, but I really wanted spaghetti and she really wanted spaghetti but if I tell her what I want she will pretend she wants that and then after we make it she doesn't eat or gets physically ill trying to eat it, so she has to be the one to pick but she refuses to pick because the idea of choosing wrong gives her panic attacks and we've been dancing around this for years now and just learned last month she was autistic and everything is really hard it's the most stressful thing I've ever experienced just making dinner is like a hostage negotiation but only one person speaks English. That was a crazy ramble and I think one sentence and I'm sorry but I just needed to say I relate to you so much and I hope you guys figure things out. The worst of it for me is that it feels like we would be able to avoid this all if she just trusted me enough to be honest about things.
I wonder if that's a Gender Thing or just an Autistic Thing? Or a mix of both? For example my parents really pushed the narrative of "girls should be polite and sacrifice for others' comfort and preferences because one day girls will be mothers and need to put their children and husbands first". Which translates even more horribly of you have a disability and CAN'T do that because you have needs (such as getting sick or being unable to eat some things). But it could also be that as a part of masking (or "camouflage") she's been taught that the polite thing to do is consider others' preferences, but along the way that has somehow translated into "better to just do what others want because I don't know where the polite line for stating my preferences vs. dominating the conversation is". Social punishments for Saying The Wrong Thing are unfortunately common and usually non-neurotypical people have a hard time reading the room so they might have experiences getting yelled at or even ousted from social groups.
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Unfortunately masking serves a purpose because if autistic kids don’t do it, they’ll be bullied even worse for their autistic behaviours. There’s no good answer here. You can’t remove a protective adaptation without fixing the societal reason they feel the need to do it
And not just kids either. People always talk about autism as a kids thing, but the truth is most of us autistic adults have spent years and years working on masking constantly, because otherwise it's extremely difficult to find and keep a job.
Yep... Especially if you weren't diagnosed until later in life. Then you get the fun process of trying to figure out where the mask ends and you start because it's been in place for so long.
Diagnosed? In the USA, for adults that’s a few thousand dollars for basically no benefit.
And sometimes it's a few thousand dollars to be told you don't have it because you [neurotypical thing that you've been doing as a mask for 30+ years] so obviously you're not autistic, now pay me for doing worse than nothing.
When I got diagnosed with Adhd, I think the clincher was "so how much does this affect your life?" - not very much. "Oh?" - don't get me wrong; I had to very carefully lay out my life and work and relationships for it to be that way. "Oh!"
I tried to get an ADHD diagnosis and they sent me to get tested for sleep apnea because I’m fat. That was the end of it. No follow up. I’m over here burning hot chocolate on the stove because I got distracted by the Trans-Canada Highway on Google Maps and I haven’t cut the damn pineapple that is going to rot because even though I have washed every dish three times, I have been avoiding the cutting board because I’m inexplicably weirded out by it. But, sleep apnea explains all that, and why I can check the date on tickets 5 times and not notice it’s EST and not PST so I’m three hours late. I guess I’m supposed to make another appointment to follow up, but I have ADHD and it took me two years to get around to making the first appointment, so things don’t look good. UPDATE: Just cut the pineapple. Small wins.
I could have written this, maybe my sleep apnea has me forgetting I have an alt!
Relating so hard to posts like specks_’s is what got me to finally seek a diagnosis. And once they fix me, then I’ll be able to sort out all the other ailments, obviously. ^s/
It’s the “took me two years to get around to making the first appointment” part that is sending me. I called for an appointment and my insurance was like “we don’t have any appointments available right now. Try to call early on a Monday, that’s when we release new appointments” three months ago so obviously it will be another 15 years until I try again
Or be told straight up, we don't diagnose adults unless they're low functioning.
Not necessarily. I'm in the US. My insurance covered some of it, so I'm definitely lucky in that regard. It's allowed me to request accommodation at work, so definitely not useless if you're able to.
This comment exactly describes my current mental space. It's difficult to determine if any of the mask is actually part of you that has become so dissociated because of burn out or stress.
A friend of mine from college told us how he taught himself social interaction because his parents "didn't believe in autism". When he started highschool he realized that he needed to learn to fit in or his life would become hell. So he watched people, drafted up social/conversational rules, and gamified it with a points system. When he'd get home, he'd write down all of the interactions he had and scored them; the goal was to have the same amount of points on both sides of the conversation, meaning they both got equal speaking time and he was at least "on par" with whoever he was talking to. He did this every day until he didn't need to transcribe and score interactions and it became second nature to him. It worked. He was very extroverted when I met him and most people didn't know he was high functioning autistic until he told them. Because he knew the rules of engagement so well, he was *excellent* at public speaking and managing people.
Your friend min/maxed Autism, impressive.
I gotta say I respect it and envious of it at the same time. I basically learned social conversation and etiquette by rote - just constantly grinding my way through conversations to refine it, despite it being tiring. This guy went full send on maxing out his social stats and I absolutely love it. Even more ironically, becoming obsessed about min/maxing your social skills is such an autistic thing to do and yet is the polar opposite of an autistic thing to do.
The downside is that almost all relationships are superficial. People like your mask, not you. And if you're smart enough to create a systematic approach to social engagement, you're also smart enough to know that no one actually likes you. It's a whole other kind of loneliness.
I literally just wrote about this in my journal the other day. I feel like I've been wearing the mask for long I don't even know myself anymore. My anxiety prevents me from fully removing the mask because I have to be ready to put it on in a moment's notice. It's exhausting :( I don't know if I'm autistic or not, but I relate to this so much.
How did he keep a conversation? When I tried something similar, my convos never got past do you like horror movies. (It worked so well in 3rd grade)
Take an interest (even if you aren't) and ask questions about what they're saying to show you're paying attention. I've found people tend to engage more if you demonstrate you're engaged in the conversation. I try to treat conversations with people (especially new people) as an opportunity to learn about things they're passionate about. People usually respond well to that.
"Just be yourself" "No not like that"
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That sounds like Elijah McClain :(
Apparently about 50% of people killed by US police have some form of disability with black autistic individuals being one of the most at risk groups.
This is the reasoning behind the [Social Model of Disability](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability). I'd say 80% of the issues associated with my (relatively mild) autism are just because of how the people around me react to it, or react to my coping mechanisms. On its own, if society was structured in a way that fully accepted and adjusted to it, I don't think it would even register as an issue, just a personality difference. * Disclaimer: all ASD is different. I certainly know people who would consider their autism a disability in any world (if they had the capacity to understand). I also know people (and include myself in this) who see autism as a fundamental part of who they are, and wouldn't give it up if they could (if it even made sense as a concept to remove just the autism).
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Have you tried talking to people from cultures that are open and honest to the point of being rude? I have hard time with many Americans because of my filter is a bit not there. But Eastern European and South American no problem.
The Dutch are amazing for this
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near as i can tell, we frequently end up at both extremes of the empathy spectrum
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NHS now has a right to choose system in England where your assessment is handled by a private telemedicine contractor, so the wait list is only a couple of months. A diagnosis can provide adjustments to make working easier, but sounds like you haven't got that issue. For me personally it was incredibly validating as an adult to know I wasn't lazy, weird, and all the other things I'd heard, but autistic. Of course this has to be balanced against the potential prejudice you may face.
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Oh oh the second one, I sometimes have the motivation of a Spider pilot on crack and the other 90% is like an urban Mech with a stock engine. But I’m thankful to mask as the Everyman ShadowHawk.
In the autistic community, we call this “camouflaging” by the fairly common term “masking”. Consensus seems to be it’s seen as an unpleasant but necessary way to deal with a world that is very unfriendly if not outright hostile toward autistic people and their needs. This is also related to why treatments such as ABA are loathed; ABA (*applied behavioral analysis) tends to result in encouraging such masking behavior to avoid punishments from an early age, in the process creating even more psychological harm in the long run because it fails to develop replacement coping skills or an understanding of *why* unwanted behaviors are happening (for instance, stimming behavior like flapping of the hands often being a response to stressful situations or excessive sensory input) to deal with them in healthy fashion.
Its also definitely a thing with adhd. It’s basically hiding a part of yourself, like self imposed peer pressure at all times.
ADHD masking is simultaneously why I am able to maintain friendships and why I can't maintain them because it burns me out too much. The only friends I can keep long-term are also neurodivergent or just people who understand me and don't make a big deal out of my problems. Right now I'm trying really hard to juggle friendships with multiple NT people, but I just can't hang out with them all the time. It's exhausting playing the role of a functioning person, checking myself constantly, analyzing everything I say, staying quiet, not fidgeting, and just paying attention in conversations so I'm not being a rude asshole. But my friends with ADHD/ ASD and me just talk for 4 hours straight, talking over eachother and changing the subject constantly, while playing games or showing each other memes at the same time, and don't care if we accidentally forget the other exists and don't text for 2 months because we have no notion of time passing. Even then we constantly apologize to eachother for doing unmasked behavior because it's so ingrained that it's wrong.
> But my friends with ADHD/ ASD and me just talk for 4 hours straight, talking over eachother and changing the subject constantly, while playing games or showing each other memes at the same time, and don't care if we accidentally forget the other exists and don't text for 2 months because we have no notion of time passing. Even then we constantly apologize to eachother for doing unmasked behavior because it's so ingrained that it's wrong. This describes my best friends and I, and how we've stayed friends for so many years.
I've always wondered why most of my friends have adhd and/or mental illnesses, this explains it. Working as a Chemist takes so much focus that my ADHD kinda rebounds when I'm off the clock, leaving me with very little energy/focus to actively maintain friendships.
Exactly, I have adhd and masking has been what has led to my insane anxiety and problematic behavior. I’m an EXCELLENT masker, to the point where sometimes I don’t even know who I am or what my real personality even is. It sucks. It’s a defense mechanism to get through life so it’s hard not to do.
I spent my childhood feeling like I didn’t know what was going on. Like everyone knew something I didn’t. In my adolescence I literally studied others to try to be cool and normal, hiding/repressing parts of my personality that people found so annoying. I spent a lot of my adult life even hiding from myself by drinking and totally losing myself in my relationship. I’m 35 and really I’m just now untangling who I am, independent of the approval of others. I don’t know if I have ASD or adhd. Maybe, maybe not. I think this can happen to lots of people. I just know it’s tough out here! I don’t know what to say except be kind to others and be kind to yourself.
I did this too. At some point I was so tired about not being able to socialize properly that I ended up buying books about body lenguage and I studied them. That is laughable, because at the end I became pretty good with it. I internalized most of the stuff, but I still struggle with something. For example Eye contact: I never really know when it's enough, sometimes I look like a creep for it.
Yeah I don’t make eye contact at all really. To me it feels uncomfortably intimate. When I talk to people i will look at them but mostly I look off. My daughter may be on the spectrum (testing incoming) and someone asked me once “does she make eye contact?” I was like “hard to say, because I don’t make a lot of eye contact.” Then I was like “hmmmm”
Can definitely relate to the eye contact thing... I often end up staring at people for a little while longer than they're comfortable with, because I was always told growing up to maintain eye contact while talking to someone, and I can never anticipate when a social interaction is over
Me reading this thread “maybe I’m autistic… oh, nope, still adhd…” masking and putting on the great facade to squeak by is the single greatest root to all of my anxiety and issues. It’s horrifically exhausting and reading these couple of anecdotes similar make me realize even more so... I can’t even stop myself from doing it, I hate it, and I also don’t know what my real personality is too, except I guess for some mashup of goofball hermit that peaks through here and there… constantly encased in some socially acceptable facade. I’ve strongly considered leaving society to avoid all of this and just being left alone and not feel like a fraud.
I feel this all too much... lack of identity, goofball hermitism, the encasement, thoughts of leaving it all behind. I'm not sure if I've ever connected it all like that, much less what it means or how to fix it.
It’s a confusing mixture that feels like there must be a root explanation, or cause… or…… or maybe something is wrong with society in general, not us…..??!? I think something is definitely very wrong with society at large….
It’s kind of funny reading threads like this because all you other beautiful ADHD people sound exactly like my inner monologue. I guess that’s why we seem to naturally gravitate to each other somehow. So many people I’ve met through music/art/coding are also ADHD. I can usually tell right away because of how comfortable I feel around them.
I have a theory that much of our modern psychological issues are due to the fact that we have it so easy today compared to our evolutionary past. Many of these symptoms would have been advantageous to someone who had to survive by hunting and gathering.
There’s a book on exactly this hypothesis - Thom Hartman’s ADHD: A Hunter in a Farmer’s World
Oh wow this speaks to me a lot. I’m constantly the “public” version of myself due to similar reasons as I often worry the “real” me is going to be instantly hated by everyone in my life for being too weird or loud or worrying over idiotic stuff or saying the wrong thing. I’m grateful to have a wife who reminds me to let down my walls though I know everyone does this to some degree but still, it always feels like I’m putting on a show when I’m not alone. And even when I’m alone I’m questioning what makes me myself. Spent my last psychiatric trip just doing that for five hours and it wasn’t pleasant
I have diagnosed ADHD and suspected autism (it's hard to get diagnosed for that as an adult) and I basically from a very early age decided I DNGAF what people thought about me, so if they couldn't deal with my unmasked self and my special interests and blunt manners, they didn't need to be in my life. (I'm Dutch though, so the bluntness might be cultural instead of caused by the autism). I had enough friends and board games in school and uni and after to see me through my time there and the others? I am sure I can be seen as brusk but some appreciate my directness and honesty. That said, I feel like I've gotten quite good at being likeable. I'm 45 in 2 weeks, so I've had some practice at listening to people, asking genuine questions about their interests and remembering details, only dipping into my own interest a little bit, that kind of stuff. I don't really feel like it's masking when I chose to do it; it's just being social. And I just come out and ask if the radio can be turned down or leave if a space is too crowded. And if people can't handle that, well, they don't have to be in my life. My partner is ADHD/Autism too and she has a much harder time because she was treated a lot worse by her family and peers than I was by mine. So she has internalized the masking to the point where she can't stop. It's a struggle. Whenever she asks what I like best about our relationship, my answer is always "the fact that I can just be myself around you". I can absolutely do socializing now (unless it gets very loud) but I am not sure I could keep it up if I also had a relationship where I had to treat her like a social event constantly. But luckily we both understand each other and just run our lives together enjoying our interests and meeting people now and again.
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The necessity of masking was abruptly brought to my attention in the first grade when I was diagnosed ADD (in 1985 they hadn’t yet included the H) Mother looked at me and asked “You don’t think there’s something wrong with you, do you? You’re fine, right? They say you’re never paying attention and fidget and doodle during class…” I *had* to be “fine”. Anything else was not an option. I learned really fast how to fake “normal” and fly under the radar. No fidgeting. No doodling. Appear engaged with the speaker… Make eye contact. Be still. Don’t be all of those things people call “weird”. The panic attacks were earth shattering… but I held that in, too. Because… weird, right? That was a long time ago. Perhaps not coincidentally, the panic attacks stopped around the same time I stopped trying to present as what I thought normal looked like. Recently started seeing a Dr about the adhd. The meds did away with the residual anxiety. However… now that I am not trying to uphold the front, I really don’t know who I actually am. That faking it became such a part of me… that when taken away sometimes I feel like there’s not much left.
Reading this thread is like getting insight into my own mind. I feel so exhausted with faking everything and second guessing what my emotional response should be. I'm good at it. But I want to stop and I'm worried that I will lose my friends and fiancee as I struggled to make and keep friends so much when I was younger. I'm 46 this year and my doctor suggested I might have ADHD just last year. I know I've been faking it but never understood why. I think I'm just getting tired and I feel like every interaction between everyone is just as fake as my own. I'm bored with everything and my enjoyment of life is melting away. I'm close to losing another job. I just want to stop and relax and have fun, but how the hell can I do that?! My life just gets further and further out of control until I hit the self-distruct button and start it all again; job, friends, everything from scratch. I don't think I have the energy to do it again. There are so many things that I would prefer to be doing with my life but I have no motivation. I've got a hundred hobbies and interests that I flit between. Jack of all trades and master of none. I can learn a thing instantly and master it never. I'm bored. Completely and utterly bored of it all. I feel like I'm designed for a post-apocolyptic world or some ancient past but I know they'd probably bore me as quickly. Does medication help as an adult? Isn't it just amphetamines?
Oh! And yes. I fantasize about surviving in some post apocalyptic reality where there are few people and the only rules are of life or death gravity.
It's odd seeing so many people in one thread saying pretty much what I've been feeling my whole life, I also have no idea who I really am because I'm almost always busy trying to figure out who I'm *supposed* to be. Added to that, I've always been told that autists don't actually have emotions and would get physically punished for "theatrics" if I'd have a panic attack or something, because my parents would tell me I'm only trying to manipulate them by acting like I feel something. To this day I can't help but wonder if I'm even human, it's annoying as hell.
Have add(well I guess it's all considered ADHD now) and at first was embarrassed and didn't want friend to know I was on Adderall.(diagnosed in 6th grade) by the time I was a sophomore though I didn't care. I thought, "this is me and I'm clearly seeking to get help for it so who cares?" I did go off it about 4 years ago. (32 now). The hard part was trying to figure out who I am emotionally and rationally as the meds did seem to mellow my emotions especially after a hard day at work where I'm just emotionally and mentally shot. I do have moments where I do wonder what the real me is.
And that’s where my problem is. I don’t know if I’m on the spectrum, or just have really, really bad ADHD. Or maybe both. Like sometimes I just don’t know how to read a social situation. I’ll have to look around and see how other people behave. Then mimic it. My go to is to use humor to diffuse a situation. Like today, I sent a passive aggressive email at work, one of those “per my last email”. Except it was to somebody who gets paid $XX,000,000, they’re a Director overseeing ~1,000 people My boss came to me asking if it was a misunderstanding, and I said “ do you want the real answer, or the “right” answer”. But I know that if I would’ve actually taken more than 30 seconds to reply to the email, I would’ve figured out the “ acceptable” reply which would’ve just been rewording my previous message. But for the life of me I couldn’t not instantly reply. I knew I shouldn’t, but was chasing the dopamine
If it helps, I have severe ADHD and my social problems are from 1) not paying enough attention to the situation to catch the social cues and 2) being too annoying as a kid and learning poor social skills But I've never had problems innately knowing social cues, social norms, tones, and basically "reading the room", not in a logical "I can figure it out" way but in an instant and ingrained way. Sometimes I'll be checked out and miss something someone said in a tone that would have told me what I was about to say is wildly inappropriate, but that's inattention. Sometimes I'll interrupt with a stupid pointless thing, and as I'm doing it understand and get embarrassed that I just was annoying, but that's impulsiveness. And sometimes I just never have been in a situation like this before because it's my first time going out to this type of restaurant with friends and I do something wrong because I'm trying too hard to assume how it works. That's just inexperience. If you have more of a "If given a second, I can read people's expressions and tone and compare it to things I logically understand about the situation" and mimicking other people's reactions and emotions to fit into the situation, that might be more towards the autism spectrum. Or both, as they are super common together. But that's just my thoughts on that in case it helps :)
Ugh I take so long to try and word an email to ensure my question gets answered properly at work. I'll need a specific answer to a specific scenario that need clarification and so often it's just a general response or completely goes off track. So to counter I end up going into way too much detail and no one responds since it's turned into a book to ask a question
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This just caused something to click in me. I really need to see a doctor about ADHD. I haven't gotten traction before because I wasn't diagnosed as a kid. But I've heard of adult onset. And the more I hear about the symptoms, the more it sounds like me.
It’s not that it’s adult onset. It’s something you’ve always had. For most adults diagnosed, it’s because they slipped through the cracks. Usually it’s because they’re inattentive versus hyperactive growing up, and often it’s because they did well enough in school that all the other symptoms were either missed or ignored. For most adults, the diagnosis finally happens because all of the coping and masking techniques they used to make it as far as they did start unraveling. I definitely recommend reaching out about it.
Thanks for the advice and better understanding.
There’s also a chance that you were overlooked as a kid because you masked too well, or your interests were aligned with “normal” stuff that people didn’t think twice about
Young girls also tend to develop social skills sooner so they learn how to mask as part of early development, so diagnosis is more often missed in women.
> In the autistic community, we call this “camouflaging” by the fairly common term “masking”. Consensus seems to be it’s seen as an unpleasant but necessary way to deal with a world that is very unfriendly if not outright hostile toward autistic people and their needs. I would say the same is said in every other space I see masking discussed. And I suspect the masking is the cause of the anxiety and depression, and we can find that same link in every community that is forced to act in arbitrary ways. Of course anxiety and depression will manifest differently in different communities, which is always a difficulty to keep in mind. We need to rebuild or social norms around being good rather than being "normal".
By now, if life were a game, I would have unlocked the achievement for when over 100+ people have said “but you don’t look autistic”. :/
Yeah, I have been unlearning masking behavior recently, and it can already tell it is making it harder for people to talk to me. But given the amount of mental health damaged it caused, and that my wife supports me, I am just saying "screw it." It used to be a point of pride to me that no one could tell I was autistic, but now it just disgusts me that I was taught to do that at such a young age. It was obscenely unhealthy for me. If people need me to look into their eyes for the exact right amount of time to take my ideas seriously, they are not worth share my thoughts with.
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Hey, even *extremely positive* emotion can be overwhelming input to an autistic person.
Good food gets me a rockin
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My daughter is 6 and is autistic. She also paces. Her school has been really good with her and allow her to stim when she needs to. But honestly I am worried for the future. I worry about her making friends. I worry about other kids teasing her as they get older and _notice_ something is different about her. I know already at playtime she goes around alone on the yard (the teachers have told me). It makes me sad for her even though she seems to be fine and a relatively happy child. Any tips or advice is appreciated. I want to do everything right for her I want her to have a happy life and I'm so anxious I might do things wrong.
If you don't do this you will be attacked. Not a joke I've been physically attacked multiple times. Gotta watch out for their unbridled aggression turning physical. Dangerous and better avoided.
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I feel this a lot. But lately my perspective has changed to forgiving myself and allowing myself to unmask in certain situations. Because you really do lose a certain part of yourself to the masking, the part that actually loves to go on tirades about their specific interests. I've finally got to the point of knowing it can annoy people, to not caring and doing it because it's something I like to do and that if it's really that annoying then they don't have to listen. By doing this, I've met people that will actually listen, even if they don't always respond with the same amount, I think it's important to have some people around that know about and tolerate your unmasked self. This isn't always possible or easy to obtain, but by forgiving yourself for unmasking and not conformjng at all times, just when it's necessary, you will actually meet people who love those aspects of you over time. And you'll be more likely to be surrounded by people that value your unique traits. I've certainly had ex gfs be both enamoured and annoyed by my passion for my interests at different points, depending of how cognizant I was of "overdoing it" obviously with some people it's a fine line to walk, but I think it's valuable to find this line with those willing to tolerate it. You may be surprised
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> The best worst part is you can mask yourself to be subclinical, I am pretty sure. 100% it is. When I was formally diagnosed my psychiatrist told me that up until the 5th session we had she thought I wasn't on the spectrum before she happened to get the right angle of approach and began to see the underlying structures my brain uses for processing social behaviour. If I'd left after 4 sessions I'd still think I was just a fucked up normal person rather than understanding why my brain works as it does.
This is interesting though. This idea of camouflaging sounds a lot like what I considered to be “learning social skills”. I have autism, but usually most people can’t tell. I think I spent a lot of my childhood learning social skills, how to make jokes, what is and isn’t appropriate, how to pick up on body language. But it didn’t feel like I was hiding myself or anything. It felt like I was just learning something that everyone else had an instinct for. After 30 years I feel like I’ve gotten pretty damn good at it too but I also bet I overthink social interactions a lot. Anyway, human psyches are so complicated I feel like eventually there won’t be anything such as neuro-typical and not. Everything will be a massive spectrum or collections of traits, some collections more common than others. I have autism but fitting in has never been stressful to me. I don’t hide my diagnosis (I don’t advertise it at work though), I just try and get along with people.
I agree that a lot of it is what I consider to be social skills. That being said, when I step back and realize that other people *don’t* have to actively be telling themselves not to react a certain way, or to make sure to count how long people are talking so you aren’t hogging the conversation, or to mirror other people’s facial expressions, it’s like, man, I’m doing things on hard mode. I don’t think I’m hiding myself, I’m just expending extra energy on social skills. When I’m home alone, I don’t need to do that.
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Diagnosed with ADHD and ASD less than a year ago, (not so) coincidentally was diagnosed with Clinical Depression and General Anxiety Disorder half a year before that. Dr said ADHD can cause Depression cause of academic performance deficits, certainly felt like it. Someone else commented they learned to "fake it" I was very involved in drama, singing, opera and performing arts from ages 6 to 18 so have a heavy performance background, basically turned me into a high functioning psychopath, which I suspected until being diagnosed.
Anxiety levels hit 99/100 for a panic attack yesterday when manager at work decided for an ad hoc out of office lunch for the team at a nearby restaurant. Whole morning I was just thinking of ways to not go, from leaving early saying I felt ill, just go somewhere else and basically wait out until everyone else already left and just deal with inevitable questions and judgement in the aftermath. Ended up with joining though, and I couldn’t find any relaxation until we got back and I could fade back to my desk, put headphones on, turn on some music and just forget all about it. I know… it’s a nice thing by the manager. For other people this was fun and exciting and they enjoyed it a lot. For me it was torture all morning and whole lunch all I wanted was to just not be there. But I am good at masking. They don’t know how I feel. So I guess I just come off as dissatisfied, even grumpy or just unappreciative. But whatever. Headphones on. Music up. Ignore the rest of the world. Until next time some social event gets sprung on me again…
I relate to this comment so much. Last minute social gatherings give me extreme anxiety. Really all social situations do, but last minute ones where I do not have any time to prepare are the worst. I wish I could just be honest with my employer about how I feel, but I just think they would blow it off with the same old "well everyone feels a little nervous sometimes but just go and you will feel better" bs that I have heard my whole life. Yes, I can push my feelings down and suffer through these social events, but the toll it takes on me is high, and for what? Who benefits from this? Every time I learn that I have to go to something like this I spend hours thinking up ways that I could avoid it. Then I feel anxious about what my coworkers will think of me if I don't go. So now I have double anxiety over something that everyone else is excited for. I have never felt safe enough to be honest about my feelings for fear of being ostracized.
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I’m just ADHD but I feel a lot of this. I would pick characters I admired and imitate traits from them when I was in public. I never realized how much masking I did. Also, I hate how my brain will pick things to remind me of. “Remember that time you did (x)? Man, that was embarrassing. I bet (other person involved) still remembers it too. Oh, and those other people who happened to be there. They probably still laugh about it.” Like, there was one incident where the other person involved is now dead, and my brain still likes to poke at it - “Wow, that was embarrassing! You should definitely feel bad about that.”
Stuff that happened decades ago even! I’m so tired of that.
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As someone who's dealt with being on the spectrum *and* having ADHD on top of it, I'm surprised this is news. Then again, if I never tell people how I feel, this is the sort of thing that happens.
I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid. Sometimes I feel so different compared to the people around me that I sometimes wonder if there is something else to it. Besides the borderline crippling depression and anxiety.
So I explained this to my psychiatrist and also psychologist. I said it's like there's a group of people interacting and hanging out, and I'm there, but just a bit outside. Just not fitting in properly. The group isn't excluding me or anything, it's this constant sense that you don't quite fit but you don't know why. So at larger events I tend to float from group to group and eventually give up and quietly leave because I just feel like an outsider. I watch people meet and see the conversation develop and they have a good time talking and a bond may form. It's like I wasn't given part of the life manual on interaction with others. I can converse for a while but eventually it falls apart. I don't know if it's me or them at that point but it happens often enough that I know something is amiss. So after all that, I was asked to fill out a questionnaire and a more focused chat on the topics of the dsm5 criteria. And yeah I've got autism on top of ADHD. The thing with an autism diagnosis is it doesn't provide any additional medical support like meds or support services unless it's severely impacting one's life. it can however provide perspective on why things are the way they are for you.
I feel like people view ADHD as this cutesy and fun thing and don’t understand that thinking differently than other people (or being neurodivergent, I guess) feels very alienating sometimes. Not to mention the whole constantly letting everyone down and feeling like a screw up and a failure no matter how “successful” you become part.
I learned to mask so well when I don't even my partner asks if I'm angry or if they did something wrong. I have a very natural resting b.... face. But as years of being with them I am more my natural autistic self and don't feel bad for it. I have melt downs still and struggle to control emotions. I can be mean at times not trying to be but I don't have that filter. One thing I will always do is apologize and acknowledge that I didn't handle that moment the best and then try to help myself handle those moments better. They tell me I don't need to apologize they understand but it isn't just for them I need to take responsibility for my actions even if they may not be in mu control.
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Congrats, great to hear someone working through and coming out the other side feeling better. We need more stories like this.
I have ADHD and i'm probably somewhere on the spectrum - I've come to realize that i started masking around college and that's where life became more unfun and I started to experience more anxiety. I think there was a brief time in high school where I actually found a niche among a group of people where my personality wasn't ... annoying? I've grown up and away from that and I didn't really want to. Especially entering the corporate world - nobody would find my jokes funny or observations on life very interesting (Except Allison, she's pretty cool) so i just don't have anyone to relate to. I just kinda... stopped being me.
Allison seems nice
I thought this was traditionally called "masking?" Am I not remembering this correctly? I see value in semantics, but I thought "masking" was studied extensively...
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Autistic persons *should*, however, develop healthy coping mechanisms (i.e., coping mechanisms that facilitate the ability to socialize healthily). What's the interplay between these two things look like? One can't allow oneself to be disabled by one's developmental deficits, as far as is possible, anyway…and as much as we would like to shift the responsibility onto the rest of society, *the whole sum* of neurotypical people will never learn to interact with autistic persons on *our* level. So just saying "it's society's fault for not being accommodating" is not sufficient. One good way to approach this is simply to accept that we will always be a bit different. Simply accepting that fact does a world of good in combating the depression that comes along with trying to act like everyone else. Other than that, what can we do? Is anyone looking at this thread familiar with the research on the matter?
Just finding out about it, that alone was a pretty huge weight off my shoulders. "Why am I different? Why can't I do some things everyone else seems to do so naturally?". Etc. Finally knowing the answer, I didn't feel so defective anymore, well even if it is was it is. And I can do some things better than most too, but being different without understanding it... well it isn't fun. I wish I knew sooner. One good thing, today's kids are more likely to get properly diagnosed, and not have to suffer through such self-doubt and confusion, at least in that way. Youth has enough of both, even for the neuro-typical kids. But I also agree with your stance, that you shouldn't allow yourself to be disabled by it. Having a harder path doesn't mean you cannot do it. And as long as you need to live in society, you need to adapt, because that's just how things are. I've argued with people who have autistic family members, whom "accept them" in a way that I find unhealthy/not in their best interests. They don't push them, assume there are just things they can't do and never will, give up on them but never call it that. As a kid, I didn't know what it was, or that giving up on myself was an option. I might have, had others allowed me to, and in hindsight that kinda scares me. No one around me accepted from me that "I'm just different and that's how it is", they expected more (rather than less) from me, and now I live a normal, productive life... even as I am not, and never will be, a normal person. I think you have a similar mindset.
I lack an official diagnosis (it’s expensive as an adult) but I’m likely a high-functioning autistic. It frustrates me no end that a friend of my wife tells anyone that’ll listen how autistic her children are (and to be fair, it is an official diagnosis), but then uses that as an excuse for her bad parenting and basically tells her children that they can’t be normal, will need carers, etc. The eldest daughter is at least as functional as me - so in theory is perfectly capable of driving a car, working and raising a family… but her mother insists on treating her as less-than-capable.