Skip to main content
Close Button
Donate
  • Replies 63 replies
  • Subscribers 109 subscribers
  • Views 9785 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Do you Internalise or Mask or both ?

Turtle
over 3 years ago

Hi, I'm just wondering has anyone ever thought they have done both of these at any time in their lives ?

I often read on here that it is usually females that internalise whereas males mostly mask. Is this correct ?

Looking back, I feel I have done both. I am male. I know there are males here who have said they internalise 

and others I suspect have had the same experience. Perhaps far more than care to admit due to the stereo-typing

that it's only likely to be females who internalise ? In any case, isn't the outcome and diagnoses the same at the end of the day ?

I.e Exhaustion ?

What is your experience ? 

Parents
  • over 3 years ago

    I think as I've gotten older I do primarily mask but I definitely masked when I was young because I had to learn to protect myself from people at school, at that time it was about 50/50 but now more like 90/10 in favour masking.

    When I was a kid I was extremely quiet I never really spoke unless I was specifically spoken too and I got a lot of stick from my family because of it, they're all NT I'm the first in my family. They always used to get angry or annoyed because i wasn't social with them, didn't have interest in them in terms of what they did and actively trying to not be around people. Looking back I was pretty much forced to be 'normal' and it's had a detrimental effect of my mental health.

    Masking I'd say is more effort on a day to do because you are acting to an insane level of detail but if you can find a path in life where you don't need to and you have people that understand and are comfortable with you being you, and you are comfortable being yourself around them too I imagine that's the only way to live life of minimal burnout as an autistic person.

    I read too that females generally are better at/mask more than males and I would say it's plausible but at the same time I'm so "good" at masking that I didn't get diagnosed until I was 22 and that was only because I just could carry on living the way I was living. When I was doing all my research into autism before my diagnosis I was looking at adult male/female autistic traits which buy n' large are the same but I definitely lean to the more female ends of the spectrum. I'd probably that on average females learn to mask at younger age and as a result they get better because they have more time but there will alway be outliers like me that learned early on in life I'm not like everyone else and the people that are different always get bullied and shunned so I better stop being like that so that doesn't happen to me. 

Reply
  • over 3 years ago

    I think as I've gotten older I do primarily mask but I definitely masked when I was young because I had to learn to protect myself from people at school, at that time it was about 50/50 but now more like 90/10 in favour masking.

    When I was a kid I was extremely quiet I never really spoke unless I was specifically spoken too and I got a lot of stick from my family because of it, they're all NT I'm the first in my family. They always used to get angry or annoyed because i wasn't social with them, didn't have interest in them in terms of what they did and actively trying to not be around people. Looking back I was pretty much forced to be 'normal' and it's had a detrimental effect of my mental health.

    Masking I'd say is more effort on a day to do because you are acting to an insane level of detail but if you can find a path in life where you don't need to and you have people that understand and are comfortable with you being you, and you are comfortable being yourself around them too I imagine that's the only way to live life of minimal burnout as an autistic person.

    I read too that females generally are better at/mask more than males and I would say it's plausible but at the same time I'm so "good" at masking that I didn't get diagnosed until I was 22 and that was only because I just could carry on living the way I was living. When I was doing all my research into autism before my diagnosis I was looking at adult male/female autistic traits which buy n' large are the same but I definitely lean to the more female ends of the spectrum. I'd probably that on average females learn to mask at younger age and as a result they get better because they have more time but there will alway be outliers like me that learned early on in life I'm not like everyone else and the people that are different always get bullied and shunned so I better stop being like that so that doesn't happen to me. 

Children
  • over 3 years ago in reply to O
    O said:
    but if you can find a path in life where you don't need to and you have people that understand and are comfortable with you being you, and you are comfortable being yourself around them too I imagine that's the only way to live life of minimal burnout as an autistic person.

    Great advice ! Being comfortable with yourself is the most important thing.