Anyone here take the CAT-Q?

I wish I could offer some advice but I am in exactly the same position as you. Awaiting assessment (July), don’t know when I’m masking and when I’m not, not sure of what I actually like and dislike and so on. I do at least attend therapy sessions with a therapist who is neurodivergent herself, it has helped me to identify some triggers and adapt ways to soften the blow. I also am currently on ssri’s which I have struggled with but am a little more settled on them now. I can only say try and learn as much as you can through reliable sources and see if anything resonates with you, maybe then you can start to make some small adjustments for yourself……. All the little things seem to add up to be a big deal. 
Stick around here if you can, there are many knowledgeable and very helpful folk on here. Things have changed a bit in recent times and we have lost some valuable members (who I miss) but I’m very grateful for this place and the people that are here. 

Go easy Alexandre - dont worry about scores on one test , they are indicators and I scored just under you and was diagnosed recently, I'm mid 50s, so I think I've masked for poss 40 years and so it's going to take a while for me to work out who I am beyond the mask.  Good luck in hopefully getting your assessment done soon.  If you assume you will be diagnosed is there any support you can access now, perhaps NHS talking therapies ? as my Therapy has been helping me (mainly focused on my anxiety) but I know my sessions (health insurance) will end in a few weeks

Hi, I am a 39 yr old male currently awaiting an assessment. It’s a very long story how it has got to this point. I’ve always felt I never fit in anywhere and with my GP recommending a referral for diagnosis it has left me even more confused. Am I masking? Is what I’m doing “normal”? Am I really potentially Autistic or is it in my head? I’ve done all sorts of online tests but have recently taken the Cat Q. Due to now going through a bit of an identity crisis and not being sure of anything anymore I was, let’s say reserved in some of my answers and I still scored a total of 116. Has anyone as an adult gone through this situation and got any advice on how to not lose my mind for the next 6 months?

I know the feeling well...wasn't there some Jim Carey film called the Mask....never watched it but just spring into my head..I am going through this process at the moment, trying to re discover my true identity...

I just scored 154 (over 50 in each subcategory)! Diagnosed with both autism and ADHD - auDHD - at 51, two years ago, so I have a lifetime of being "the great pretender' to unlock, to untangle the Mask from Me. Which is like staring down miles and miles of a beach front, wondering whether I am the pebbles, the shells, or the mass of sand.

I have just taken it again and got these scores:

Compensation 40.  Masking  21. Assimilation  35

My compensation score is close to the average (41.85) for an autistic woman, and my Assimilation score is lower than the female autistic average of 44.63 but higher than the female NT average of 29.

What I'm trying to understand is why I have such a low masking score, as the averages for that category for females are Autistic: 37.87 and NT: 34.69.  

The embrace autism website explains the sub category of masking as follows:

"..where Autistic people hide how they're feeling..." - why? How? I don't know how to do this.

 "For instance, they may copy what someone else is talking about if they do not know what to say" - If someone starts a conversation, I judge whether I can make a contribution or if I'm interested enough to, and if not I let others talk and either monitor the conversation until it becomes more interesting, or I see if I can start another conversation with someone else. 

"Monitoring and adjusting your face and body to appear relaxed or interested in others" - never thought of doing that. If I wanted to not appear nervous in a situation such as a job interview, I didn't adjust my face or body, I reminded myself that the interviewers are just people like me and I that I had prepared as much as I could, so I adjusted my mind, not my body.

 "Feeling pressured to make eye contact" - Before I learned about what autism is and that I might be autistic, I never thought about eye contact. I'd picked up somehow that it was polite to look at people when they speak to you and I'd also been told it was rude to stare, so I think I'd just learned to look generally at faces. I don't really think about it, as I'm usually thinking about what someone said and what I'm going to say. I can have long conversations with my partner without any eye contact at all.

 "Thinking about the impression made on others" - what? How is that masking, or hiding how you are feeling? I used to want other people to like me, but I don't believe that's the same thing? Now I don't care what other people think of me.

130 for me. What I find interesting is that I scored a couple of points above the autistic female average except from assimilation where I got less than said average. I don’t know why though. The only explanation I can think of is that I got so good at masking that I no longer feel the need to put on an act just because I feel alienated either way and the masking is no longer just an act but a made up part of my personality if that makes any sense…

SpikeyMark said:

Some background information for other people. This doesn't measure how autistic you are. It is only about how much you camouflage. You can still score low in this and be autistic.

That makes sense given that it could be interpreted as both proof of being more autistic, and the complete opposite. My low score on this test, compared to others on this thread, is not unexpected given the 'how much?' and 'who with?' of the socialising  I do F2F with others.

146 for me. I've masked so long I have no identity anymore. Socialising is so exhausting. Trying to unmask but it's very difficult.

Ha ha 

No, it means you camouflage in the same way as most other autistic women, when you are in social situations.

My masking score was wildly different - I think my brain spends so much time doing the compensating thing of learned facial expressions, body language & responding appropriately to social cues that I have no processing space left to think about looking confident or attentive or whether I'm doing eye contact. Sometimes if I'm not engrossed in a conversation or lose the ability to concentrate on the speaker my mind starts wandering and thinking of something else or I start thinking about my eye contact - for example, have I been staring at them too long? - and then I miss a lot of what was said. 

I have noticed that my partner and I can have long conversations without any eye contact at all.

Wow, does that meean I'm averagely autstic?

It's a tool that can be used to identify autistic individuals who don't meet diagnostic criteria due to their camouflaging behaviours. The results of tests on both autistic and NT participants show that autistic women camouflage the most, NT women the least, and in men and non binary people there is not so much difference. Therefore it appears that women may be more likely not to get a diagnosis due to learned behaviours.

The test gives an overall score plus 3 sub category scores, as you will have seen.

Compensation = copying body language, facial expressions, learning social cues, etc.          Average scores in females: Autistic 42,  NT 27

Masking = Trying to look attentive and appear relaxed & confident, forcing eye contact.   Average scores in females: Autistic 38,  NT 35

Assimilation = Putting on an act to fit in, avoiding or forcing interaction with others.     Average scores in females: Autistic 45,  NT 29

So as we are both women we can compare our scores with the average autistic women's scores of 42, 38 and 45.

Hi Pixie, I did see your post before I posted, but I still don't understand what any of it means, as there's nothing to measure it against, theres no context.  Without context this is about as useful as a Cosmopolitan magazine quiz.

78 for me. It's very hard  to make much out of it.  I  probably interact with considerably fewer people than even the average autistic person does. Of those I do interact with ,there is no pressing psychological need  to be other than I am. I'm not sure, however, if that would still be the case if my social network IRL widened.

I think the need and degree to camouflage/mask is governed by the degree of social interaction that an autistic person has, and depth and width of their social network IRL.

Hi Cat, have a look at my post below which gives details of what each section refers to.

I thought about how I used to be before I decided I don't really care anymore, but then I don't really socialise anymore either, maybe if I did I would still mask a lot?

Mine was 135 with compensation 45,  masking 43 and assimilation 47, I've no idea what it all means though, I downloaded the PDF hoping for more information but there wasn't any, how do I find out the meaning of the scores?

I come in at 152 for work and socialising with "normal" people (inc family).

I re-did it based on socialising with "my people" i.e  those on the alternative scene (e.g. Goth, Punk, Emo, Hippy etc. etc.). I thought of events like weddings, birthday parties etc. where it wasn't just people I've met before, but they were all "alternative" in some way. My score dropped down to 127. Still high but better.

I could probably drop it further if I only ever had to socialise with alt. people, the majority of whom seem to be outside the norm in one way or another. Talking about long term physical or mental health issues, LGBTQ+ identity, neurodiversity or different lifestyle/belief system and obviously NOT mainstream music or fashion choices! I find the alt scene generally more accepting of difference and not as wedded to conventional social conventions. At least that's my experience.

I'm not part of a big IRL friends group, but am in touch in a loose way with a fair number of ppl on social media and there are still occasional big IRL events, which are the ones I thought of.

I’ve done the CAT Q a few times and scored around 145 or thereabouts. I mask a tremendous amount of the time and when I don’t I get told I’m miserable. For me I find it harder to mask now I know I mask if that makes sense? 

Lotus said:

the spam bots are coming to eat your posts! Arrggghh!

LOL, it reminds me of that 1990s film The Langoliers:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112040/