Can high-masking autistics have social deficits too?

what's up you guys I oftentimes get a lot of people on my channel watching my videos who are not officially diagnosed with autism and highly suspect they are Autistic or are self-diagnosed autistic I just want to say that I think whatever Journey you're on within understanding your neurotype is valid and if you are showing any sort of ignorance on my channel in the comment section just know that you are going to be blocked I don't have space for that I'm going to draw very strong boundaries just putting it out there we're not here to question each other we're here to learn more about ourselves and each other and about autism that being said I am not the end all Beall for autistic individuals there's a lot of amazing creators out there who are giving such enriching information about autism in all different types of aspects of autism I am just one of the many you should be watching multiple creators not just me and getting your information for multiple resources and ultimately using your own discernment in forming your own opinions but that being said I wanted to talk about the subject of what social deficits can look like when you are a high masking autistic we have this very clear idea of what autism looks like and what it means and even a lot of psychologists and doctors out there will look for these tall taale signs of what a social deficit looks like when in reality for a lot of high mass ask autistics out there we can on the surface seem as if we do not have social deficits because we are able to camouflage because we are able to mask to a certain extent so the first one is having a hard time adjusting your mask outside of the set mask for that specific person or social environment so what does this mean first of all what this means is you have the ability to mask right you have the ability to memorize certain ways to carry yourself speak dress to fit into a specific social environment but you don't know how to exist outside of those specific set patterns what I like to call it is a role that you're setting for yourself and so what this may look like is on the surface you're able to get along with people and have conversations even have relationships right but as soon as something a little bit different or off happens within the dynamic you don't know how to adjust accordingly so for example a really common experience is when you are at work and you have this mask where you are very nice to everyone very respectful but also very responsible right let's say your co-workers are going out to get lunch or there is a get together where everyone in your department is meeting at a bowling app alley or at a bar you might end up going to the bar with your co-workers and still being very respectful on the surface very responsible when the environment doesn't need you to be right the environment needs you to let loose and to be casual and be yourself and you don't know how to adjust to that because you're used to masking around these co-workers in that specific mask that you created for the work environment and so you don't know how to create a new mask for the same type of co-workers but in a new environment this is just a very classic example I struggle so hard with this especially with work just not knowing how to function around co-workers in a friendly nonprofessional way but also switch back to professional it just never made sense to me and I always came across a little bit rigid a little bit awkward I think people just kind of saw me as being too serious sometimes hello editor Irene here a flip side to this is let's say you've crossed that barrier and you were able to befriend a coworker and you guys are actually really good friends and you guys get along right I think sometimes this social deficit could come in a sense where you don't know how to flip that switch off that friend switch off in moments at work where you're supposed to be responsible so maybe sometimes you could find yourself getting in trouble with managers or getting in trouble in general because you are used to being friends with with your co-workers and having fun and you start to slack off because usually with friends you're not serious all the time and then your manager might come to you and be like why aren't you you know being responsible at work and doing things a certain way and you don't really know how to switch in and out of those roles because to you everything starts to melt together when you have friends that you get along with and are super Goofy with outside of work and then at work you're still Goofy and having fun with them when in real Al at work you should just be like serious and not goofy it's like you have a hard time balancing the two yeah just wanted to add that in there like it goes both ways another social deficit for high maskers is being able to memorize social patterns but being genuinely confused when you come across a pattern that you have not yet memorized so what does this mean I feel like for a lot of autistic people when we reach a certain age we have come across enough social situations that we've analyzed and memorized where we can get to a point where we could be somewhat socially fluent it's almost like this pattern recognition of if we see A B C or D we know that EFG is bound to happen you know so for example if I come across another girl or woman and she might roll her eyes at me she might give me this side eye she could talk to everyone else but go out of her way to not really talk to me or say hi to me I could probably put those signs together and understand okay she just doesn't really like me for some reason I may not know why I may not understand what I did or what about me that she doesn't like but I just could understand that these are patterns that indicate that this person is just not fond of me an example of being able to memorize those patterns but being confused when you come across a pattern that may not make sense is if we took the same situation where the woman is giving me all these signs that she doesn't like me and then for whatever reason let's say our mutual friends get us to start talking and all of a sudden as we get to know each other she starts to open up to me and maybe near the end of us getting to know each other she expresses interest that she wants to hang out and be friends that could be an example of me coming across a situation where I think I might be able to read something correctly but then something really different happens and now I have to kind of adjust the best that I can and really take note in the moment and be like okay this is something I never experienced I need to memorize this I need to process this probably for hours after this conversation's over to memorize what's happening okay editor Irene back again I think another way that this can come across is how often do you find yourself analyzing a social situation or interaction with a friend or with a significant other after the fact and how often do you hear the other person saying like it it's not that important it doesn't matter why do you keep talking about this why are you so hung up on it so to Simply put it being stuck on a social interaction that is new to you and having to process it over and over again versus non-autistic people just go through the motions of the interaction move on from it and they don't really get stuck in it like we do and we just like ruminate and ruminate you could see the signs you could see the patterns you could even know that all of it can lead up to six different conclusions but you're just still not sure which conclusion it leads to if that makes sense and that's the social deficit of not knowing naturally what these patterns intrinsically mean and sometimes what would help is if the person were to just tell you straight up this is what my intentions are this is what I'm thinking so that you don't have to guess the conclusion and do all that mental work so another sign that you may be a high masker is that you feel naturally drawn on your personal time to prioritize regulation over socialization so how that translates into my life now as a 27-year-old woman is I can be in all different types of spaces whether that's outrunning errands whether that's meeting my partners friends or our neighbors talking to family meeting new people and I'm actually very sociable in those moments my partner often says that we're Social Butterflies in different way ways he's really good at surface level conversations and I'm really good at just making connections with literally anyone I could find that little nugget in every single person and really dive in deep in that sense and so I could genuinely build connections with anyone I come across if I want to usually I don't but sometimes I do open myself up and I want to do it but when it comes down to my own personal time I need me time I most likely never will go out of my way to plan my personal time around socializing with other people because for me socializing although does meet a need within me to connect to other people it's just very over stimulating in so many different ways one masking could be overstimulating two the actual environment that you're in with other people could be over stimulating the unpredictabilities are over stimulating needing to constantly be analyzing the interactions to identify the social patterns to figure out how to understand them and to interact with them is very overstimulating and exhausting so usually on my own time what my time consists of is honestly just a crap ton of activities that helps regulate myself and this part is hard for people to understand because on the surface if you are a high masker people could think oh why don't you choose to hang out with people you're someone that people would love to be around you're very socialable why wouldn't you want to choose to have a more flourishing social life and they don't understand that it's just very separate you know like being able to socialize and being able to connect could feel good but that is not the same as being comfortable and having your energy drained like you could feel good but have your energy drained and some people just can't afford to constantly have their energy drained all the time especially when you're autistic stick you need that time to recharge your battery and often times to recharge your battery you can't have people around you have to have that alone time so another attribute of what a social deficit can look like when you're a high masker is you're only able to unmask fully around your partners your romantic Partners this one is definitely very very specific and not everyone is going to relate to this but I do find that a lot of high masking autis SS do relate to this I'm going to try to explain why I feel like this happen so kind of going back to the first attribute that I was explaining you know having these set roles and set masks and not knowing how to adjust outside of those masks I feel like what that ultimately revolves around is a sense of responsibility so let's say at work you have a sense of responsibility within family Dynamics you might have a sense of responsibility responsibility to your parent or responsibil resp ility to your kids responsibility to your niece and nephews even within social dynamics you feel a sense of responsibility right I do at least to make sure that I am attentive to my friends and I don't offend them and I don't hurt them that is somewhat a sense of responsibility to me because I know sometimes I could say things that people take the wrong way if I'm not very careful about how I say it or what I say but when it comes to romantic Partnerships there's just a sense of intimacy there that you don't get with other group dynamics not only that but there is a sense of Reliance on each other and what that means is yes you have responsibilities within the partnership but the partner also shares that responsibility and this is ideally right because not every partnership is going to be equal but if you are in a partnership where you could feel as if you could rely on your partner I think that is where the comfort ability to unmask comes from you're very intimate with this person in every single type of way most of the time like you probably have seen each other naked you've slept with each other you wake up and you see each other's eye boogers and smell each other's morning breath um you've seen each other at your lowest lows probably during meltdowns during extreme triggers you know if you are sharing all of these very intimate moment with another person you're less likely to feel the need to mask around them which kind of leads to another weird phenomenon and this is kind of like a subcategory to this one where when you guys are both in an environment where your mask has to come on again and they get to see you with your mask on versus off and sometimes you know that's just like that could be something funny for you guys to talk about if you guys are super comfortable with each other or sometimes if you're not comfortable with your partner fully you could feel a little bit weird about it because they are seeing you basically switch in and out of these masks in different social situations and if you're someone who has triggers around being perceived you could feel a little bit uncomfortable with that cuz it's very exposing very vulnerable those kind of go hand inand sometimes all right so another thing that I think us High maskers can struggle with is understanding the nuances behind play fighting this one is so difficult you guys to understand and what does play fighting mean it means when people kind of throw these Jabs at each other and you know it kind of hurts but it's almost more endearing for the relationship and connection and build it to be stronger rather than actually hurting each other for me I definitely struggle with that because it's so confusing to understand how do I support this person and show them I love them and accept them but then I say things that are kind of mean and obviously hurts them and make it so that it's funny or for endearing and strengthening of the relationship I often times find that I feel really uncomfortable with this dynamic because I feel like in the past when I've tried to do that sort of play fight with people I end up just saying something and then it just ends up hurting their feelings and it's not funny and then they don't want to talk to me anymore but then in my mind I'm like but you're you're jabbing at me and it hurts so like how do I how do I do this thing like what's going on for example when I was in I think high school I had a friend that would play fight a lot and I want to also say I don't really like to play fight and I think it's because of this social deficit my feelings just get hurt cuz I take what they say very literally and then so to me the relationship just becomes like borderline abusive because they're constantly just saying mean things to me and I'm just like oh that really hurt my feelings and I don't know how to throw it back at you so it's just you jabbing at me and I'm I'm just taking it so it's not fair but in high school I had this friend who would just say things like Irene you're so stupid or she would say things like why would you think that are you dumb you know just things like that and then I feel like normally if someone could jab back at her they would say something similar back at her and they would just go back and forth and they know not to take it too personally but for me I was just like oh I'm stupid why would I think that you know and then so I just ended up not being able to remain friends with her because I didn't know how to jab back me jabbing back would be like your dad left you you know um your mom could barely afford keeping you and your brother afloat and you're still complaining that she doesn't do enough for you so that would be my idea of jabbing back at her like hitting her where it hurts and so I never understand play fighting and I think a part of this as well is I noticed that even to this day when I see other people play fighting I have a hard time understanding whether it's serious or whether it's play fighting so when I hear men yelling at each other for example I get really confused and scared because I'm like oh are they going to fight but then it takes a while to realize okay they're smiling though so I guess they're joking they're not actually fighting I think that's just like a very specific social deficit that a high masker can have that isn't really talked about these very new Nuance Dynamics is still very much so confusing to us and we could try our hardest to memorize the patterns like I said but I think specifically with play fighting it's a pattern that is essentially impossible to memorize because it's so conflicting what the patterns are you know like you hurt who you love and you love by hurting I just don't understand how to play into that um and I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong I think people who master the art of play fighting it's like a beautiful way of bonding I just don't know how to participate in that in that Dynamic my partner loves to play fight and he's learning that he can't do that with me and I can't function with that because one I'll have my feelings actually hurt when he says something mean to me I'm so sensitive to a point where he'll be like Hurry Up Slowpoke and I'm just like I'm not slow why are you being mean to me like I didn't do anything to you and he's just like I'm not being serious I'm just playing with you and I'm like doesn't feel like you're playing it I feel hurt my partner will often joke to me that I don't know how to play fight because sometimes I'll say something to him and it'll actually hurt his feelings and he doesn't think it's funny and I'm just like but isn't that what play fighting is is just saying mean things to each other and laughing and then to me I'm like confused when he doesn't laugh cuz I'm just like you do the same thing to me and he's like it's not the same thing like you you literally just say something really hurtful about his past trauma or like a flaw in his personality and something he's trying to grow out of and he's just like you don't really joke about those things but that's a whole other topic is autistic humor that is such an abstract type of concept and I've spent years trying to conceptualize it into words I still have a really hard time trying to explain it but I do want to eventually make a video talking about autistic humor cuz I will say the neuropsychologist who did my assessment and diagnosed me he did ask me about my humor and I feel like if he asked about it it must be pretty significant to you know his analyzations of a person whether or not they're autistic but yeah moving on to the next trait I think another thing we may struggle with is the sharing of information we either overshare information or UNH but either way we don't know the right amount of information that we need to share to a person in a specific situation I feel like for me I do struggle with unders sharing information which isn't talked about because we often hear that autistic people don't know when to shut up about something they just keep talking and talking and talking and they don't know when to stop or they don't know how to tell that the other person's just not interested or when information's not necessary you know we hear all the time about that and I do definitely think that's something that many of us struggle with but we also don't talk about what happens when people adjust to that sort of negative feedback to that certain attribute so for people like me or who are high maskers and we hear over and over again you're selfish you're narcissistic you keep talking about yourself why can't you share the space for other people to talk you just keep talking over people you hear that again and again and you end up adjusting to it so much so that you almost begin to unders share and not know when to share what that's looked like for me is in classroom settings when their situ situations where you're supposed to volunteer and share something let's say we're all supposed to go up and show a presentation one by one and the teacher asking people to volunteer you never raise your hand you literally just wait to be called on and I was always the last person to end up sharing anything or to be called on because I just didn't know how or when to share when I go to the doctors I have no idea what information is pertinent to this specific doctor I don't know what to share I know how much to share it's bitten me in the butt so many times in the past before I got my endometriosis diagnosis where I would go to these doctor appointments with excruciating pain and symptoms I've been experiencing but I would be waiting for them to ask me questions and they would ask me maybe one or two very general questions I would answer it waiting to hear more questions to know what to say when they wouldn't ask me questions I would just not share any information and then the appointment would be over and I'm just like what the heck what was I supposed to do like how do I know what to tell them and what not to tell them or when to tell them or if they need to know and it was just so confusing because I've heard so many times from doctors even you know I don't need to know that that doesn't really matter to this appointment that's not a part of this issue with this part of your body and I'm just like okay well I don't know what to freaking tell you I need some help like tell me what you need to know um and I think that's something that a lot of us will intrinsically ask ourselves is what do you need to know I just need to know what you need to know so I know what to tell you because I don't know how to know that you know what I'm saying like it's just so confusing like what do what do I need to tell you I don't know all right so I actually had a lot more attributes on this list but I don't want to make this video too long but I'm curious to know if any of you relate to any of these attributes if this video was helpful or insightful to you at all please let me know in the comment section down below to make a part two and if you guys haven't subscribed yet please subscribe to my channel and stay up to date I upload a new video every single week other than that you guys make sure you take care of yourselves and make space to decompress and regulate with that being said I will see you guys on next week's video bye for

Channel: The Thought Spot

Views: 77,273

Keywords: asd, autism, autistic, actuallyautistic, autismawareness, autismacceptance, onthespectrum, neurodiversity, neurodiverse, nd, adhd, pdaautism, demandavoidance, executivedysfunction

Id: fCfwPfxWZm8

Length: 23min 34sec (1414 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 29 2023