Joy of unmasking

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I got diagnosed this week and it has been a process of taking off the mask I've been wearing for 20 years. I don't have the same strain at the end of the day because I've stopped forcing eye contact. I'm comfortable with how I interact with people now because I'm not doing the 'am I doing this right? am I saying the right thing? am I making enough/too little/too much eye contact?' in my brain all day. I'm just living. I'm feeling almost liberated since I don't feel the need to pretend to be typical. I love it.

Congratultions

Congratulations on learning that it's not your imagination, other people really are strange!

I offer for your consideration a phrase I use when my bride bumps up against one of my Autistic traits:

"I have a doctor's note for that!"

For some reasons she isn't as amused as I am.

If you're NT, or AS, or of any skin color, you have to be a house n****r in order to survive in the world. It's the human condition. You hafta adapt to other humans.

And you being made aware that your AS doesnt change that.

You still hafta make eye contact when you talk to folks.

The difference being diagnosed makes is that - you dont have to be judgmental against yourself about as much- if you fail. You dont have to think "i am a bad person for not making eye contact". You just view it as "I have mentally switch gears- like on a bike- and make eye contact with this coworker or whomever.

When I was young I think my parents noticed that I wasn't make eye contact. They told me it was polite to look at people when I was talking to them.

They didn't say I had to look at them, only that I had to look at them. So, I looked at people when I talked to them...but not eye contact.

It seems to have mostly worked for me. I am only aware of a very small number of instances where not making actual eye contact was an issue.

Congrats on your diagnosis and awareness, aviandivine!!

I unmasked in the January of 2016 and there's no way I'm going back to my old ways of doing things.

Been told off quite a few times for not making eye contact. Learned two methods. One can usually be maintained for a while. The other cant but is less obvious.

I find I can't think when I do look at peoples eyes/faces. I can do it but not think and talk at the same time, so I can't do it when talking as attempts to do it end up me in a mess.

So method one I use which I can't do for long as it feels funny and gives me eyestrain when I do it. First look at the person and I then shift my eyes out of focus so I can only see them as a blur.
I can't do this for long and it makes me feel insidout inside.

Second method is far more successful. Look at the person so ones face looks at them, but let ones eyes look to the right (Or the left) of their face so ones eyes look sideways. No one has said anything when I hve done this so I guess it works, except that if they move then I don't always notice and get accused of lack of eye contact again, or if I notice I have to start the whole process again.

When people talk such as speakers when they are speaking and I am listening and I do not have to talk, I do make eye contact. I can't help it. But only if they are a distance from me.

I get prosopragnosia so I am wondering if this is brought on by a lack of eyecontact? As on the one hand, in normal conversations, I will not make eye contact, but instead, if I need to "Try" to learn what a person looks like, I need to silently start at them but it is embarissing if they see me do this so I rarely do. I don't like being told off for staring at people I would like to befriend.

I can get at times a fixed mindblank stare where for a period of time if I am motionless, I will be staring at whoever or whatever I last looked at, and I will come back online if I sense movement or if I hear someone talk to me. It is not a fit (I have been tested for them) but seems to be when I have had a lot of stress and tiredness so my mind just wants to take a break? Is noticable when I am motionless as if I am moving such as walking, cycling or driving it is not an issue as my mind is doing something with motion so it does not do it. I think it does not last long either.
I was once accused while sitting in my car at staring at a lady. I did not even know I was! Haha!

I thought only "NT's" can mask. How could an autistic people mask? I am unable to mask because I'm autistic.

I remember when in school when young and was looking at popular members of my class who had friends without doing anything, and I thought that they were far better at masking than I ever was... (I did not know masking had a name but I knew I did it).
Many years later when a few years ago I discovered autism, I learned about it and I found out that those popular pupils were not masking. I was to "Try" to fit in. They already fit in because their minds thought like most peoples minds do.
Those of us who mask rarely get diagnosed when young and tend to discover autism after a mental crash, as masking involves continuously thinking about two or three things at the same time which is why mental burnouts or mental breakdowns eventually happen. (Some who do not mask can hit burnout due to being stressed or having too mny meltdowns or shutdowns, but that is not due to masking).

Masking can take place in a few ways and while some aays are simple, like constantly monitoring every part of ones body incase one automatically stims to avoid being told off by a teacher or when in work etc, there is in addition to that a type of masking when one puts on a whole personality different from ones own so one can "Fit in" which is mentally exhausting to keep up. One gets home after work or school as an example, and all one can do is relax and go to bed as one can't do any further involvement of anything with friends etc because one is mentally exhausted. It is like acting but being forced to act where every single day one has to do and has no choice. I once had a workmate when I worked on the railways say to me after once visiting me at home as I had repaired his sons bicycle for him "You are an entirely different person in work compared to how you are at home". This is because in work I had to wear what I called a "Work mask" and at home I was not.
A third form of masking I did from my teenage years onwards when in settings where I was regularly in groups of people was where I would purposly act thick to hide my autism traits. (I did not know they had anything to do with autism but I knew I had to hide them to avoid being told off).

Masking can only be kept up for so long and when the masking breaks down the bullying starts because people one is with feel like one has purposly intended to decieve them. I used to go through what I call my "Two year cycles" where if I stayed in a job longer than 2 years the masking would wear out and I would be bullied and have to leave. Even managers would bully though it was normally under managers. Would be given lots of extra hours without pay regularly as punishment and would not be paid bonuses etc so where others were on minimum wage, I would be on half that or even less and I would have to do two or three peoples tasks in my time in work, which is why I kept hitting these mental crashes called burnout.
I saw the undermanagers getting new cars on a pay they did not earn while I had to scrape by on taking customers part worn brake blocks from the bin just to try to kep my bicycle on the road... I was actually losing money through being in the job so when I would hand in my notice where I had no job (Was not entitled to benefits because I left of my own accord) with no income I was actually finding myself better off!

But those are just examples of masking and the issues that masking has. Masking makes one kinda appear normal (NT-like) to others so one is able to be in a group but one never really does fit in no matter how hard one tries, and it is not that the others try to be nasty as most will be nice people. Is that when cracks appear in the masking, that is when the trouble starts as they feel like one has been lieing to them.

It sounds like you are on the right track. Keep growing. Soon you will be the smartest one in the room.