Like everyone talks about how nice my ex-friends are, but they were rude to me, called me an annoying bug and stuff, and pretended they didn't know me. And I genuinely want to see them as great people like everyone else sees.

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[–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

I would like to add on to this: I grew up not knowing that I was autistic and masking, from a family full of undiagnosed and highly masking people. I definitely rubbed people the wrong way sometimes and annoyed them, but I also got annoyed when other people didn’t mask as well as I did, because I’d been raised in an environment that held masking as one of the ultimate goals (I don’t blame my parents, to be clear: these were their survival instincts as well as my own).

It took me years to understand that the “rigidity” that sometimes bothered me about others is not only something that I too possess in spades, but also a value-neutral trait (in and of itself, it can obviously be applied to variously moral systems). Until I figured that out, I was pretty easily frustrated by some other autistic people and couldn’t explain why. I still have moments like that, but I tend to break them down and realize that it’s generally just my own hangups that are bothering me.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Wow, you kinda named a feeling I've had when dealing with some people on the spectrum that don't even try to mask in a social situation - it makes me feel major second-hand embarrassment, but I think you're right that it's more about me than them.

    I think I've been doing various forms of masking all my life, and only now in my 30s have I started pulling pieces of it off with confidence.

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