"How People With Autism Fake It"

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I don’t understand what “faking it” means.

The author describes the “soul-destroying” act of: “Keeping up the performance is exhausting”. The only time I think that way, is when I have to put on a “costume” when I go to work or attend some event with my parents. Other than that, I always try to be true to myself.

I just wanted to add something...I went back and re-read and edited my post but it's still not coming off quite right...what I wanted to say is that I don't feel young autistic people today have it easy or that it's a walk in the park or anything. I hope it didn't come off that way. What I meant was that unless you were "severe" enough to not attend school at all/attend a school specifically for people with special needs/be institutionalized (pick one), you were expected to fit in or else. But that doesn't mean I think young people today have understanding the majority of the time. I realize there are still significant hurdles and for some people, a lot of pain, especially in school or work situations. Just being clear.

NowhereWoman, I totally get where you're coming from. What you post sounds very much like my life. We seem to both be from those older generations who grew up in the time when not only was there no internet to show us that there are people out there like us, but also it was a time when higher functioning autism wasn't even believed to be a "thing" by even professionals (professionals who had never heard of Hans Asperger's research at least).

Ours were the generations who raised us to feel "forced" into "being normal" even though were weren't. I think it's especially true for girls on the spectrum, living through any of the decades prior to the 90s.

In society in general, girls used to be raised to be, and expected to be, more socially adept than boys and men. These days that isn't especially true, but when I was growing up there was still an expectation that if anyone was to be the person in the room who leaps forward to make guests happy, offers the cakes, smooths over an argument, it was subtly expected to be the women, while the boys and men were perfectly acceptable sitting there quietly in the corner observing.

If a boy or man were on the spectrum, any signs of being quiet, or taciturn, or not socially outgoing, were just dismissed as being mannishly the "strong, silent type." If a GIRL was silent or not socially outgoing, she often found herself cajoled into being more sociable or friendly or warm, was bullied for being shy and withdrawn, along with all manner of subtle and not so subtle signs of disapproval of her.

Basically many females on the spectrum -- in the era before much, much more awareness of the autism spectrum, and also in the era before girls and women started saying "Bull sh!t!" to social expectations on them to act a certain way anyway -- many females on the end of the spectrum where there's a possibility of learning how to "pass" or "act NT", basically felt like they had no choice but to do so, in order to have any kind of life or feel accepted by anyone.

Fortunately I don't think younger women today -- NT or not NT -- have most of those old pressures placed on them anymore. I don't think even NT girls today are universally made to feel like they have to act a certain way to be socially acceptable. We live in freer times now, and there is no longer this rigid idea, even in the NT world, that boys and men are supposed to be stoic and silent if they want to be, while girls and women have to smile and flutter and mollify and nurture and be chatty.

But when I was growing up I knew I was SO "not normal" yet I also realized that the way I "really am" was messing up my ability to have a life, because nobody accepted me as I was.

I'm not happy that I've had to "fake NT" all my life and that I still today find myself doing this. But at this point I don't think I even KNOW how stop doing it or how to face the fear of what would happen if I stopped.

My work means I have to go out there and seem like a genial person who can be trusted. If I went out there and acted how I REALLY want to be -- withdrawn, avoiding interaction, asking to be left alone even if I asked politely -- that would go across like a fart in an elevator. I would LOSE WORK.

It freaking sucks but I HAVE TO fit in, and unfortunately faking NT is the only way I can.

I envy people who have found a job where they can just be themselves and everyone's cool with it. I've never been able to do that.

I was late-diagnosed and there is an enormous amount of fear that goes along with trying to face up to the idea that maybe it's okay to suddenly change everything I've been doing or having to believe all my life. I've known all my life I was not NT, even before I learned there was even a name for "neurotypicals." But I have NOT had all my life to get comfortable with the fact that there really is a reason why I'm different and that I shouldn't have to be "like them."

I shouldn't have to be like them, but I have not been fortunate enough to find myself surrounded in life by people ready to be okay with how I am.

As a male growing up in the era prior to the understanding of the autism and radical change in acceptance of gender and gender roles if you were stoic that was looked upon well, But quiet and non aggressive was looked upon as weakness. Not having a sexual relations with girls was looked up as bieng a fa***t or queer (they were common anti gay slurs in the USA then) With the word queer note the association of odd and different with homosexuality. If you were thought of a as a fa***t and you were bullied. The attitude towered male bullying was it is a right of passage, just boys bieng boys. If you did not fight back it was your fault and thus the bullies judgement of you was correct.

So in order to not be teased and beaten up (and later on to be employed) you were forced to try and fit in with varying levels of success and failure.

I understand that completely, BirdInFlight. You very well describe the social dynamics of that time. Clever women were told to dumb themselves down lest they end up - horror of horrors - 'old maids', and miss out on snaring themselves financial support via a husband. The social pressure was enormous and the chauvinistic stereotyping extreme, as was the sneering non-acceptance and exclusion of any woman who chose to go her own way.

What you can see so clearly totally bypasses the vision of some male academics such as Baron-Cohen - he can't see this forest for the trees.. and it has biased all his academic theorising and the conclusions he has developed from that theory bias.

I am sad to hear other stories of people 40+ or thereabouts who had similar experiences to mine, but also kind of relieved (I hate to say that) that it wasn't just me, that I'm not alone in this. And I'm grateful for more knowledge and education now on behalf of the younger generations. I don't even know what I'd have been advised as regards my classic autistic son if I'd been an adult in the 50s, 60s or 70s and he'd been born then. I'd probably have been told to put him into an institution. (Unlike me, he is totally unable to even attempt to "act NT," which perhaps is a good thing, at least today when there are supports for him in school, and when he has me to be in his corner.) That thought is unbearable to me and I doubt I'd have done it. I'd just have kept him within the confines of the home and we'd have been recluses, most likely. From what I understand, that's how most "severely" (if you want to call it that, I hate that term but it's frequently used) autistic (or judged to be autistic in retrospect) people lived out their lives: either put into a state home, or "hidden" away as some sort of family secret.

I wonder if we'll ever get to the point where neurodiversity really is accepted as a normal thing. I hope so. I wish that for future generations. I wish for autistic people to come, that they never feel they have to fake it; that instead, they realize that who and how they are is as perfectly "okay" as the fact that they have blue eyes, are tall or short and so on.

I am coming up on half a century old and am only now even considering "just being myself" around people. It partially requires that I give up my dream of being a "normal" person who is given love freely. That is probably the biggest hurdle at this point, and it's slow going due to so many years having lived my life acting rather than being. I test the waters, little by little...it's happening in increments...and it's very freeing.

I more or less passed this phase for sometime now. But I'm not yet satisfied, I'm still yet find more about my true self and perhaps take it to the next level.

Who knows when I need to act NT again...? Who knows when I'll run out of cultural loopholes to get away with social mores without faking neurotypicality AND not letting anyone knew of being autistic...?

I wonder, if I was just lucky enough to sort-of passed phase this at age of 20? I won't be surprised if I have to go through with it again.

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And if you were very obvious in not fitting in you were locked up in a cruel sensory hell institution. Your family was told by doctors that you would never recover and that family members were told they should remove from thier residence all pictures, any mementos, any reminder of you at all. That is not only my memory, Steve Silberman in his Neurotribes book go discusses this a lot. If the family could not afford an institution the person was thrown out into the street and told to "sink or swim" or locked up in the attic. Every neighborhood had a "haunted house" where somebody who was autistic or could not fit in in any way was locked up and His or her window was often a target of rocks from the neighborhood teenagers. If you watch the pleathera of 70's and 80's horror movies that the plots often revolved around these situations.


So the the pressure was on to fit in at best, or not fall apart completely and end up locked up or thrown out in the street.

Rants:
So if I get at little touchy about posts urging us to fit in at all costs the above post and posts that is why.

I see all the autism "epidemic" proponents asking where all the 50 something autistics are, the answers are above unknown, unsupported, and flailing or locked up , in the street or just dead and gone. That is where we are you basterds.

End Rant:
I second the sentiment above that the above is not a way to say these ungrateful youth have it easy. You were on your own, and I find that in many ways better then 40 hours a week of ABA, and just every moment planned for you by your helicopter parents. Little knowledge meant no media linking you to spree killers. I survived growing up the 60's and '70's. I can honestly say I doubt I would survive growing with today despite all the positive, diversity language that covers up the real constant micromanaged pressure.

I agree life's too short.

I'm fine with being alone relationship-wise, or even in not finding friends that are the right fit. For me though, it's the work situation.

Even if being more myself outside of work means I'm fine with having nobody accept me (which I am fine with) it's work where I will still always have to fake, because I have to make a living.

In Cameron's cut-frenzy he's created now, I wouldn't even qualify for assistance that would enable me not to have to work, or to work less hours on partial disability help of some kind, or to take early retirement (I'm close to that age), so work I must, and sadly it's that setting that will always mean, for me, having to fit in or no dice.

I could never fake being NT. I would upset some inner, primal part of myself if I did, so I just act like the goofy, intelligent, quiet person that is me.

Follow-up (sort of - the author mentioned the article I originally posted):

https://soniaboue.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/autism-snap/