But what does Masking feel like from the Inside?

As an autistic person, sometimes I don’t feel like I’m me. I feel like a collection of traits I have taken from people I like and squashed into an acceptable personality. I wish I could change this but I don’t know what to go back to. I feel like if I change one thing people will start hating me again but I’m just so tired of it. Thank you for these videos, they make me feel less alone and wrong.

My daughter was recently diagnosed at age 16, but I first asked her pediatrician about it when she was almost 3. Her dr assured me there was no way...she's verbal, makes eye contact, had an advanced vocabulary, hit all milestones, etc. Over the years I'd see more and more traits and bring it up again, and the dr told me to stay off the "mommy blogs". One thing I always found interesting is since pre-k, she's kind of been a magnet for kids on the spectrum, or kids with other special needs. They tend to gravitate to her. After diagnosis, she said things she's been feeling since she was little make sense. She feels validated. It's been awesome to watch her come into her own while working through her neuro-spiciness, without just feeling different.

I've never heard my internal experience with masking described so perfectly. To the point where I've been watching videos about autism and researching autism for the past two months straight, after suspecting that I'm autistic, and didn't even realize the extent of my "pretending to be normal" and how it's affected my life until now, simply because no other Youtuber to this date has described it so succinctly for me. That feeling of "are my hands normal" "am I sitting like a normal person?" "Does my facial expression make me look like I'm paying attention?" I thought I couldn't have autism because I can make eye contact, but then realized that when I make sustained eye contact with the person I'm talking to, I lose the ability to focus on what they're actually saying, because I'm too busy struggling to keep my mask in place. I will absolutely burn through your other videos. Thank you! This was incredibly illuminating!

I'm guilty of fawning. If I strongly dislike someone or become uncomfortable around them, I tend to compliment them more than I do with people I like. It's not something I do consciously, but I think about it afterwards, like WHY WAS I SO EXTRA NICE TO THAT PERSON WHO DEFINITELY DIDN'T DESERVE IT? I can be extremely honest and harsh with people too, but I think that I probably have to feel safe around them first. Either people I know and like or strangers I don't care about and who don't seem dangerous. Edit: I was bullied in school. Could be the reason.

I am a high masking autistic, and the difference between interacting with my neurotypical friends and autistic ones is HUGE

the fawning thing. i legit hate that, i'm a very contrary person, so when i find myself agreeing to stuff i don't agree with is irritating and feels inauthentic, which irritates me further. 💀

The lack of a sense of self is currently what’s really hard for me. I grew up with two very accepted autistic brothers and was a bit overlooked and went undiagnosed into my 20s but also very aware of the judgement from my peers pretty young so I started masking really young. Now it’s so hard to tell if something I’m doing is genuinely me or another mask. I don’t know almost anything about myself and it’s a very lonely feeling

Finally being diagnosed at the age of 24 was really a big relief. I used to feel like an alien trying to communicate with people and just assumed that I was always doomed to be, as I would put it back then, "socially retarded". A pretty cruel and offensive way to put it but its legit how I felt.

Society as a whole needs to move away from expecting the fake “customer service” personality to be what’s expected and accepted. If I could just be myself and strangers be okay with it, there would be a lot more jobs available to me that didn’t throw me into deep anxiety. But as it is, I refuse to even apply for jobs that are customer-facing in any way, unless perfect-robot customer service isn’t expected (like tattooing; my big aspiration for the near future is to acquire my tattoo apprenticeship).

On masking, playing D&D helped me deal with my Autism. Something about playing a character for 3 hours per week helped open myself up even though I wasn't shy.

I got a psych eval and they said I wasn't autistic (they thought it was just ADHD, social awkwardness, and OCD) but I really related to these things. I even laughed when you mentioned practicing facial expressions in the mirror because I've been doing that my whole life and I assumed that it was normal 😂

I'm in my 50's and it never occurred to me that I could be autistic until my 17 year old son was diagnosed. But now I'm sure of it! Throughout my life, I've done all of the things you talk about in this video. When I was a teenager in the 80's, I had no idea how people knew how to act so it occurred to me while watching an episode of "Who's the Boss" on TV that I could be just like one of the actors named Tony Danza - that's who I wanted to act like. So as a variation of WWJD (what would jeebus do?) I made up the mnemonic WWTDD? (What would Tony Danza Do?) It was such a relief!! I finally knew that all I had to do was think about what Tony Danza would do in "Who's the Boss" and all would be good! Eventually, it became part of my mask, and still is partly there to this day.

Masking is also very tiring. So much so that I stopped doing it so much about 15 years ago or so. But even not masking and being open about being autistic doesn't make socializing any easier. My wife understands that I need to be left alone to stim when all I can say is "too much people"

'Primary school was a montage of people telling me that I was weird' Girl, that is such a mood. I got bullied heavily at primary school and I just shrunk until I wasnt noticed. And then they noticed me shrinking and picked on me even more. At some point I started disassociating and that.. made my life a lot easier at the time. However, hitting high school and peers wanting to engage with me... man. I was absolutely and utterly unable. It was only much later that I realized my parents are also traumatized people who also struggle with social expectations. My parents heavily project(ed) their own insecurities on me and drilled in me the need for 'socially acceptable behavior'. But as you stated, people sub conciously pick up autistic behavior. It makes their drilling for perfect adjustment seem more and more useless. I was so used to people crossing my boundaries, it was like a sport for both my bullies and my brother for quite a while, that engaging with peers in general was a triggering experience. It was only after I joined an anime forum, made online friends and then started meeting these friends, that my social skills went up.

I’ve thought that I might be autistic for a while but wow this video hit hard, especially the copy and paste phrases, my friends always joke about how I have “programmed phrases” because I have a few responses that I always use.

I’m a recently self diagnosed autistic. It’s always really frustrated how everyone else seemed to know how to socialize, what to say, how to react, how to show the right expressions. I always wish that social interactions came with that guy on live tv shows that held the script cards behind the camera so I’d finally know what to say, and mad that it couldn’t be that way. People’s questions are so confusing to me. Other females have made me so nervous my whole life, since I knew I couldn’t replicate how other girls acted. It’s taken me a long time to accept that the few female friends I’ve made actually do enjoy my company

In every video you make, i am becoming more and more certain i have autism. I literally relate to everything and your personal examples bring back so many memories from my own childhood haha! I hope your channel becomes very succesful.

My palms started sweating when you described the internal dialogue while talking to people. 100% relatable for me, especially eye contact. Haning out with my ASD friends is always a relief, I can look anywhere I want and I know they get it.

Late to the party, but...I am AuDHD, only figured out the Autism part this past summer. This video has me on the verge of tears because you've put my experience into words that I've struggled to do for my entire life. I still sometimes receive comments that my face looks anxious or sad, even though I'm neutral. My mom would ask me all the time if I was anxious because I would shake my legs and bite my nails. When I actually was anxious, I couldn't explain why and felt like why can't I just be normal? Trauma further complicates diagnosis, though I also argue that living as a neurodivergent in neurotypically-centered society is inherently traumatizing. Anyway, I just really appreciate your radical authenticity on such a judgemental platform. It refortifies me to do so too, and that creates more ripple effects. Thank you 🌈

Can relate to so much of that. Am a 60 year old who only realised last year that I am probably autistic and not just "weird'. Went to GP to ask about diagnosis. Was told no chance and that I was probably just anxious! So, as usual, will need to deal with this on my own. Watching this is helpful even though I am so much older