High masking autist only discovered late in life here. Fun fact, because it's probably not the stereotypical way this plays out: For most of my life (in my 30s now, on a waiting list for an official diagnosis after my nephew was diagnosed and I did better research), I masked by roleplaying as an "eccentric genius", pieced together from observing what I noticed in others and how they are portrayed in stories and biographies. My special interest has always been philosophy, history and politics (and secondarily also video games, although not as much), so creating a mask of being someone really cultured and intelligent was relatively easy in my case.
That worked relatively well in school for me, actually. I managed to be sick or flunk out every 3rd day, never did homework, both heavily helping with overstimulation and risk of burnout. And my teachers were split along one half having given up on me (avoiding judgement and conflict) and the other projecting their own dreams of how an "eccentric, intelligent, troubled child/teenager" should look, supporting me. So I managed to get by.
Social events I started to participate in a lot in my teenage years .... by starting to drink at 13, which was this wondrous thing that suddenly made it all bearable and numbed to a degree - and no one judged you when you were drunk out of your mind and hung out with other drunk kids, mostly punks, metalheads, nerds and other outcasts in my case. I actually still found it exhausting, I had a reputation for leaving parties halfway through to take a walk, have a meltdown intensified by alcohol poisoning somewhere far away (no one knew about those), and then coming back. I also took so much pride in myself for doing things that were hard (and ultimately damaging to myself). I remember as a teenager, I was so proud when I learned how to properly look into people's eyes and faces, even though it was exhausting to do so.
Unfortunately, after school, that identity collapsed completely, turns out, the "real world" has a lot more responsibilities and a lot more judgement, leading to an ever intesifying cycle of trying to "get my shit together", failing and then hating myself more and more. I am so glad that ever since I realised I've actually been autistic, for the first time I am able to recontextualise my past and properly address my issues, by managing my resources and expectations, instead of trying to push myself to be something I never was and cannot be.
Wowwww, I can relate to this a lot. Thank you so much for sharing.
And my teachers were split along one half having given up on me (avoiding judgement and conflict) and the other projecting their own dreams of how an “eccentric, intelligent, troubled child/teenager” should look, supporting me.
It's possible a few of them were aware you were autistic. I found out in mid-life. When I did my assessment, the psychologist helped me realize that my parents definitely knew and I was under some sort of individualize plan for autistic kids throughout public school. Another thing is that I always thought I looked weird on video, but wouldn't think much of it since many people say they don't like to see themselves on video. After my adult diagnosis, I started looking at videos of level 1 autistic people and then videos of me. I realized it's super evident that I'm autistic. If someone has experience with level one autistic people, they can probably spot it within minutes. Teachers have lots of experience with kids. They can see a lot more than we realize.
Good luck at your assessment!
Thank you, it's going to be a few months, waiting lists are crazy long here. I'm from Germany, and awareness for autism here lacks heavily behind the english speaking world. It's getting better, see for example how my nephew thankfully got a diagnosis as a child now, but not too long ago, if you were able to mask in any way and not easily identifiable as disabled along a stereotype, people never thought to consider it.
I wouldn't rule out completely that some teachers at school could have known or suspected, but they at least never said as much, and I wasn't in any special programs or got special counseling at school. Especially back then, the idea of autism in the general public and even non-specialised psychologists and psychiatrists over here was still "mutism and barely able to function" - which is probably why the psychologists and psychiatrists I saw as a child and teenager also never considered it.
I talked a lot with my mother since my nephew was diagnosed and I and my sister started to research what the current understanding of it is, and she at least just outright ruled it out back then. She actually had been trying to find some sort of pathology for me for my "otherness" as a kid, but because she had a mismatched idea of what autism is (ironically from learning a lot about it in, like, the 60s or 70s), she never properly considered that as a possibility. Both her and my (dead by now) father show(ed) at least some signs for autism, too, but neither ever got any diagnosis or help. My mother is too old by now, and doesn't want to bother with anything like a diagnosis, but she has acknowledged a lot of the signs from the new understanding of ASD fit into her own childhood, youth and overall life too.
Most of the support by the teachers that liked me was basically behind the scenes, putting a word in for me in conferences and stuff like that. I barely scraped by 10th grade without repeating, by having just enough excelling courses to counteract the ones I was failing (latin and physical education in my case). The system for advancing there is a bit complicated here in Germany, especially because it's different from state to state, but there ended up being a conference that decided if I was allowed to advance into 11th grade, where the teachers that supported me came in clutch. Similar stuff happened with my massive amount of sick days and days where I simply did not show up without an excuse and how that was handled and how it was not sanctioned as harshly as it could have been. All the while, I acted nonchalant, even a bit arrogant, around teachers, which some of them seemingly found endearing, because I was also clever enough to do well in the subjects I didn't openly boycott. I also got really good at stuff people probably would not expect, like public speaking and holding presentations as well as acting in the theatre group - which all followed very clear rules about how to act and present yourself that I learned to emulate (but also still was pretty exhausting). But especially back then, I'd expect people taking that as a clear sign that "that kid can't be autistic".
So, long story short, while I wouldn't rule it out, the lack of awareness for the condition over here - especially back then in the 90s/early 2000s - makes me think that there probably was no one who really suspected autism, and while I was seeing psychologists a lot and was in a psychiatric clinic as a teenager for a while, I never got any special programs suited for autistic people, which over here and back then were extremely rare to begin with.
Thanks again, and good luck to you too with your future and present! It's good you got help in recontextualising those parts of your past as well, that is worth a lot.
Discovered this community yesterday and I love the idea, so I'll be stealing memes from Reddit from time to time to help get it off the ground.
Thank you very much! 😊
I'm in this picture all the time...like weekly at the very least.
