Question About Possibly Being Skilled at "passing" as NT?

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I am an older adult (in my 50s), and without getting into a huge amount of detail regarding why I have come to consider the possibility that I am high functioning autistic, I’d like to ask a question:

Is it possible that some high functioning autistic people are able to be high functioning because over the course of their lives they’ve been able to figure out and implement workarounds for some of their challenges?

For example, I was extremely socially awkward, picked on, bullied, abused, etc. as a child, and my family moved around the U.S. a lot. I somehow (without intending to) managed to get good at picking up the local accent of wherever we moved, so that I’d fit in better. I got so good at it that a coworker of mine, about 30 years ago, got angry at me for adopting his stutter. I hadn’t even realized that I was doing it. He apparently thought that I was mocking him, but I just started adopting his manner of speech because I looked up to him and wanted him to like me.

I think that, in general, people don’t realize how much trouble I have socially because I have become kind of a chameleon and am so good at observing and mirroring their mannerism, speech, etc. that I blend in with them very well. The only problem is that I know that I don’t fit in anywhere I go, and (generally speaking) I don’t even really know what or who I am. I know who I should be (and who I should be changes depending on who I’m around) and I know who I’m expected to be and I try my best to be that.

One of the very, very few people who got to see the "real" me was an old boss of mine who got to see me absolutely crack up and meltdown in front of her when my role became extremely unpredictable and changeable. I broke down in tears and had to explain to her that sometimes "I can't think," especially when I am presented with conflicting priorities during the performance of my duties. I felt so humiliated, and she looked absolutely baffled at what she saw/heard. (my job up until that point had been exceptionally predictable and delightfully boring, and I excelled at it so much that she considered herself blessed to have found me.)

As a continuation of the above:

I am having trouble answering some of the questions on the self-assessment tests on the Embrace Autism website. The reason I'm having trouble is because I think that some of the behaviors (such as studying NT people to learn how they interact), I don't do any more because I spent about 50 years doing them and learned enough to "pass" as a (weird) NT person. Does that make sense?

For example, I am generally considered a very sympathetic person, but I think that's because I spent many years learning how to react to people around me and the "correct" responses to have. But I don't really think that I care about other people (other than my wife and kids) as much as other people seem to. So, am I really a "sympathetic person"? I honestly don't know.

I guess that I'm not really sure what upsets me. I've known for so long what is supposed to upset me and how I am supposed to react to events that I just react. I don't know whether I really have empathy for anyone except my wife and kids.

I think you learn over time how to adjust to things so there is less "trouble".

I was recently diagnosed with Level 1 ASD (the medical term for high-functioning autism) and my experience sounds quite similar to yours.

If you haven't read "Unmasking Autism" by Dr. Devin Price, it may be of interest to you.

You might not know, which is part of why the current criteria are such a mess. Especially for those that aren't as outwardly expressive of the traits. It did make sense to focus on that when it was mostly just young children that were being evaluated. But, that approach is overly conservative when you're talking about verbal adults that can tell you what's going on in their heads.

It's well within the possibility that the decisions most relevant to the masking were made in early childhood and that everything since then has just built on that, but at a more normal pace. (Normal in terms of pacing, not in terms of objective)

At the extreme end, you're looking at people that are more or less people inside of people, where the actual self never actually directly interacts with the outside world. It's not something that's very well studied, in large part because people like that don't show the external signs necessary for proper diagnosis, nor do they exhibit enough problems to bring them in for treatment either.

Thank you to everyone who replied; I appreciate it very much.

I was quite energized when I created this thread and didn't realize what a wall of text I created.

Up until just a few days ago, I had no idea what "high functioning" and "high masking" meant, so I was absolutely certain that there was no way that I was autistic. But after learning about what those terms meant, I suddenly felt as though I had an explanation for why I've always been so weird and alienated.

But I think that I've become a master at focusing on people's faces and mannerisms and driving myself crazy trying to figure out what I've done to make their faces change.

It's going to be so frustrating until I can finally get in to be evaluated.

This rings true to me; the sense of being an alien inside a robot designed to look human, and trying to understand and infiltrate human society.

I've learned to present very well, but no one around me can understand why I've never lived up to my potential.

Thanks for the recommendation; I'll pick up the book.

I find myself considering the possibility that masking for over fifty years can cause one to not know where the mask ends and where "me" really begins.

About two months post-diagnosis and I can firmly say that I have absolutely no idea either

Trying to not worry about it as much and use the diagnosis as a way of finally breaking down the wall of guilt that's surrounded me my whole life, directed towards my reduced ability (though not complete inability) to do things that are not a challenge to most people.

What things?
* Traditional dating (reduced ability to read social cues, clinginess)
* Being in crowded places for long periods of time (grocery stores, concerts, bars, etc.)
* I frequently leave functions early and abruptly due to overstimulation and experiencing shutdown (I never have "explosive" meltdowns, I just feel like the CPU in my brain is overheating and being throttled and I become a shell of a man until I can get somewhere quiet)
* Adherence to routine (I live a very similar day every day)
* Restricted interests (I like computers and synthesizers, and my cat, and now my girlfriend, but struggle to discuss anything else)
* Not being the type son my parents probably expected
* Being relatively antisocial and not spending much time with the people who care about me
* Cancelling plans due to suffering from shutdown or burnout (though I usually try to communicate when I anticipate this may happen)
* Not saying yes to almost any last minute plans

That list isn't exhaustive, just the ones I could think of while I was waiting on my code to compile

Since I've been able to drop that guilt, my life has become a lot more peaceful. I still feel like a freak sometimes, but a lovable one who has developed the ability to communicate the things about me that can be misinterpreted by other people in ways that can hurt them. (Just because I don't want to grab a beer with you out of the blue at 9:00PM on a Wednesday doesn't mean I don't care about you, it means you're interrupting the routine I need to ground myself.)

Thanks again for your input, theboogieman! I can identify with so much of what you shared.

Over the course of my weird life, I've collected several different diagnoses to explain my multifaceted strangeness and the amazing thing is that they all could also, more simply, be explained by ASD Level 1.

So instead of having half a dozen weird things wrong with me, making me feel like a complete wreck, it's instead possible that there's just one thing which impacts me in many areas. That feels so much more bearable to me.

This is ALSO how I felt.

My psychiatrist (who has been seeing me since I was 11) diagnosed me with inattentive-type ADHD when I was a child, and ignored the several occurrences over the last 12 years of me saying things to her like "I feel like I'm autistic and everyone around me knows it, but they're too afraid to tell me because they think I'd be hurt." When I said that exact line, she laughed at me.

About half a year ago, I asked her if she could reevaluate me for ASD, and she said something along the lines of "You don't have autism, you're not stereotypical enough. It makes more sense to me that you have an executive function disorder (ADHD), a sensory processing disorder, and social anxiety."

What made no sense to me is that sounds like decomposing an ASD diagnosis into multiple parts. I've described her description of my condition as saying "That's not a burger, it's a ground beef patty on a sesame seed bun sandwich."

It isn't hard to put on my best allistic face when I'm going see the same psychiatrist in the same dimly-lit, quiet office, with the same receptionist, in the same room, in the same chair, at the same desk. It's like an autistic dream building. There hasn't been a single surprise in that office in 12 years! So I'm not "coping" with my autism in there. If society could be built perfectly for people on the spectrum, it would probably be that office on a global scale.

That's why I'm spending so much time on research and advocacy lately. I thought that I was the only one. Schizoid Personality Disorder largely stopped existing during the DSM-IV days because most people that would otherwise qualify for the diagnosis got redirected to other diagnoses. Avoidant Personality Disorder got the most attention, but a bunch of the newly diagnosed autistic people during that period would have otherwise been diagnosed as ScPD just because of how the diagnostic criteria had previously been written and interpreted. An autistic person who does not perceive a drive for connection would likely be misdiagnosed as ScPD, which increasingly means misdiagnosis to APD, even though there's little in common between the various autism spectrum disorders we had and APD.

That being said, the only reason why there are no dual diagnosis ASD-ScPD folks out there is that ScPD requires a pretty explicit rule out for ASD. Which is usually a problem as if you're even looking at ScPD as the diagnosis, you probably don't have the necessary information to say that it isn't a developmental disorder rather than a personality disorder.

And unfortunately, due to the lack of research on ScPD, there's no saying when or if the issue will ever be properly resolved.

This is where a lot of us got screwed over. The diagnostic criteria and assessment tools used on older people don't work very well. Even if you're lucky enough, like I was, to have a parent available to interview, nobody was keeping the sorts of records that it would take to properly make the diagnosis. It's not like those that were born in the '90s or '00s where there were cameras everywhere and an expanded awareness that there could be developmental disorders that aren't as obvious and so more records were created.

It wouldn't be surprising if you would qualify for both diagnoses, or would if that wasn't explicitly barred. ScPD can start at a shockingly young age, but somehow it's a personality disorder and not a developmental disorder, even though there is some evidence that having autistic relatives does impact the likelihood of being ScPD.


As you obviously have worked out, ADHD + a sensory processing disorder + social anxiety is suspiciciously similar to autism. Certainly plenty of justification for you seeking a proper evaluation. And definitely not surprising that it came back positive.

I don't think I have ADHD; I am able to focus on books, movies, conversations, model-building, etc. for long periods.

Ugh. I wish it were easier to tell whether I am indeed ASD. I have to wait another week just to meet with my primary care doctor in order to get a referral for evaluation. And if the doctor even gives me the referral, who knows how long it might take for me to even be able to get an appointment for the evaluation. I wish I could just know already.

That doesn't count if those are things you're interested in. If you're not interested in those things and you can still focus, then you probably aren't ADHD.

I think my autism was far more obvious when I was younger. My boss clocked me as autistic at first interview, but I didn't know that until more recently when she told me so.

4 1/2 years of working customer service, and I can interact with people without feeling like a fish out of water so much. My therapist, when I told her I was wondering if I was autistic a few months back, said that I didn't seem socially awkward to her. So I take that to mean that I have learned enough tricks to seem less autistic.

(I was diagnosed this past June.)

Thank you, everyone - I'm learning so much.
I made an appointment to talk with my main doctor about getting a referral for ASD evaluation. Unfortunately, next week was the earliest I could get in to see him.

It's so frustrating not being able to get moving on this any sooner. But I suppose it will all move as it's supposed to move. And I'm either ASD or not. We'll see.

Thanks again.