High Masking Autistic Males

This video is a great example of what neurodivergent conversations look like. Minimal eye contact and gesturing, and Jennifer is stimming while listening (rocking and leg bouncing). This should be required viewing for non-neurodivergent people to understand that this is how many of us actively listen, and we are not being aloof and showing disinterest.

“How’s the weather?”
“Just look out the window.”

I’m dead. 🤣

When he said "it's like being a chameleon", I felt that so much. I've said that to my friends multiple times. I'm a totally different person depending on who I'm talking to.

As a child i would try to keep track of what people considered 'not-normal' and try to not do those things.

I still feel strange from other people sometimes. When among so-called neurotypicals i feel like a combination of an under-cover agent, diplomat and anthropologist.

About stimming secretly: I stim in my head a lot, like silently repeating the same notes of music or imagining moving my fingers.

I'm AuDHD, I was 48 when diagnosed with ADHD and 49 for ASD. I'm 50. I've always said "I don't know who I am" or " I'm who everyone throughout my life has told me to be or not to be". Unmasking is hard, and scary. Idk how to unmask myself if I don't even know who I am. And the people around me don't understand and don't believe I have it, because I'm skilled at masking myself.

When Josh described what masking was like for him and the different personas, and then the fact that he doesn't really know who he is I know exactly what he means. I am going through almost the exact same situation! Also found out at 35 that I'm high masking autistic. Fortunately I found out about my own autism before my son started school, so he was able to get diagnosed in his first year.

I wonder how many of us are out there, and how many will just never know...

I self diagnosed about 6 months ago by accident while researching my son. My dad overheard some of the videos and told me that he too was autistic. A few months later my husband told me he also is autistic... now my daughter is twirling and echoing everything. She is my butterfly!Basically my whole family is autistic and didn't know it. I think my husband would relate well to this video and the "feminine masking." Oddly enough, we were both suspected of autism as kids, but somehow missed the diagnosis bus. I second the request for a video on masking in church. Thanks.

When you said "chameleon" I suddenly understood what you meant by masking and realized that I've been doing that my whole life.
I do the same thing with accents, and I'd figured it was just a habit that I picked up when learning Spanish in multiple countries, trying to mimic the different accents in each place.
Glad to have found this conversation and channel. ... I have a feeling I'm in for quite the 🤯...

bro you blew my mind when you said you use humor to mask. Me too, always been the funny guy and leaned into the quirkier side of myself to create humor to distract from my genuine deficits. wow man you blew my mind. thank you

I was diagnosed at 56. My whole life has been a process of masking in order to survive. I think you both were absolutely right about medical experts not understanding autism. It’s not a collection of traits or symptoms. The traits manifest because of our different brain. Masking is a strategy to hide this ‘different brain’ from the judgemental opinions of others around us. I also think that a lot of gender issues merge with autistic people. For example, my autism has had a far more profound effect upon my life than my gender. I therefore feel I have more in common with many autistic women than with neurotypical men. That doesn’t mean that gender politics or realities don’t affect me. But the commonalities of autistic experience are greater than the differences brought about by gender. I also think that there are extra pressures placed upon most autistic females that males don’t have to deal with. And maybe vise versa - as a child, many people tried to physically beat, and emotionally starve the autism out of me, and I don’t think most people are as overtly violent towards girls. Although I might be wrong about that. But masking, I think it’s more about survival, and reflects the environment you grew up in - more than merely being an issue of gender.

Being in a space where it's okay to momentarily be a disaster is probably the only way to feel safe without any masking.

I discovered the CPTSD first. When I was unable to overcome or deal with some of these symptoms...and didn't improve or feel better I then found the connection to autism. Now I have figured out part of the problem with my self diagnosing was the co-occurring ADHD. The two together totally fit...to the max. It's like the puzzle finally came together.
65 years of masking is a lot. It's helping me so much to know and find discussions like this. Now I am able to relax and learn what I really am under the crust. I'm not a bee in the hive, I am a butterfly!
Thanks to both of you for this chat!
SMALL talk sucks...you make me laugh. All these years I couldn't figure out why I hated it so much!
PS: I talk about weather all the time because it's ACCEPTABLE...however I am the one who learns the names of the various cloud formations and learns to understand how the fronts interact and whether I agree with the weather predictions...oh, yeah.

We're not even 10 minutes in and the chameleon aspect of having different personalities or archetypes for different social situations rings so true. I've often been worried when social group C might mix with social group M and how I would justify the difference to the people in those groups. It's internally frustrating, bewildering, and devastating, not to mention exhausting in a myriad of ways.

For years, I have thought that I had developed multiple personalities, that something was very off with me. I would act completely different depending on the occasion and/or people I was with. I cannot longer remember how I was originally... So, it was just me masking this whole time?? Every day is constant fight in my head, there is a lot of contradiction going on in here. I am not able to connect with most people but it looks like I can act like a bridge between groups that don't get along and change things for the best without even trying just because I can blend with them. There are lots of things that people are interested in but it just looks boring or stupid to me. I have multiple social circles "family, childhood friends, coworkers, classmates, etc", and I always keep them apart, maybe because I am afraid that they are going to think how fake I have been or just because I need it to be this way, I don't really know. But I am pretty sure that if some of them were to meet and describe me, none of them would be able to say: Yeah, that is definitely him.

I have been a mess, to the point that I no longer enjoy what a liked to do, everything seems so empty, I am constantly bored, I can still get excited about stuff from time to time, but it doesn't last long. I feel like something is missing, I want to create/modify/learn/invent things, is like an urge but then I lose focus. I can make plans, contemplate lots of things, create and print schedules and use some small whiteboards to track my progress every day so that I am constantly seeing it and keeping at it and others with motivational stuff and so on, reorganize and paint a room "where I am going to spend most of the time" do everything just right and start with it with a lot of energy, but then I just can't anymore, and it doesn't take a lot of time for that to happen... And there it goes, another failed attempt to accomplish something after so much effort put into it. I just feel so tired, sad and angry. I wish I could at least cry like most people and get some relief, but the most I get is just some tears and this pressure on the throat and head that feel uncomfortable. It is very likely that I still have some depression too, but pills give me huge migraines, so I try to address this more naturally and see things a little more different than before, like not always having control and things not going my way, plus lots of uncertainty on every corner. But is difficult.

I am a few days away to start my biggest project yet, and it will require a lot of effort and consistency from me. I'll put myself in situations I do not like or enjoy, and from the get go it is destined to fail for how I currently am. But like never before, I want to achieve this, I feel that I would be really good at it if a get it done, that I can handle it. I want to get promoted and become a Sr fraud investigator and then a manager and keep going up if possible "By now I am very good at reading and understanding people, I have been constantly observing, studying, researching and testing them for years, but I am still very bad at socializing and even worse at comforting people, even those dear to me xD - I excel at finding patterns tho, so it helps a lot in this job." The difference this time around, is that I understand better what I am, what I need, what I want and also that it will require a lot more effort and time than for most people.

My country is very far behind in this topic, "actually in everything but renewable energy, but only because is very small and have enough natural resources" so that doesn't help me. It was my previous boss "she is from Netherlands" who had studied psychology over there. She noticed and asked me if I was diagnosed, she was not and expert, but she put me in the right track. Then after spending some time and money in psychologists, I started researching by myself because they did not help at all and over here almost everything is expensive "unless you come from a developed country, so it's cheap", and just a few days ago I found this channel, and everything just clicked, things make sense now. I have watched almost all your videos and understood a lot of things. I am a male who turned 33 a few days ago, and I was also one of those who relate themselves more with the female presentation of autism, that until this video, it was very nice to hear this guy talking about this. This was a first for me.

Thanks a lot for creating this channel and sharing lots of information! Please keep up the good work! ^^ I'll continue watching all your videos :)

It's so funny.. I just realized that I let myself get "weirder and weirder" the more I get to know and trust someone. I only just found out I'm autistic. I think what's actually happening is me allowing myself to drop the mask little by little. ❤

Well, my high masking self made it to 40 before finding out...

Someone prior to the incident made the off the cuff comment of "just ignore it, because he is on the spectrum," it was HR telling this person trying to file a complaint about how rude I was. I had not been diagnosed at that point, so this HR person was clearly not a waste of space.

The incident that got me called out and had me go get tested. This is my final week with the company my contract is done I am not renewing, this was October of 2019. Set up doing what should be a dog and pony show presentation/3d model review for the client before issuing the construction drawings. The construction drawings are ready to be sent to the printers that afternoon if the meeting goes well.

The events... bad plane ride, delayed for 4 hours, poor food availability at 2 am, awful hotel a 4 star that should be a 1 star. Horrible Uber ride in the morning, dude gets lost because he knows a short cut. Completely miss the breakfast meet and greet. Because of tgat it was a dunk n donuts breakfast for us. Where my Coworker spilt coffee on me and my notes. We get into the meeting everything is going smoothly, until I get up start the 3d model fly through.

Suddenly some dude I had never met starts asking stupid questions. Nothing to do with the engineering or safety or even building layouts. No this guy was complaining about the car/van models used and not showing accurate work trucks, the tree models used (we were told use open source models no species of tree was ever specified, only deciduous was specified). He then derailed everything to complain for 20 minutes about lack of bushes and flowers in the presentation, refusing to belive the model wouldn't support any additional information. Also why the people were all blue and the hard hats were not white.

After getting through that gong show, he starts asking questions about engineering choices that had been decided upon and signed off on over a year ago. Things that had been on the bid drawings for months. Fundamental design choices, things you don't change hours before receiving your issued for construction drawings.

I lost it, calling the CEO of my client's client a drannit as i was walking away... apparently someone got the reference. I needed a break so I got in the elevator and had an unintelligible rant from the 40th floor down to the first and back up, stopping long enough to get a cookie and coke.
I get off the elevator my coworker (electrical engineer) looks at me and says "did you just called the ceo an ahole to his face?"
I shrugged and said "no i called him a drannit, which means ahole, what are they gonna do? Fire me?"
He cracks up laughing.
Our lead engineer arrives at the elevators after soothing some feelings, looks at me and blurts out "dude, what are you autistic?" Or it could have been "dude, you might be autistic" Apparently some of my comment and responses to stupid questions during the model review and after. Were not received well... by the drannit.

I looked at him totally dead pan, "i just might be"

Get in for testing a Friday before my 40th birthday... so my 40th bday gift was a... yep you is a tistic.

The covid lockdowns shattered my ability to mask, from 10 hours with an hour or two recovery (not knowing it was burnout recovery)... today I am lucky if I can pull off 4 hours of masking now and if i do I crash hard, like 2 to 3 hours recovery minimum. My typical masking lasts maybe 3 hours, enough time to goto the game store for a game or two. An hour grocery store run will have me shut in a room for a good 30 minutes after.

I feel so called out regarding imitating accents. It’s not intentional yet seems impossible to NOT mimic, it’s incredibly awkward and I couldn’t comprehend why I do this, yet I do.

But once I understood “masking” I realize I mirror hard which can get me in trouble if I am mirroring a narcissist… they don’t appreciate mirrors that reflect reality 👀

But then I realized I take on more than the accent… body language and dive into their interest but on a deeper level than they seem interested to go.

And I’ve always felt like I’m a chameleon before knowing if autism. I remember being asked what kind of animal am I the most like and it was the chameleon. I used to latch onto someone and just try to blend into their picture… their world and felt like I had none… I was boring… had no life force of my own… just a feeder on the vicarious lives of others.

But I wanted to be a dolphin… not a Chameleon. And now I try hard to not mirror… but it’s tough.

Jenn, I enjoyed being a witness to this wonderful conversation. It got me thinking about if a series of interviews with autists in an anonimized manner would help the community. For example, I have lots that I would love to share, but not necessarily have my face out there. I cannot help but feel there are others like me that want our voices heard yet with reduced social risk. As so many of us have been so hurt so many times all ready.

This was a great interview!! I was just thinking earlier today how ironically there is very little high masking adult male content outside Orion Kelly and a couple other YouTube creators.

I’m in the process of self diagnosing and it’s a series of waves “I totally am!”…”or maybe not”…ruminate, repeat. Hearing Josh’s perspective was so great. The thing about humor at work combined the comments on wanting to cut through the banter rang so true with me. Made me think about why I use humor, I thought I did it because I didn’t like the formality of meetings, but really I think it’s like Josh said, it makes me feel more comfortable / stops the stupid banter.

I also really liked seeing a new side of Jenn’s personality, so relaxed and fun! I also really enjoyed seeing two autistic folks having a conversation and how totally normal it felt.

To Jenn: would love to see this become a series, either more about Autism or even as a way to implement the idea of an autistic room for talking about interesting topics. That angle is possibly something really fresh that I haven’t seen and could really help folks get another data point on being autistic. :)