Male aspies and masking

[Shevek]

This is one of the things that irks me about our modern world, and something I'm trying to promote change in with our new Minister For Autism. Franchised methods don't work for many of us and in the process a lot of raw talent is denied and subdued, the ultimate price is the dumbing down of our society.

Many years ago adverts for British Petroleum used to tell us that we were "The Clever Country" and "The Quiet Achievers". I'd like to see that become true one day. At the moment true talent only ever seems to survive in spite of our education system rather than being promoted by it.

All the "help" for AS kids I hear about seems to be designed to make them look ordinary, no matter how unnatural and difficult it may be. Trying that on my own just wasted my talents. The one thing I wish I'd learned in school was the directions to a place where NTs had learned ways to form partnerships with Aspies, handling the people jobs and letting us focus on tech issues.

This post got lost in the system for a while, but while pondering the thread, I realized that my AS mother had me as part of her masking efforts, but they were not conscious. All she knew was that she thought she was smarter than average, and that none of the available diagnoses fit. I inherited that attitude, and sought out artistically inclined companions who valued eccentricity.

 

[Outdated]

All the "help" for AS kids I hear about seems to be designed to make them look ordinary, no matter how unnatural and difficult it may be.

I agree with you here, it's a large part of the problem. In high school they held me back a year because I was "socially immature", as if that was going to help. What helped me most was leaving the school system.

Once I developed a reputation as a highly desirable tradesman none of my funny ways mattered any more, I was valued and respected and any boss that knew where his money was coming from kept everyone else away from me. If I had been shown that sort of consideration in school I might have ended up in a more academic career.

 

[Storm Hess]

I can definitely relate. Growing up with no internet, everything was face-to-face...what I hated the most. "Look them in the eyes"..."Shake their hand firmly"..."Pull your shoulders back and stand tall". All of this was drilled into me by my father, calmly at first...then with intimidation. "Want to be treated like a man and get respect?!". All of my life, I had a very difficult time with eye contact, having people invade my personal space and hated shaking hands. If it's someone that I know and I'm comfortable with, I'm better with eye contact, closeness and touching.

I've had to mask for decades due to societal norms and authoritarian father. My mother, unfortunately, morphed into a version of my step father...who's the exact same way as my biological father.

I received no supprt or understanding, only "Do as you're told!" and "Suck it up and be a man!". There wasn't a "diagnosis" for depression, ASD or ADHD when I was growing up...no support from family or doctors. "Don't do that! People will think something's wrong with you!" was all the support I got...except maybe the possible beating.

So yes...I can painfully relate.

Tricks I've learned along the way:
- Look at the person's eyebrows or inbetween their eyes to fake eye contact. I also use to defocus my eyes to make who I was looking at blurry.
- Tell people you have a hand injury and wish not to shake hands.
- Tell people you do not wish to shake their hands.
- Give them a phone number quickly and tell them to call when convenient...be in a hurry. If there has to be a meeting face-to-face, set up the meeting place during the phone call that is acceptble for you. Control your situation. Chess.

 

[Shevek]

I agree with you here, it's a large part of the problem. In high school they held me back a year because I was "socially immature", as if that was going to help. What helped me most was leaving the school system.

Once I developed a reputation as a highly desirable tradesman none of my funny ways mattered any more, I was valued and respected and any boss that knew where his money was coming from kept everyone else away from me. If I had been shown that sort of consideration in school I might have ended up in a more academic career.

For most of my life, I didn't know that IQ and EQ are independent variables, so I assumed that the socially adept people were just kidding about their difficulty with math. Arriving in Gr 9 at age 12 didn't help my socialization, but holding myself back a year kept me from identifying with the smart kids.

I also did OK with a reputation for doing extra-odd jobs right the first time, but that was my part time job. I made engineering my vocation, and won prizes, but finding suitable business partners proved impossible. There are still whole R&D departments slowly working toward what I demonstrated with my first prototype, so it would have taken someone pushy to put them out of work.

If I had stayed in school, I might have learned more about how to form and work in a team, but I would have had to un-learn a lot of obsolete information needed to get a degree.

 

[Outdated]

@Storm Hess ,

I was the opposite to you in some of this. I had a different face for every occasion and I did quite well in all that "keeping up appearances" business. Maintaining it for any period of time was mentally exhausting and I knew I'd pay for it afterwards but I usually did well in job interviews.

Where I have a real problem is with phones. I hate them, I always have, don't know why. That's a real disadvantage in today's world but was unnoticeable when I was growing up. I don't have a mobile phone, the things drive me mental. I'll walk for miles and go through great hardships to talk to someone in person rather than over the phone.

Plays merry hell with buying stuff online sometimes, they can't send me a text with a verification code.

 

[Outdated]

For most of my life, I didn't know that IQ and EQ are independent variables,

I didn't know there's a variable called EQ and I have no idea what it stands for so you're one up on me.

The only time I did an IQ test I scored 172 but I knew as I was doing it that it was a bit of a farce. My sister wasn't much slower than me but if she'd tried to complete those tests she would have been lucky to score 90. Back then the tests were only for a very limited band of different types of intelligence, I imagine it's a bit different these days.

My sister could do maths in her head, she just couldn't put it on paper.

 

[Storm Hess]

I hate talking on phones as well (including landlines)...my wife makes most all of my calls. I can if I know it's truly important. When I was growing up, there were only landlines...I hated those as well.

I have cell phones for the sole purpose of development. I love gadgets and how they're made and work...but for cell phone use, I hate it. What I find amazing, is the PCB boards remind me of little cities. I love looking at them.

Masking is exhausting. I failed in a lot of interviews because of anxiety. Had to go to temp agencies due to not being able to be placed in a permanent position. Had some success there.

I prefer texting, then email and as last resort...FaceTime or Skyping. I rarely meet anyone in person or speak on the phone anymore...unless I HAVE to.

 

[Outdated]

Old time trick for job interviews when I was younger, I'd scan the yellow pages looking for an add for the company that I wanted to apply with, often all they gave you was a phone number. Once I found the phone number I'd have their address and I'd show up on on their doorstep instead of ringing them up.

I disliked text mostly because it means I have to put my other glasses on, I just use those cheap reading glasses, you can get them on ebay for $20 a dozen. Recently unwarranted texts started rolling in more and more often and then I got my back up.

I still have a physical device but no valid sim card. I use a voip service that works very much like a landline and my samsung handheld is now just that, a landline. Anything on the net is on my 27 inch screen, easier on older eyes.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Anyway, I am happy now

That is nice to hear. As far as expressions go, I do not bother thinking about them. My spouse says I am a bad liar. Not being able to process social communication still happens. It is discouraging at times, but I let it slide.

 

[Todd]

I didn't know there's a variable called EQ and I have no idea what it stands for so you're one up on me.

The only time I did an IQ test I scored 172 but I knew as I was doing it that it was a bit of a farce. My sister wasn't much slower than me but if she'd tried to complete those tests she would have been lucky to score 90. Back then the tests were only for a very limited band of different types of intelligence, I imagine it's a bit different these days.

My sister could do maths in her head, she just couldn't put it on paper.

If I'm remembering correctly - I overheard this 25 years ago - EQ stand for Emotional Quotient. I am under the impression that they now call this Emotional Intelligence and is known now to be an implicit part of one's IQ. Incidentally I just want to throw out there that in my own case, my cognitive reasoning and verbal recognition are high 230s, my processing speed is an imbecile, and the rest is above average. My emotional development has been retarded and at 40yo I was deemed the emotional equivalent of a healthy 6yo.

 

[Outdated]

I'm learning a few things on this forum, that's cool.

I noticed a lot of people mentioning Alexithymia and I looked it up. Definitely not me, I think I'd score lower on that one than the average male population.

 

[Jeepcarpenter]

I agree with you here, it's a large part of the problem. In high school they held me back a year because I was "socially immature", as if that was going to help. What helped me most was leaving the school system.

Once I developed a reputation as a highly desirable tradesman none of my funny ways mattered any more, I was valued and respected and any boss that knew where his money was coming from kept everyone else away from me. If I had been shown that sort of consideration in school I might have ended up in a more academic career.

Well aside from the fact that ASD/ADD/ADHD/etc were just starting to be recognized as I progressed through the school system without being recognized as; everything in this response rings true to my experience..

I was nearly held back from secondary school due to coined developmental/social issues with work, peers and teachers, pushed to be advanced grades prior to such, then needing to be put into a special program in order to pass into the next tier of schooling, only to be within the program only 2 days into gr9 before being dismissed from it for being too functional.

Again pushed into more advanced classes on the grounds that it was a mistake for me to be sent to such a program in the first place, social life was then resolved by instead changing peers into clients rather than trying to be friends,

Once out of school and developing a technical reputation in employment situations, it didn’t matter the social inadequacies or minor issues with odd daily work schedules; my abilities stifled the tongue of anyone who stood to profit from, not that I was exceptional but certainly enough.

I wish I had been given opportunity sooner to refine and apply technical skills without the social pressures of the average school system, agreeing I probably would have further pursued a more academically advanced career given the same assurances in ability rather than the conception of being a misdirected menace. Masking however, I believe is still in strong effect to this day.

 

[Outdated]

As a kid I was seriously interested in physics but I learnt more from my grandfather than I did from our education system and he died when I was 11.

As it was back then I was a year younger than others in my classes but they went the wrong way, they held me back when I desperately wanted and needed to be pushed forward. I don't have any regrets really, I ended up with a great life, but perhaps my country could have had better value out of me if they had given me the education I needed.

 

[Todd]

There are a lot of underachievers of our aspie ilk. This is really quite sad. I believe myself to be an extravert that never was. Introverted by the condition. I have come to understand, in my capacity as a tour guide (and, auld-lang-syne, as a tennis coach) that I am quite gifted at explaining things and teaching people. I have had countless people leave my tours with a brand new understanding of what goes on in our night sky, mostly people who had been trying to understand others explain it but never quite got there. Speaking to large crowds as often as I do, I notice I have excellent comedic timing and am quick with a reply to most hecklers. Unlike many people here, but like some too I bet, I had no chance to recognise any comfort zones - broken home, severely depressed (& loving) mother who moved house more often than a nomad - when she wasn't exhausted by work or curled up in the foetal position on her bed, & a father who believes that a wish of his and the subsequent writing of his books have secured/resecured the future for our eternal selves. I was the youngest of 3, 2 years old when Dad left, and no-one had time to notice anything about me for nearly 14 years. I was so used to utter discomfort that I wouldn't realise at all why I was aggravated, denied any chance that there was something wrong with me, and even started to be too afraid to let anyone, anyone AT ALL, know about the things I wanted. I developed a misunderstanding that I didn't deserve the things I wanted. To this day I sometimes realise that I'm sitting uncomfortably several hours after I first sat down. Hmmmm..... I hope my plot-bunny tangents are okay on this site

As it was back then I was a year younger than others in my classes but they went the wrong way, they held me back when I desperately wanted and needed to be pushed forward. I don't have any regrets really, I ended up with a great life, but perhaps my country could have had better value out of me if they had given me the education I needed.

 

[Outdated]

Interesting note about the teaching. Technically I wasn't a tradesman, I never got an apprenticeship and just sort of elbowed my way in to the trade. Technically I wasn't allowed to train apprentices but it was me the bosses always wanted to do the training. Apparently I have a knack for explaining things in ways that make sense to people.

Mum always said I could talk under water with a mouth full of marbles.

My homelife was different to yours but certainly not idyllic. My parents fought all the time, my sister and I hounded them for years to get a divorce but it never happened. Older sister and younger brother, I was in the middle. In most families when the kids play up it's the eldest that gets in to trouble but not in my family, I was supposed to be the smart one.

My father was an emotional bully, by the time I was 14 years old my mother was an alcoholic and a dribbling mess. My sister and I were always very close but neither of us liked our brother. He turned out to be my father's "mini me". Me and Lou basically grew up on the streets because being home wasn't much fun.

But such is life. I had plenty of friends with stories far worse than mine.

 

[Todd]

It's difficult to say. On a bad day it can take me 3hours to make a cup of coffee in the morning. I walk in circles with my mind flipping from thought to thought, never completing any, then I get distracted by something else I wanted to do at some stage in the last 2 years....
On an average day this can go on for 15 minutes or so, and happens throughout the day. I'm actually in this mode all the time, and it feels like I work very hard to achieve very little. It's a bit like sitting on the bench while the game called 'my entire life' happens in the background. This has increasingly, as I get older and the window gets smaller, exacerbated a growing hopelessness with regard to anything I've ever wanted to achieve.
As a whole, I'm becoming more forgetful, more easily distracted, and quicker to anger (as I believe anyone's patience would fray under such conditions). When I'm tired and feeling old, I often feel as though I have one foot in the dementia ward.
To qualify all the above, amphetamine medication can absolutely work wonders for me in terms of ADD, but it's literally easier to die without having lived than to consider trying to get a psychiatrist to agree without first 'trialling' the recently discovered (and therefore unexpected) 'side-effects' of new 'anti-depressant' (incredibly harmful in my case) meds for their 'possible' benefits re anxiety. Again!!
Anyway, I have two small children, a full time (&then some) job, a partner (tries to be supportive but doesn't/won't understand ASD) who works full time also, and a great many dreams and ideas slowly dying. I'm barely held together at all, coming apart at the seems and with no end in sight....

 

[Outdated]

Hang in there Todd. For me at least, depression seems to come in waves, if you can sit it out it eventually goes away again for a while.

I can really relate to a lot of your last post, part of it is just getting older - A question for older members

As for Doctors! Don't get me started. When I was applying for the pension I had to get a report from a GP, didn't matter that I had a 6 page summary written up by the country's leading psychologists and psychiatrists, the law says I have to use a GP.

The first one I went to see was a religious sicko who told me there's no such thing as autism. "If you could just read this book....". I told Human Services that he should be deregistered in the interests of public safety.

The second one was just a glorified drug dealer who told me I had anxiety and prescribed Escotalorpram. Because his report was being logged for my pension application I felt that I had to take his drugs or I wouldn't get the pension. One of the worst decisions in my life. It mucked up my sleep routine, which mucked up my bowel routine, which in turn mucked up my diet. I stopped taking them after a couple of months.

12 months later I still haven't been able to establish any regular routines again and my whole life is a mess. In that same 12 months writing on this forum has been my only social interaction with other humans.

I ended up paying money to see a real doctor and get an appropriate report for Human Services. This doctor also agreed with me that most doctors aren't terribly bright and very few of them understand that Depression is not Anxiety.

Hang in there bloke. Just think - life could always be worse.

Cheers,

Andrew.

 

[Todd]

Hang in there Todd. For me at least, depression seems to come in waves, if you can sit it out it eventually goes away again for a while.

I can really relate to a lot of your last post, part of it is just getting older - A question for older members

As for Doctors! Don't get me started. When I was applying for the pension I had to get a report from a GP, didn't matter that I had a 6 page summary written up by the country's leading psychologists and psychiatrists, the law says I have to use a GP.

The first one I went to see was a religious sicko who told me there's no such thing as autism. "If you could just read this book....". I told Human Services that he should be deregistered in the interests of public safety.

The second one was just a glorified drug dealer who told me I had anxiety and prescribed Escotalorpram. Because his report was being logged for my pension application I felt that I had to take his drugs or I wouldn't get the pension. One of the worst decisions in my life. It mucked up my sleep routine, which mucked up my bowel routine, which in turn mucked up my diet. I stopped taking them after a couple of months.

12 months later I still haven't been able to establish any regular routines again and my whole life is a mess. In that same 12 months writing on this forum has been my only social interaction with other humans.

I ended up paying money to see a real doctor and get an appropriate report for Human Services. This doctor also agreed with me that most doctors aren't terribly bright and very few of them understand that Depression is not Anxiety.

Hang in there bloke. Just think - life could always be worse.

Cheers,

Andrew.

Cheers for relating this. Escotalorpram is one I've been on. I was two courses in toward a business degree with exams coming up. I had sought help specifically for my attention issues, with a diagnosis from a leading psychologist from the Hunter Valley so long it has an index, and as result I went from accomplishing a great deal of study and research and doing well despite the struggle to feeling unable to get from bed to the kitchen and when finally there wondering why I'd come. I lost days at a time - not entirely unaware of it passing, but semi-comatose. I'm in a position where I think I have to put away any dreams of a successful life, or my kids will have to see me torn apart by the stinging reality that follows such hope.

 

[Outdated]

I'm in a position where I think I have to put away any dreams of a successful life....

No. Instead I would challenge your definition of "successful life".

Are your kids happy and healthy? Are you successfully employed? Are you able bodied and healthy?

Don't look to other people when forming ideas of what a successful life is, a successful life is one where you can be content and what anyone else thinks doesn't matter.

On that scale I think I've had one of the most successful lives anyone in my country has ever experienced. That doesn't mean there hasn't been a few rough patches, but in the overall scheme of things I've had a far better life than most.

 

[Todd]

So many opportunities pass me by because I hesitate and see the opportunities taken by others around me instead. I've never been able to reach out and take what I've worked hard to deserve. I have worked hard enough for 25 years to deserve some escape from working to survive, and in my head the only way is to own rather than rent. My measure of success has always been to own a home, no matter how small or even where. For the first time in my life, 42yo, I'm in a position to achieve it if I'm careful for 6-8 years. Unfortunately, my partner is the ultimate anti-saver. I'm not the easiest of people to have put up with for so long, and I love her, so I try to watch our future being frittered away with a gentle good humour.... Between us we earn around $125,000 AUD before tax (She earns slightly more 48/52%). I pay for rent, electricity, internet, & my own cigarettes, while she buys groceries & her cigarettes. I saved $7500 this year and just a few days ago I heard her say she is struggling to feed the children. Our little girl (her sister's daughter, but ours now ) needed to see a dentist about damage done to her teeth by neglect and poor diet - 430+KMs away - so I gave her $2000 to travel with (I was working) because we didn't know what to expect. She came home with the news that our girl may need surgery or may not, we'll know when we go back in a month's time. Also with no money and a whole bunch of things we don't need (including sugary kids snacks of all things!) or the space for.... Sorry for yet another side-tracked venting there. I find it very therapeutic replying to you sir If I tried communicating any of this on twitter I'd end up having a heart attack.
In the highly likely case that this is not yet clear, I believe you are quite right. Thanks again. My moments of up and down are getting closer together. I guess I'm still processing a lot of what's gone on earlier in the year - So little down time right now, and I really need some. Thanks again.