Hi, I’m an autistic individual, whose mostly independent but struggles primarily with service situations (interacting with waiters, cashiers, etc), talking on the phone, and some smaller stuff like reading body language
im 18 now, and I was diagnosed 2 years ago at 16. Because of this I think I learned a lot of masking behaviors. I wear rings or lanyards with things on the end so I can stim in public without dancing or doing my hand/finger stims which are much more visually shocking. I also tend to be better at controlling my noises. I still have some behaviors that are the same, though. For example when I get a temperature stimuli I tend to do a very intense and visual shiver.
but when I’m at home, or only around close friends/family, I find I tend to do more heavy stimming, I make a lot more noises, and my communication sometimes struggles a bit more
Does anyone else experience this on/off?
