How autism can be hidden from society

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How autism can be hidden from society using psychological strategies .

I think compensatory strategies and masking are more like 'getting by'. You have to do some stuff to fit into the system enough to get what you want (mostly)... But it's not like you are the master of disguise. I thought I was doing pretty well at fitting into life before my burnout and diagnosis in 2017. And yet, at that time a family friend said to me, we all know that you are different but we appreciate you for what you are. I was pretty shocked. I wasn't even thinking about autism then... But it seems like I had a big red A branded on my forehead.

On the other hand, another friend flatly refused to even vaguely entertain it when I told her I think I may be autistic. She had worked with autistic kids and said I was nothing like them. She met me when I was 21 and didn't know me as a kid.

Is this masking? Well maybe a bit. But I think it's just ignorance. She is a lovely friend and accepts it now. I think.

Re being 'different': My sister in her letter for my assessment wrote

There are those on the ultra high end of the spectrum that have an advantage in being able to hide their autism better than others. They are likely to have more NT traits that they can use in their masking of their “real” self to others. They do not have enough of them to become fully NT, just enough that they can be camouflaged well. Others that are lower on the spectrum tend to not have those traits to fall back on, so it is much harder to completely mask their autism. In some ways, they are more true to their self and others without needing to mask. Just because someone can mask well does not make them less autistic. There is a cost of constantly masking ones own self, as it takes a lot of energy to do so. That constant toll of energy leads to eventual mental burnout if pushed too far.

Yes, if you are like me and have an office with a door that closes you have a huge advantage over someone working in a cubical. If it gets noisy I just close the door.

I hide my condition by being both smart and a smart-ass -- a problem-solver who cracks jokes.

I was hidden by mimicking other kids and even then me getting it all wrong sometimes and mimicking the wrong behaviors should have been a sign. Nope, I was just naive and innocent.

Mine was hidden by sheer physicality or not being clumsy enough, 'being verbal enough', offhand personality labels and behind the cultural presumptions -- in which both cases, I do not have to mask to blend with it.

If I were masking to begin with, I would've been long exhausted on regular basis with more co-morbids to deal with; though if that would delay or speed up my diagnosis timeframe I do not know.
Despite being able to mask, I'm naturally asocial to begin with even after all those social fulfillments that might as well had been hiding me. Therefore, I don't mask let alone do it unwillingly.

And several levels of external sensory threshold and tolerances. Losing these momentarily led me to problems and eventually diagnosis.


If I had any compensatory strategy other than sheer sensory tolerance; it is mainly channelled through executive function, directly through intellect and conscious mental processing with all the data I had acquired through the years. While processing both internal and external present.

Sadly, it's not always the case -- it's not the energy sources or datum, it's the executive function. Mainly the processing space and speed.
It's those rusted gears, the blurring scope and unreachable switches -- something is missing, and it's like I was carrying something unnecessary that shouldn't stay in here. My prime suspect is non restorative sleep.
At this state, I cannot use the vast data I had acquired properly while having to mind the present and near future at the same time.

Therefore I'm at this chaotic 'now', where several of my compensatory skills along with my abilities are either compromised, unaccessible, or limited.
As opposed to an orderly 'now', where I'm in full control of myself via complete access to all my compensatory strategies and the full extent of my abilities.

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A online friend showed me this:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanp ... 15-0366(19)30224-X/fulltext

What is very interesting is while someone can have "normal" behavior but have cognitive differences and different learning, they still go undiagnosed because doctors will only look at the behavior. If you don't show the behavior despite what you show on their tests or tell them, it doesn't matter.