Published on 12, July, 2020
Does anyone else feel that they can pretend like they're normal for a short amount of time (and actually cope quite well like a regular person in the outside world) but after a couple of weeks the effort is too much and you crash and burn out and cant "be normal" anymore?
Changing how you would normally act to fit better into neurotypical society is called masking (this could be subconscious or you could do it intentionally). It takes a lot of energy to mask because you are having to focus on so many things at once (like body language, the conversation, the other person, etc) and that can be harder too if you are monotropic. If you mask too long it could lead to exhaustion and even burnout.
www.autism.org.uk/.../autistic-masking
Thanks, the link is interesting. I liked the comparison with the "closet". In fact, being an ASD today is like being a gay man in the '70. Either you learned to hide it very well, or you find a social niche where it was tolerated. In the meantime, you hide your true nature and take care of not getting too close to anybody to keep yourself from slipping up.
I think that depends. Solitude can be very harmful. Physical hurt is easier to heal than mental/emotional in my opinion. But alot of bullying now days is verbal instead of physical so I think solitude would be a better choice until you are in an environment that is more mature. Constant masking can be hard to undo though. Im not sure there is a better option
That's not difficulty, that's wisdom. Every non-masking ASD I met was cruelly bullied and exploited by everybody else. It's better to suffer a bit of solitude than being beaten or robbed.
Judge Dredd said:take care of not getting too close to anybody
It’s taken me a life time to realise that my difficulty in making friends is in very large part because of exactly this - deliberately keeping people at a distance so they won’t find out too much.