I have a pretty controversial view about autistic masking
A lot of people talk about how terrible it is to mask as an autistic person. I'm sure it's true. I was criticized a lot as a child and at the time, nobody even thought to get me evaluated for autism. It was the 80s and I was lower middle class. In that environment, nobody thought in terms of a kid having ADHD or autism if they didn't fit in, especially if you were a girl. You were just "weird," or lacked self-discipline, or could succeed if you "really tried." That's just how it was. Having trouble with things was considered a matter of your character, not your brain function.
So people certainly criticized the things I did. People criticized me for constantly twirling my hair; for pronouncing words with a odd emphasis on certain syllables; for all the other little ways that I stood out from my peers that I can't even remember. I had a large vocabulary and used it, so I didn't talk in a "normal" way. I could only pay attention in class if I doodled all over my notes.
But I never really got good at pretending to be normal. I never really stopped stimming. I did learn how I was supposed to pronounce certain words so I didn't stand out as much. But mostly...I was just me, despite peoples' efforts to try to make me not be me. I couldn't make all the changes people always wanted me to make.
So when I see people complain about masking, I guess I feel a little bit..envious? Because that means they somehow achieved appearing normal better than I did, and they're probably reaping a bunch of benefits from it that I can't access to this day. I see them talk about having friends and partners and I don't have those things. And maybe I would if I had actually learned to mask more. To tell the truth, I probably only get by as much as I do because I'm pretty low support needs and my autistic symptoms aren't very prominent. My sensory issues are mild and mostly revolve around tactile stuff, which is mostly solved by dressing for comfort. I often doubt I'm autistic much of the time since on tests I take online I tend to score between the neurotypical range and the autistic range. So I see people talk about how the autistic spectrum isn't a spectrum between "more autistic" and "less autistic," and I feel like it doesn't apply to me because I do feel like I am genuinely less autistic than other autistic people in a lot of ways. I'm not saying this as a negative judgment, I'm just calling it like it is.
But I struggle massively with things that I don't see talked about as much. Maybe this isn't related to autism, I don't know, but I struggle a lot with trying to socialize. I know it's not all social anxiety thought of course that's a big part of it. But I have trouble understanding what people say because I can't filter out the background noise very well and my brain treats sound and speech as equal. Which apparently normal brains don't do? So I tent to fall silent in group settings because I can't participate. And the noise feels overwhelming and I want to participate but I can't make myself heard and it's hard to take turns in conversation, I get impatient waiting for my turn to speak (probably from ADHD) and I wind up either interrupting or never getting a chance to speak at all, and it's so frustrating that many common ways to socialize are just frustrating for me. And I never see any advice on how to deal with this anywhere. And I suffer a lot from social isolation as a result of it. And I don't see that talked about much either. I'm an introvert but I don't want to be alone all the time. I do a lot better in one-on-one conversations but it's hard to get to that point with a person; you seem to have to do all that group stuff first. But I don't see autistic people online talking about that kind of stuff so maybe this isn't an autism thing? I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not trying to be something I'm not, I'm just trying to find some answers.
