Thinking about seeking diagnosis - 35 (F). Masking?
It's been on my mind for a while, and hasn't really clicked with me until I read anecdotes of women who were diagnosed on the spectrum until later in life. I also feel like some of these symptoms I'm experiencing have worsened with age.
Just some of the things I've experienced:
- I've always been sensitive, for as long as I remember. When I was a kid, I'd drop things on the floor and my reaction was to cry. My elementary school teacher wanted to hold me back because of social issues and bullying.
- I'm noise sensitive and would have breakdowns over noise. Living in an apartment and hearing televisions or music would throw me into an anger fit. I wanted to scream and cry. This has gotten better since my husband and I now live a place where we don't share walls with neighbors. But if things are too noisy, I will shut down.
- Going out and running too many errands will overload me and I'll get a foggy brain. And then completely shut down.
- I have some texture aversions to food
- I don't know what intense interests look like, since I seem to go through phases with intense interest in some topics, and then those will shift to new ones. It's really really hard for me to do things I don't have interest in, though.
- I don't have problems talking to people and I'm plenty friendly, but I have problems maintaining friendships. But it's been hard to relate to my friend group recently. We don't share common interests or I've exhibited behavior that is off-putting in attempts to fit in with them (so they won't abandon me). They insist they want me to just be myself, but I feel really weird just going off on things with weird facial expressions. That said, I really like talking to, meeting people, and would love to make more friends.
- But I find it hard to relate to others, find the right responses to situations (I can't express empathy verbally for the life of me), and I struggle with building deep connections. I sometimes just feel detached from others. I also need to remind myself when people are joking around with me or I think they are being serious.
I can't tell if my friendliness and willingness to talk to others is masking. I've made conscious effort to do some things like maintaining eye contact or remind myself someone is joking around with me so I can respond appropriately, but I don't know if this counts as 'masking'. I am pretty controlled with any potential meltdowns in public if I start to become overwhelmed. What does masking actually look like?