Before I Knew What Autism Was...

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Sounds like you've cracked it, I'm yet to crack it. Once I'm more comfortable with it, I won't be so bothered by it. I'm not sure that makes much sense.

Do you feel confident talking to people face to face? Can you talk to them without blushing? No and No for me!

Sorry you struggle with talking to people. In a one-on-one setting I'm very confident. I mask and parrot, but I'm extremely confident about it. It's groups of people that make me go into my shell. Too many individuals makes it impossible to parrot people!

Its such a frustrating thing isn't it. Sometimes I'm ok one to one and sometimes not although I think I'm improving, depends if people take the time to talk to me or ignore me - people have ignored me in the past as they think I don't want to chat.

I tend to keep quiet in groups.

Is masking the same as pretending you're confident?

I think I'm better at talking to people I rarely see as they don't get to know me, I can't keep up the 'confident act' for a long time/too frequently, is this the same as masking?

Its great you've got some confidence even if it is through masking, as that's better than nothing I think.

It's all masking...pretending I'm someone I'm not...saying what I think the other person wants to hear. I'm better at talking to people I rarely see, but since I rarely see people outside my own home, that's pretty much everyone I encounter. Yeah...being able to turn on a pre-created personality, which isn't really me, although I'm not really sure who I am if that makes any sense, is very helpful.

Yes it makes perfect sense. Must be incredibly hard work, I don't think I could do that - perhaps I'm happy as I am after all.

I suppose you have to do what gets you through your situation, you need to be confident to talk to the people you work with. I don't need to be confident as such for talking to people at work but it'd help. I feel a bit all over the place but I feel like I'm me, not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. I think I need to more confidence in general but I'm only interested in genuine confidence, I can't be doing with long term pretending/faking. I'm aiming for quietly confident, that's my goal.

And an admirable goal it is. I wish you luck in achieving it!

Thank you

Before my diagnosis, I knew what autism was but did not think I could qualify for it. The people I met who identified themselves as autistic (which granted wasn’t many) were all “lower functioning” than I was, and they were all I thought the autism spectrum constituted. I only met one exception (only one “Asperger’s” type who told me they were autistic) pre-diagnosis. Before I learned I was autistic, I just thought I was a socially awkward neurotypical. However I had for years been placed in various “special needs” kids groups where they taught me social skills and stuff like that (which at the time baffled me because as previously said, I thought I was “normal” until formally diagnosed).

Before diagnosis I suppose I thought I was a mixture - good at some things, bad at others. I knew there was something precarious about my social performance. I was successful at times but kept going through phases when I'd get rather short of friends. My school experience was also precarious towards the end. I did better when I started working, though there were still problems. Mostly I blamed the other people there, and I still think there was some validity in doing so. Then I stumbled onto socialist politics and began to feel that the reason for my stressful experiences at work was that the system was thoroughly rotten. Again, I still think there was some truth in that.

After diagnosis I began to understand that another angle to my problems was the difficulty Aspies and NTs have in communication with and relating to each other. So to a degree I had to step back from my "it's all their fault" explanations and admit that some of the trouble was just down to the unfortunate mismatch between my brain wiring and theirs. It made little difference. Although I'd always been able to hold the job down, I'd been too unhappy with the stress and frustration it gave me, and I'd long since made up my mind to get out as soon as I could afford to.

As for how much of me is ASD and how much is personality, I've wondered about it a lot but it doesn't feel particularly important to have all the answers. I tend to be quite empirical about self-analysis, and I don't depend so much on overarching theories. Although a lot became clearer after the diagnosis, all I'll ever really know for sure is the observable facts, my strengths and weaknesses as judged by what I've tried to do, what worked, and what didn't. I think it's good to know yourself fairly well, but I don't expect my life will be long enough for me to discover it all. That doesn't bother me unduly.

For me, I guess there is at least an explanation now for weirdness, along with my other issues. My intense interests, my black and white thinking, poor social skills, and not totally sure about this one, but my belief that all authority must questioned.

It explains why so many times, I made such a jack ass of myself, said dumb things, and why I obsess about things. Also, why I keep having having so many flashbacks to traumatic events.

Yes I totally agree with you and I think a lot of this comes back to the masking. I wish I could live in a world where I didn't need to mask, but I have two children, I need to go to work and seem normal.
I've always put others first sometimes even to my detriment. People can see this and I've been taken advantage of countless times. Now I'm very wary about connecting with others. But yeah I too thought I was unique in being like this but now I've found this site I can see it's similar to others on the spectrum.
And someone else was talking about Catholicism, I too am a Catholic and was terrified of doing anything in my childhood and teens. Now I can see I don't have to be a perfect person to go to church etc, but I was trying to be for so long.
Lastly, I read that some aspies are super empathetic and I believe I am like this. I can't look at people's faces sometimes because I'm overwhelmed with their emotions. And often I shutdown when in situations when too many people are looking at me. I can't figure out what's happening and I need to feel secure wherever I am.

That's a good example of the way I embrace my autism, if indeed it's an autism thing. I can only justify deferring to authority if it demonstrates to me that it has the right kind of expertise and integrity. Or if I'm simply overpowered and might get my nose put out of joint for disobeying. Behaviour-wise I'm not particularly rebellious or revolutionary, as long as nobody in authority invites me to say what I think of the situation (while guaranteeing that I won't be ostracised for expressing my honest opinions).

Thing is, having racked my brains about all that for decades, I can't fault it. I can't see any reason why a rational being wouldn't question authority. The alternative is blind obedience. That seems dangerous. So how can my attitude be wrong? How can it be seen as a sign of disability or inferiority? Isn't it just clear thinking?