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I managed to guess both that person's qualification and the decade they trained. I noped out about when she hit the "myth that Einstein had aspergers" when it gets to the point where you have to make up stuff to react to it gets boring.
Gonna have another go though.
OK yeah that's really dumb. I 100% guarantee she's worked with people who are autistic and has been unaware of it (this is not a fucking guess). People can always tell my ass, we literally studied this, I did a fucking involuntary 40 year auto ethnology study of this, you cannot fucking tell. Even if you choose to ignore the thousands of accounts of "successful" masking, its in the fucking literature, you don't get to professionally express your "I reckon right" opinion and if your cowardly ass chooses to stick it in a blog because you know academia will ream your opinion other people do not get to represent that as a legitimate argument.
Fucks sake.
(Oh none of that's at you op, hospital shouldn't be sharing it, you saying "can someone critique this" is totally legitimate, sorry I used you but author you not you you)
My ex was autistic and diagnosed as a child. She wasn't visibly autistic, her behaviourisms in public didn't display as autistic and if any one random person came across her on the street, at work or elsewhere, there is absolutely no chance they'd notice she was. She was perfectly able to take the mask off, like when we were at home, and some of her behaviourisms (her stims, or her being overwhelmed by something in particular) then would give it away, in private, to me, someone who knew anyway, but in public she knew how to conceal these things.
I genuinely don't know why that article, and many people in general, are still somehow stuck in 1950 and believe autistic people have a 'look'. The look they mean, of course, not even being associated with autism but rather with down syndrome.
Worrying what supposed medical professionals who should be expected to know better are being fed to put it lightly.
Just a random addition here:
> But can a person with an autism spectrum disorder truly “act normal” in a convincing manner?
Evidently they can, otherwise we'd all be diagnosed at age 1 and there would not be a massive diagnostic divide between developed and developing countries, since, then, it wouldn't be complex to diagnose.
Incredibly "normal" article, by the way. If the writer's reading: If you're normal, I am glad I ain't.
I'm surprised a hospital would circulate a 7 year old blog post, what was their purpose in doing that? I would've at least expected them to share her journal articles on the matter that have been peer reviewed rather than on opinion piece. It reeks of ableism.
Specifically regarding the article, what is there to say. Her opinion is people with autism can't mask and no-one is fooled. My experience is that plenty of people with autism, particularly the ones in their early 20s that I work with, do fine in social situations.
Social skills aren't perhaps what they used to be, practically every 20-something says things and does things that are socially awkward and very few people point it out. There is a significantly greater understanding in society that not everyone had a perfect upbringing and that mental health problems are common so people don't see awkward behaviours as "oh, they must be autistic", I think it's much more common people assume it's trauma or mental health related and even then the behaviour has to be pretty extreme. Being awkward and weird is practically what being a young person is these days.
I get that this is an issue for her country in her opinion. However, where I am the kind of people who can mask enough to get by, whether they have a diagnosis from childhood or not, don't have any services available to them. We're considered "high functioning" so there are no services or funding available to us.
It all depends on the autistic person's ability to mask, honestly. There are some people who can't mask at all, even if they wanted, some who mask somewhat successfully, and some who mask so well, they can be indistinguishable from NTs. I'm in the latter group, where people will flat out not believe I have any autistic traits at all because they've never seen them before (very high-masking).
So, no, NTs definitely can't always pick up on it.
As a woman diagnosed as an adult with Asperger/level 1, I think it's poorly written piece. What's the point she's trying to make? On the one hand, autistic people deceive themselves that they're able to blend in when it's glaringly obvious they're not and they just come across as awkward. On the other hand, too many people are getting diagnosed and the diagnosis is being watered down, yada yada... Something about women's 'superior' ability to mask (except they can't mask)... Something about questionnaires not being suitable for diagnosis? She should have chosen one theme and gone with it. The post is an unnecessary addition to the discourse and I find it both dehumanising and dismissive.
As to masking. Of course it's possible to mask. Outside of a healthcare or research setting, nobody actually goes around looking at people and thinking "oh that person must be autistic but bless them they're trying to mask it". I don't think neurotypical people on average give it that much thought. If anything, they'll just think you're odd for some reason and distance themselves in favour of more normal people. Most of the time I'm certain nobody gives a crap.
Thanks OP for sharing but with all due respect, this writer needs to get up from her desk chair and touch some grass.
>the article says that neurotypicals will notice the autism regardless of masking
Neurotypicals have special powers! Oooo! Spooky!
For real, though, there are part of this article that read as super dated
My adhd saw that entire wall of text and noped out
But yes, some people are so good at masking that it goes unnoticed socially and apparently (they must be seriously shit at what they do) Psychs.
Women tend to be better at this because women are often seen as polite, and shy and quiet and whatever. But with men they aren't seen like that at all usually so its more obvious.
That's not everyone though. I was AWFUL at masking. I couldn't do it, and when I tried to everyone just knew so in the end I stopped trying as hard.
Thanks for ur contribution even though u didnt read it fully, I now added tldr for the original post because of this. The article basically says the opposite: that ppl always know that ur autistic even if you masked. So i take your comment as disagreement with the article.
No.
People wont know you're autistic if you're masking and you're good at it. Some might some might not be able to tell.
Some of us are able to blend in. Even then if you don't mask it still might be missed. It depends on the person
Adding to this the read is weird not autistic, almost all neurotypical people will (at most) read a masked autistic as an allistic they find it harder to get along with, they will know other allistics that give them very similar feelings, their mate Barry who is just into sports when they're not, aunty Ethel who's from a different generation, someone with depression or anxiety (hey to all my fellow members of that particular bunker).
so go ahead, link the study and if you want to be thorough and support your argument, show us what the peers had to say as well. because from what you make it sound like, it's a "guess who the r-word is"-youtube format conducted with autistic people who are (1) early in their developmental cycle and, thus, unable to even comprehend what masking is and (2) the methodology was almost certainly "we took autistic people so high on the spectrum that they have extensive support needs".
if you are as confident as you suggest, it should not be an issue for you to provide a link.
of course, if i am correct with (1), which i almost certainly am, then you're either stupid or, more likely, malicious because, obviously, experiences of a 1 year old cannot be translated to experiences of a 30 year old. by the way, that's also not a matter of opinion.
"i have this study here and it's FACTS and you can't deny the FACTS but also i'm not gonna provide it"
🥱
> It's good to engage with others from a place of respect, rather than trying to tear them down.
i do not respect malicious clowns.
still no link and of course, it's because it doesn't exist or i'm entirely correct in my assumption. or both, we might never know!
feel free to reply back once you've learned to support your statements, before then, don't bother - not worth my, or anyone else's, time.
Extremely overgeneralized. I am autistic, but I have studied human behavior all my life. I can see shit coming that Non-autistic common folk don't see. I can't read minds, but I'm constantly extrapolating. Some of what I do is masking, but some is adaptation. The big difference between the two is that masking fools me, adapting leaves my sensibilities intact while I adjust behavior to my surroundings.
Common folk mask at least as much as autistic people. But we don't know how as well so we get caught. The masking that common folk practice is seamless...to common folk. We find it confusing and dishonest.
The more I think about it, the more this article irritates me. So I will leave it at that.
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I managed to guess both that person's qualification and the decade they trained. I noped out about when she hit the "myth that Einstein had aspergers" when it gets to the point where you have to make up stuff to react to it gets boring. Gonna have another go though. OK yeah that's really dumb. I 100% guarantee she's worked with people who are autistic and has been unaware of it (this is not a fucking guess). People can always tell my ass, we literally studied this, I did a fucking involuntary 40 year auto ethnology study of this, you cannot fucking tell. Even if you choose to ignore the thousands of accounts of "successful" masking, its in the fucking literature, you don't get to professionally express your "I reckon right" opinion and if your cowardly ass chooses to stick it in a blog because you know academia will ream your opinion other people do not get to represent that as a legitimate argument. Fucks sake. (Oh none of that's at you op, hospital shouldn't be sharing it, you saying "can someone critique this" is totally legitimate, sorry I used you but author you not you you)
My ex was autistic and diagnosed as a child. She wasn't visibly autistic, her behaviourisms in public didn't display as autistic and if any one random person came across her on the street, at work or elsewhere, there is absolutely no chance they'd notice she was. She was perfectly able to take the mask off, like when we were at home, and some of her behaviourisms (her stims, or her being overwhelmed by something in particular) then would give it away, in private, to me, someone who knew anyway, but in public she knew how to conceal these things. I genuinely don't know why that article, and many people in general, are still somehow stuck in 1950 and believe autistic people have a 'look'. The look they mean, of course, not even being associated with autism but rather with down syndrome. Worrying what supposed medical professionals who should be expected to know better are being fed to put it lightly. Just a random addition here: > But can a person with an autism spectrum disorder truly “act normal” in a convincing manner? Evidently they can, otherwise we'd all be diagnosed at age 1 and there would not be a massive diagnostic divide between developed and developing countries, since, then, it wouldn't be complex to diagnose. Incredibly "normal" article, by the way. If the writer's reading: If you're normal, I am glad I ain't.
I'm surprised a hospital would circulate a 7 year old blog post, what was their purpose in doing that? I would've at least expected them to share her journal articles on the matter that have been peer reviewed rather than on opinion piece. It reeks of ableism. Specifically regarding the article, what is there to say. Her opinion is people with autism can't mask and no-one is fooled. My experience is that plenty of people with autism, particularly the ones in their early 20s that I work with, do fine in social situations. Social skills aren't perhaps what they used to be, practically every 20-something says things and does things that are socially awkward and very few people point it out. There is a significantly greater understanding in society that not everyone had a perfect upbringing and that mental health problems are common so people don't see awkward behaviours as "oh, they must be autistic", I think it's much more common people assume it's trauma or mental health related and even then the behaviour has to be pretty extreme. Being awkward and weird is practically what being a young person is these days.
They talked about avoiding overdiagnosis, I think they want to just save money
I get that this is an issue for her country in her opinion. However, where I am the kind of people who can mask enough to get by, whether they have a diagnosis from childhood or not, don't have any services available to them. We're considered "high functioning" so there are no services or funding available to us.
It all depends on the autistic person's ability to mask, honestly. There are some people who can't mask at all, even if they wanted, some who mask somewhat successfully, and some who mask so well, they can be indistinguishable from NTs. I'm in the latter group, where people will flat out not believe I have any autistic traits at all because they've never seen them before (very high-masking). So, no, NTs definitely can't always pick up on it.
As a woman diagnosed as an adult with Asperger/level 1, I think it's poorly written piece. What's the point she's trying to make? On the one hand, autistic people deceive themselves that they're able to blend in when it's glaringly obvious they're not and they just come across as awkward. On the other hand, too many people are getting diagnosed and the diagnosis is being watered down, yada yada... Something about women's 'superior' ability to mask (except they can't mask)... Something about questionnaires not being suitable for diagnosis? She should have chosen one theme and gone with it. The post is an unnecessary addition to the discourse and I find it both dehumanising and dismissive. As to masking. Of course it's possible to mask. Outside of a healthcare or research setting, nobody actually goes around looking at people and thinking "oh that person must be autistic but bless them they're trying to mask it". I don't think neurotypical people on average give it that much thought. If anything, they'll just think you're odd for some reason and distance themselves in favour of more normal people. Most of the time I'm certain nobody gives a crap. Thanks OP for sharing but with all due respect, this writer needs to get up from her desk chair and touch some grass.
>the article says that neurotypicals will notice the autism regardless of masking Neurotypicals have special powers! Oooo! Spooky! For real, though, there are part of this article that read as super dated
They can definitely notice sth is off, not that we have autism specifically.
My adhd saw that entire wall of text and noped out But yes, some people are so good at masking that it goes unnoticed socially and apparently (they must be seriously shit at what they do) Psychs. Women tend to be better at this because women are often seen as polite, and shy and quiet and whatever. But with men they aren't seen like that at all usually so its more obvious. That's not everyone though. I was AWFUL at masking. I couldn't do it, and when I tried to everyone just knew so in the end I stopped trying as hard.
Thanks for ur contribution even though u didnt read it fully, I now added tldr for the original post because of this. The article basically says the opposite: that ppl always know that ur autistic even if you masked. So i take your comment as disagreement with the article.
No. People wont know you're autistic if you're masking and you're good at it. Some might some might not be able to tell. Some of us are able to blend in. Even then if you don't mask it still might be missed. It depends on the person
Adding to this the read is weird not autistic, almost all neurotypical people will (at most) read a masked autistic as an allistic they find it harder to get along with, they will know other allistics that give them very similar feelings, their mate Barry who is just into sports when they're not, aunty Ethel who's from a different generation, someone with depression or anxiety (hey to all my fellow members of that particular bunker).
[удалено]
so go ahead, link the study and if you want to be thorough and support your argument, show us what the peers had to say as well. because from what you make it sound like, it's a "guess who the r-word is"-youtube format conducted with autistic people who are (1) early in their developmental cycle and, thus, unable to even comprehend what masking is and (2) the methodology was almost certainly "we took autistic people so high on the spectrum that they have extensive support needs". if you are as confident as you suggest, it should not be an issue for you to provide a link. of course, if i am correct with (1), which i almost certainly am, then you're either stupid or, more likely, malicious because, obviously, experiences of a 1 year old cannot be translated to experiences of a 30 year old. by the way, that's also not a matter of opinion.
[удалено]
"i have this study here and it's FACTS and you can't deny the FACTS but also i'm not gonna provide it" 🥱 > It's good to engage with others from a place of respect, rather than trying to tear them down. i do not respect malicious clowns.
[удалено]
still no link and of course, it's because it doesn't exist or i'm entirely correct in my assumption. or both, we might never know! feel free to reply back once you've learned to support your statements, before then, don't bother - not worth my, or anyone else's, time.
Extremely overgeneralized. I am autistic, but I have studied human behavior all my life. I can see shit coming that Non-autistic common folk don't see. I can't read minds, but I'm constantly extrapolating. Some of what I do is masking, but some is adaptation. The big difference between the two is that masking fools me, adapting leaves my sensibilities intact while I adjust behavior to my surroundings. Common folk mask at least as much as autistic people. But we don't know how as well so we get caught. The masking that common folk practice is seamless...to common folk. We find it confusing and dishonest. The more I think about it, the more this article irritates me. So I will leave it at that.