you don't "wish you couldn't mask", you wish you didn't have to mask. you don't "wish you couldn't work", you wish you didn't have to work. these are actionable things. just stop masking, all the time, forever. never work a job again or ever because you're too autistic to do so. "but I have to" if you cannot mask or work you cannot do these things if you have to! "no I really have to or I would be homeless on the streets and-" the moment I lose my very substantial community support that provides me shelter, food, and innumerable other things because I cannot even go to the grocery store on my own, I would be homeless on the streets and die. there is no "I can do this but it's exhausting" I will be homeless on the streets and die, because no matter how hard I try I cannot mask, and no matter how hard I try I cannot work. you do not need to exaggerate your severity for it to be a struggle, it only undermines people like me trying to talk about the issues we face as people with more severe than typical high functioning autism. I cannot mask, most allistic people treat me as either an extremely obnoxious idiot they'd like to blow the brains out of or a retard they have to be nice to, and this is how my entire life will be forever. because I cannot mask no matter how badly I want to, ever. like, here are my scores from my official diagnosis if you will:
i could try my absolute best at not seeming autistic and nothing. i ever do. i have ever tried. i have ever tried and i have TRIED i tried SO HARD will ever make me come off as anything less than obviously autistic or occasionally some incredibly weird and annoying retard. I can't initiate interpersonal irl social interactions with people I don't know without outside support! and I am level 1 autistic! as long as you don't need a 1 on 1 caretaker to function, you are level 1! it is far too broad in my experience, but this is the current label system and how it works! I obviously think it should be subdivided more but this is simply how it is for now, I'm low functioning level 1 autism or as much as I hate the term's connotations and history, low functioning Asperger's. and I will almost certainly never be able to work more than perhaps if I'm lucky a very very part time job maybe at best ever in my life!
please stop exaggerating your severity just because people with subclinical autistic traits that don't genuinely struggle enough to make it an actual disability are on the rise! it makes it incredibly hard to talk about the actual severity of my situation and how much I rely on others just to stay alive! i promise you still struggle but your issues are just so completely different with what I have to go through! struggling through a job or academia or masking while autistic is incredibly difficult and exhausting! but I have to go through an entirely different kind of struggle because of my severity, that's often just as hard compared with people that can have jobs and mask because of the support I receive, but fundamentally there is no "but I have to" at all for me! I will just die without the support I need! Being able to function without this support even when it's really hard just puts you in a fundamentally different situation from me that will just fucking die without being lucky enough to have all these people that care for me! because the ones that aren't lucky enough aren't around to tell you about it!
