High masking to my detriment

[DonQuixote]

I'm high masking, to the point where you'd think I'm the most confident person in the room. I do this right up to the point that I can't, then I have a meltdown and end up sobbing on the floor like a child. I feel out of place among autistics because I present as very loud, almost ADHD like. But ADHD people drive me crazy as I need predictability and routine. Neuro typical people think I'm weird. Anyone else feeling like you don't even fit in among other autistics?

[Tronsformer]

welcome to the club! I feel ashamed when I declare my autism and when seemingly asking for help or being vulnerable, mainly because I ‘look’ like I don’t need it. And it throws off others. Also I get that crash after a period of ‘confidence’ but Inunderstand now that its just my brain tired. Masking is taxing and its important to let yourself and your brain get back to a base level.

I also can feel non-autistic amongst neuro diverse people, mainly due to my autism rooted in my imposter syndrome. And this just confuses me more than anything especially my life and experiences are VERY autistic.

But slowly I’m learning that we’re just this branch of autism manifestation, and it may be a less obvious one, like green eyes, rare but they’re still eyes! Also I’ve attended talks by professionals who better explain autism outside of the quick headlines/articles and TL;DR I’ve got most if my info from. And simply the way your brain opts to present your condition can always go to both extremes if it feels/learnt it is the best way to handle that situation.

a meltodown for example can be very visible and aggressive, to others its a complete shutdown or internalised but the cause is the same. And Masking is the same I’ve found, I just need to keep conversing with myself to reason with it and work on it.

I’ve only been aware of my autism for a few years now, so my experience of it is still new even though I’ve had it close to 40Years so still plenty to learn and I’m probably very very mistaken.