I find this aspect of autism really fascinating. Psychologically, we have such a huge variety of traits, yet there seem to be certain postural things which are very specific and rather common; for example, putting all of one's weight on the toes, or arms folded either side of the chest ("t-rex arms" as Ezra called it recently - I really like that name!)
MrMacPhisto wrote:
Also the fact that I showed nearly every classic sign as well.
I honestly thought that I was High Functioning and that I was gearing more towards NT thinking.
Similar for me; my "masking" seems to have fooled myself almost as much as anyone else. When my Mum helped with my autism assessment, I was rather shocked by the degree of my stereotypical childhood autistic signs. I had always believed that the bullies who mocked me for my strange posture and gait at school were just especially observant kids making an effort to winkle out any tiny difference that they could find; but it seems that my oddness was actually apparent even to casual observers. When I did military style drill in a youth group as a kid, the instructor was always on at me about my posture and marching, but could never successfully describe to me what was wrong; in my own mind, I always felt that I was copying the other boys exactly.
Even through my adult life, I have often been told that I'm very easy to recognise from a distance because of the way I stand and walk; but again, I always assumed that other people were just much more observant than me. Nowadays, with nearly everyone having a video camera on their phone, I get to see it for myself from their point of view. After decades of not knowing, I realised just how odd my posture and movement can be, which I do find really embarrassing to watch sometimes. The mismatch between how I think I'm posed/moving and how I really am posed/moving still feels incredibly bizarre.
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When you are fighting an invisible monster, first throw a bucket of paint over it.