Published on 12, July, 2020
I’m relatively newly diagnosed (in my early 40s) and recently been reflecting on the extent to which I mask. Some posts in other threads have questioned people’s masking at diagnostic assessment as if the person can choose when to mask and when not to. For me it’s not that simple - there’s masking I’m conscious of and ‘could’ stop if I tried/had to, but there’s other masking I definitely do that has been ingrained since childhood. I can’t just choose not to do this latter type and I’m working hard to identify all aspects of it at the moment as I haven’t been conscious of it but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t caused me problems - main thing being residual stress. Just wanted to share these thoughts. Has anyone else thought about this?
I did not even realise until late 2022 that I might be autistic. I was diagnosed in spring 2023.
I have masked all my life but cannot tell what I did. All I know is that I did everything to not appear as different to the majority but knew deep down I was different.
Late diagnosed means a lot of masking has been done over a lifetime.
Mr T said:Late diagnosed means a lot of masking has been done over a lifetime.
Then how do you account for a person like me? Late dxed at 62. Unlike the rest of you I've not purposely adopted the tactics of camouflaging my natural self.
Masking is mostly something that is done either by purposely imposed coping mechanisms or innate subconscious learning in order to blend in with the crowd.
There will always be outliers but the point I was trying to make is that we may not even realise that masking was taking place as it was so ingrained and became muscle memory.
Can I ask what made you seek diagnosis? For me it was because of a friend of a friend with ADHD suggested that I was displaying potential traits. I was completely unaware for over 50 years.