Autism camouflaging and late diagnosis

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While autism is usually diagnosed in childhood, some people remain “off the radar” for a long time and only receive a diagnosis much later. One possible reason is that they have learned socially appropriate behaviours, effectively camouflaging their social difficulties, including maintaining eye contact during conversations, memorising jokes or imitating facial expressions.

This pattern of behaviour could have serious consequences for the lives of some people with autism. It is easy to imagine that camouflaging demands significant cognitive effort, leading to mental exhaustion over time, and in extreme cases perhaps also contributing to anxiety and depression.

If there are gender differences in camouflaging, this could also help explain the well-known male preponderance in autism spectrum disorders. At least part of the gender imbalance may, in fact, stem from an under-diagnosis of autism in girls because they are better at “masking” symptoms.


https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/02/24/th ... +Digest%29


I have never received a diagnosis of ASD or NLD. I do my best to make eye contact. However I have never memorised a joke(never told one) . As for imitating facial expressions if I do it's on a subconscious level.

I'm a 41 year old female and have just been dx with AS. I have done exactly this for most of my life - masked and mimicked. It is totally and utterly exhausting and that is part of the reason I dislike being around people for too long and need to recover somewhere quiet by myself for long periods of time. I suffer from chronic fatigue due to this type of behaviour and it led to my dx being missed for decades.

Yup, same also now have chronic fatigue!... and yes i think it often does get harder when you get older for a variety of reasons especially for those DX'd late.

I've been doing this my entire life as well, I couldnt show anyone the real me ( she be crazy) and it is completely exhausting which is why i go months without leaving the house.
It probably why I've received so many misdiagnosis' I even put on an act for the doctor.

yup, can also totally relate! Hence why its more than just a relief to find out and find sites like this..

It so is hey, I so wish I'd found this sight earlier though.

Yup, i think more for the intervention and understanding, i may not have gone through as much hell/confusion. However i have lead the life i have been given and cant reflect too negatively if possible.. But as life has gone on to the point i now realise things arent actually going to get better ( which is what i thought when i was younger)... When that realization kicks in it opens a box of new issues. So Being pointed out that i was likely Aspie/Autistic was initially rather a surprise until i read on it and coudnt deny it... It gave me some reasoning to why i am the way i am and not a complete human reject which was how i felt for close to 40 years... Even laughed when i heard many aspies see themselves as alien as this is what i said to Councillor at time. Just felt like i was sent to earth to observe , never feeling connected always distant from everyone no matter how close i get to them....

This is one of the biggest reasons why my GF thinks I may have ASD. It does explain why I've had it better than most.

If people with Autism copy & mimic NT's it's known as camouflage or learned behaviour.

What I don't understand is how do NT's learn these things if it's not by copying & mimicking.

Its likely a subconscious learning pattern as apposed to a constant cognitive which we often have to do... I have never been NT so im not entirely sure! lol... However through observation this seems to be the case

I guess I'm fortunate....in that it was evident that I was autistic from a very young age.

No camouflaging possible then---though I probably do it to a certain extent nowadays.

So was I; unfortunately no one gave a crap.

My 25 yr old son won't pretend for anyone if you don't like the way he is too bad, I'm so proud of him I so wish I could be so accepting of myself.
I believe that has a lot do with him being diagnosed at around 5 and me spending my life being misdiagnosed.

What was glaringly autistic about me was that I had no speech until age 5 1/2, and I used to just about destroy supermarkets.

People were FORCED to care, by dint of my destructiveness LOL

Unfortunately I internalized mine and started cutting myself at age 11. No one cared.

That seems logical and I realise it's also a pretty stupid question to ask on an autism forum

I agree that this REALLY sucks, Ann.

You have a good mind. I hope you get rid of the demons some day.