Or bittersweet.

They are, indeed. It’s just embarrassing to the state.

For autistic people, “masking” means consciously changing their behavior to blend in with neurotypical people. As an autistic, I can assure you that masking is exhausting.

My God. I am weeping.

Men are stronger. Men are mean. They’re more aggressive. They will take them over. They’ll do it anytime they can, anywhere they can. They will abuse them. They will hurt them.

I’m surprised a man would admit that he’s like this.

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TIL that the desert can be beautiful.

Thanks for the update. I hope you manage to get out of the U.S. eventually. I feel this place is going down fast.

Congratulations!

Good luck to you! I am impressed with your resilience. Hang in there.

I’ve been thinking about telling my parents/siblings of my diagnosis, but haven’t for fear they’ll suddenly think of me as “other”, “subhuman”. Happily, my husband knows and supports me utterly.

I wish I knew you irl, and could help. How old are you?

I think your instincts are correct; you shouldn’t go to this meeting; it will just cause the clerk to resent you every time he sees you. I work at a school, and just went through some mandatory anti-bullying training. It said the teacher SHOULD NOT call out the bully publicly, or force the bully to apologize, or insist that the victim accept an apology. All these things just aggravate the situation. Quietly putting the bully into counseling, and separating the bully from victim is the recommended procedure. That is not possible at a coffee shop! Maybe, if you are willing, the next time you go in you could just behave as if nothing had happened. I’ll admit that I would find another coffee place.

hug

I was diagnosed just this summer, at 60. BeautifulMind says everything that I wanted to, but better. I am learning to unmask among family/friends and am finding it leaves me so much extra energy to do things I WANT to do.

That last point! It’s overwhelmed my entire life!

Don’t be scared! Knowing yourself allows you to help yourself.

I think the commenter meant that when they are told to “Read the room,” they would like to reply snarkily, “How bout YOU read ME, then you’ll know you are an idiot for saying that.”

I got a diagnostician to assess, but not diagnose, me. Basically, I was interviewed and tested for several hours, until she felt she could come to a conclusion (yep, I’m ND). I did not bother getting a diagnostic report with all the associated family interviews etc. etc. because I do not need additional supports (other than therapy). The diagnostician gave me the names of therapists with experience working with autists. I feel I got the best of both worlds - inexpensive speedy assessment and the ability to tell doubting family that an independent expert says I am indeed autistic.

I’ve always felt that I am “from another planet”, both in social interactions and because I feel like an alien clumsily operating a meat puppet. I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety and depression for decades, but treatments didn’t really help. My social-worker daughter suggested a couple of years ago that perhaps I am autistic, so I started looking into it. I scored as autistic on all the online self-tests. It made sense, explained a lot of my life events. For objective verification, a month ago I went to a diagnostician. Sure enough, I’m a highly-masking autistic person.

I’m 60. It’s such a relief to know that my struggles in life were not because I am a weak or lazy person. I don’t hate myself anymore; on the contrary, I am a bit proud of how much I accomplished in life considering I didn’t know “What the hell is wrong with” me (as my dad would frequently ask).

Okay, boomer here, be gentle.

So back in the ‘70s I dabbled in programming (now called “coding”, I hear). I only did higher-level languages like Fortran, Cobol, IBM Basic, but a friend had a job (at age 13!) programming in assembler. Is assembler now called assembly, or are they different?