Is secrecy an autistic thing?

I hope that my partner would say the same too - I certainly love them very much. The fear is always that aspect is somehow holding them back. There's always fear around judgements here though - I'm trying hard to have less of that - and our relationship works and has done for a very long while now. 

My best friend's autistic husband can do the emotional intimacy but not the physical. They have a very loving relationship. 

I worry about that last part often, to the point t where I often edit a day after for fear of doxing myself. I'm not sure why I care - it's probably a professional thing - but I do, increasingly so. 

Funnily enough I've also been a trusted type in that way for people too - I always wondered if it's because folk knew I was a little different so  l'd understand and empathise more, as well as being good at not passing stuff on. Thinking about it perhaps people thought I got other people well too - and I did because I'd been studying the strange things my whole life! 

I had that from a young age too, I think it's why I trained as a counsellor and was very good at it. I think one of the reasons why people can find us good to talk too, is that they get a reply thats maybe more anthropological than they'd get from most NT's. We're not in it, in the same way as NT's, we see and question all the social protocols, we ask why.

'...social snowballs...' I like that term.

Thanks for sharing. The older I've got that's flipped for me - I can be emotionally intimate but find the physical much harder.

I very much relate to what you are saying in terms of that failure feeling. I read something this morning about coming to terms with not feeling broken, just different that resonated in terms of trying to feel better about ourselves. I don't mind being different; I punish myself for failure... the former has to be more healthy. 

I've taken the question from both sides (allistic, autistic).

When I was a young adult, I started wondering why people would treat me as a psychologist and tell me everything they had in mind. Especially very private things.

So I asked them. Apparently 1) I listen, 2) Suggest questions to explore their problem further, 3) I would never share what they said to me (sometimes against their will, where it was expected I would share it).

Some of it may be just chance. But one other reason is that I believe sharing secrets creates social snowballs, just as lying does.  So it's much better to never share secrets.

On the other hand, I don't share my own secrets, because most people are not like that, at all. It was hard initially, but I became used to it eventually, and even a need.

For me it is also important to control my online traces to some extent as well.

Interesting thanks. Reading your take makes me think that, while I am honest - and sometimes too much so - my 'secrets' are behaviour based. I also fear I over-share, though I'm not sure if that's just a masking fear or actually a thing at this point. Tell me a secret and it is very much safe. 

Thinking on, I guess I also wonder whether there's a link between self-stimulation and self-medication... not to say that one is the same as the other, but that they both fulfill an unmet need. I've done both, both met a need for me but ultimately both were things I would (mostly) do in secret. 

Im the same with creating thinking about it - musically I work in headphones, more so that no-one can hear where I've taken myself rather than consideration for others (which is a factor there, granted). People can listen, should they choose to, once I've finished a project and made it public. 

I think it comes with having your life scrutinised and all your small quirks and other behaviours monitored and commented on, often detrimentally.

I don't think theres anything wrong with people wanting private space from a partner, it's about respect too, I'm as keen on guarding the privacy of others as I am my own, for example, I'd never look at a partners bank statement, I expect that same respect in return, just because I have autism and a couple of other learning difficulties doesn't make me incompetant.

I think the whole privacy/secrecy thing can be awkward to navigate too and socially isn't very clear. I mean we shut the door when we go to the toilet, we all know what we go there to do and yet it's done in privacy and theres a social blindness around it.

If something is told to me in confidence then I will keep it that way, confidential, another word for privacy, I won't tell anyone else unless there is a clear need too, usually around safety.

Secrecy is something else entirely secrecy is often things that others either shouldn't know, as in national security, or they're secret because they're illegal or morally dubious, like an affair.

For all I'm fairly open about my life and probably overshare some stuff, there are other things that I wish to remain private, simply because they're no one elses business. I don't think that when every choice you make is negatively commented on, or just commented on, makes you feel spied upon and like you have no space to express yourself, it's infantilising.

I guess I learnt early to hide myself because it was so much a part of me as adult that emotional intimacy (as opposed to physical) was beyond me in my long-term relationships. Perhaps I felt it invited rejection if my partners really knew how I felt about many things. I tend to approach things rationally and can't do the thing of unquestioning emotional support, which just increased my feeling of being a failure.

So a quick Google tells me that it is, and that it's based around high masking and fear of judgement, the latter of which has been with me since forever, the former I'm discovering more and more that it has too.

As someone who has pretty much given up on socialising, I probably knew this - I've also previously made the link to my constant feeling of being watched, which probably links very closely to this thinking about it more. 

l'm interested in any insights...