The Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q)

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Total score: 90
Compensation: 37
Masking: 31
Assimilation: 24

I think my math is a bit off, there. In any case, I feel like I cannot be myself around others but don’t even bother trying to act “normal,” because I know I couldn’t do it convincingly probably for any length of time at all even if my life depended on it. So I hide the least socially acceptable parts of me, but I don’t really have anything to put up in place of them. Works well for me anyway, usually conversations I’m present for do flow naturally... for everyone else, naturally just not including me. I equate myself to a fake potted plant in the way people act around me - they see me enough not to run into me or anything, maybe give me a quick glance at first, and then I may as well not be there. So I get out of a lot of situations where I’d have to “mask” anyway, as long as I keep my mouth shut.

I completed the questionnaire but I couldn't find out my score because I couldn't see a submit button anywhere to add up my score, and adding them up myself using the instructions given is way too hard for me to do.

I got higher scores on everything, but I also get intense social anxiety and I don't know if that messes with my scores? I'm hyper aware of everything I do in social situations and overthink things constantly. I also have been trying to figure out how to imitate other people since I was a child.

My total was 137, compensation was 47, masking was 47, and assimilation was 43.

My score:
Total score: 99
Compensation: 37
Masking: 26
Assimilation: 36

_________________
I am as I am. Life has to be an adventure!

Thank goodness for calculators. Not guaranteeing complete accuracy though, numbers and I don't get along.

Total = 99

Compensation = 34

Masking = 39

Assimilation: 26

The questions are way too vague, I need context. Who is this person or other people in relation to me? I'm obviously going to feel more free to be myself when I'm around a close friend, but if it's a professional setting or I don't know this friend as well then that's going to change things drastically.

Likewise, if I'm uncomfortable with interacting with someone but the situation calls for it then I'll push myself to socialise, but I don't have to push myself to socialise with others if I genuinely like them (unless I'm exhausted / not in a talkative mood). Especially if there's only a few people, or it's one-on-one.

However, I don't think I put on an act most of the time. I've been told that I lack a filter, yet I do become rather self-conscious in certain social situations. There are a few things I change depending on who I'm talking to because I know people are receptive to different behaviour, but most of the time what you see is what you get.

Mine were a bit higher than I'd like from a wellbeing perspective, work is where I have most of my social interactions so the figures could be a bit skewed by that.

Total = 165
Compensation = 58
Masking = 49
Assimilation = 53

I lost 6 points somewhere but I am too lazy ATM to rescore. Since I know I am autistic I am treating it as a fun exercise and using the scores a vague guideline

Compensation 35
Masking 40
Assimilation 30

Total 89

I probably would have scored significantly higher when I was undiagnosed and professionally employed.

The results so far make me think mine are an outlier . Mine -Compensation 15 masking 24 Assimilation 33 .
Average for others- compensation 41.33 masking 38.7 assimilation 35.3

Total: 59
Compensation: 15
Masking: 19
Assimilation: 23

The outlier itself feels right: I don't mask out of choice nor obligated to.
I have no real social drive to be.


I can simply pass though out of sheer physical ability, as I've always known.
No mindfulness of manual body monitoring on my part, I can't afford to do that constantly which shows my 'severity' or severe lack of 'practice'.

My proprioception is too strong enough for a compensation to know what my body is doing.
So I never 'have to' check my body language for every second.

Therefore, whatever form of body language compensation I got is mostly sensory and kinesthetic than mental.
Because I've never, ever rehearsed expressions and movements for socializing for all my life.
And my 'scripts' are basically more like some complex echolalia-like stim, if not an attempt to compensate for poor verbal recall than an actual script for socializing.

This is how I cannot relate to most high functioning autistics.
Especially the anxious and socially driven ones.

And definitely why I can't relate to any allistics even more because they don't definitely work this way.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
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Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

Total - 99
Compensation - 32
Masking - 39
Assimilation - 28
Answers v

Sorry to say I lost patience with the test. As the page wouldn't work without allowing a script or two to run, I was expecting they'd have programmed it to automatically calculate the scores, which would have saved people a fair bit of time and trouble. And I wasn't happy with the answers I gave to the questions - as is often the case with me and questionnaires, truthful answers were too nuanced and complicated to correspond accurately to any of the available answers. Perhaps the biggest problem was that the questions assumed my feelings and behaviour to be the same no matter who I'm with, but with me a great deal depends on who the people are. Some folks I can be myself with, but with others I need a lot more masking. There's also the problem of the fluid nature of my behaviour and feelings over time - again it's not particularly fixed or predictable. I don't have huge mood swings exactly, but I tend to be very flexible in my approach, so that for example I might get very interested in psychology for a while, then I might drop that completely, and later return to it, always "trying on different hats" and experimenting.

I only added my total score which came out as 140. (I did calculate it correctly). But somehow my score seems no where near the average? I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing as I would not have said I was expecting the score to add up to that amount? Does it say the average is 100 and 124 for someone on the spectrum? Then how come mine is so high? I need to think to work it out as while I realize that certain things I used to do as a young child I don't do anymore or so often. For example, for the first few years of my schooling I would not play with the other kids. I just went to the same place every playtime and stood there and watched. I would watch how the others were playing. How they were able to play. My first friend that I did play with was found to be severely autistic and at the age of six he was sent to a special school and I had no friends, but by the time I was seven, I did start to play of sorts, because I had moved up to the junior section of the school where there were children up to 11 years old, and most of the boys (And some girls) played piggy back fighting, where the aim was to get the opponent to fall off the back of the other person... And I was light weight and small for my age and I could cling on to some of the older kids backs... So they liked me as I gave them an advantage in the game! It was fun. Somehow I got on better if there was an age gap.
But anyway... I am not quite sure how my score added up to 140. Should I be concerned?

The questions don't make much sense when applied to my situation. I try to use many masking techniques described by Aspies, but masking only works if you have certain social skills already at your disposal - mimicry, for example, and the ability to apply specific behaviors across different contexts. Plus the ability to read other people (I'm so bad with nonverbal cues ). I guess that's why I've never been able to use masking for social success; I don't have the foundational skills needed for it. I do use it for communication, though. Talking is hard unless it's scripted - or written.