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I thought I sucked at life. On the outside, I was positive and upbeat, a married mom of three, a business owner. I had a mortgage, an investment property, a postgraduate degree in psychology. I had friends, prospects, blonde highlights. On the inside, I felt broken.
I faked enthusiasm for most conversations. I was either painfully uninterested in the small talk of the other school moms, or wishing I could mitigate my ever-present fatigue with a nap by midday. Every social event left me exhausted by anxious rumination. Why did I say that? What did they think of me? I’m so hopeless.
By the end of the day, every noise felt like nails on a chalkboard: my kids scraping their dinner plates, the neighbor’s electric gate buzzing, my husband swallowing his beer. The touch of my children, wanting a cuddle, made me recoil. I had to sleep alone to avoid the distressing sounds of someone else’s breathing.
My adulthood was peppered with jobs abandoned, degrees unfinished. I loved my role as a telephone counselor but felt the excruciating closeness of my colleagues’ cubicles like a cheese grater on an open wound. I adored owning my own coffee van, thriving in the autonomy and pride of working alone, but I didn’t have energy once I got home. I often spent weekends in bed, my body and mind depleted in burnout. I spent hours applying makeup and doing my hair before leaving my house, hyperconscious of how I would be perceived. Later, I would pick at my skin until it bled as I pored over the minutia of the day. Did everything go okay? Was I okay?
I already had diagnoses of ADHD and complex trauma, but I still had many questions. Why did everyone else seem to move so easily through life? Why couldn’t I be at ease around others instead of agonizing over how much eye contact I gave during conversation? Why was I so sensitive to sounds, smells, and my environment? Why did I never miss others when they weren’t around, and feel the sting of rejection so sharply, and hide behind the couch when my doorbell rang even though I desperately wanted to connect?
Autism was the answer.
[Take This Self-Test: Signs of Autism in Women]
Life as a High-Masking Autistic Woman
I already suspected the diagnosis, of course. A lot of us do. Although I don’t have hyperfixations or stereotypical obsessional interests in trains, my “for you” page on TikTok has been entirely neurodivergent for the past few years. That’s me! I would think as I scrolled through video after video of late-diagnosed, high-masking autistic women sharing their experiences. I do that! I feel that! That’s me. And then my inner critic would come in. No, it isn’t. You’re just pathetic. You’re unlikeable, lazy, worthless. You’re not okay, and you suck at life. For 40 years, I believed that voice.
So, while I suspected autism, I had my doubts, too. Sure, it costs me enormous amounts of planning, exhaustion, and recovery just to be a human in this world, but that’s normal, right?
Um, nope. That’s autism — at least how it manifests for me. When my big YES moment came and my evaluator confirmed my diagnosis, I felt an exhausted sort of calm. That question-mark box inside of me gently ticked itself in sage green, my favorite color. My experience is real. I’m not defective. I’m not faking the enormous strength it takes me to show up in this world.
Peeling back the layers of my diagnoses with my psychologist, processing my past, and medicating my dopamine-deficient brain not only uncovered my social and sensory sensitivities but helped me to understand them.
[Read: A Woman’s Guide to Pursuing an AuDHD Diagnosis]
Masking Autism, No More
My brain is beautiful, and different, and it has tried so very hard to fit in in this world. I have been very good at fitting in, and I have paid the price for it every day. Taking off the neurotypical mask is a scary process because I don’t know what lies underneath. What I do know is I am tired of putting it on every day. I don’t have enough spoons of energy, and I’m finally beginning to say so.
I don’t have to say yes to social events I don’t wish to attend. I can be open about the fact that my social battery can suddenly and inexplicably run out, and that I want — no, need — to go home and sit in the shower to regulate. I can talk about the weird things I find interesting and laugh about the weird things most people consider normal. I can mourn the decades lost in muddling through and be grateful for the financial privilege of obtaining an autism assessment. I can also be horrified that others will go through their lives without validation, understanding, and support instead of celebrating their unique brains.
So, yes, I do suck at life. I suck at expending more energy than I have in pretending to be like everyone else, just because I have the ability to hide my differences. I suck at knowing what to say and how to act around people, and I suck at pretending that certain noises and smells don’t bother me or that my feelings aren’t so very tender.
But for the first time, I can try on the idea that this is OK. That there might be a whole new way of living that supports my needs, sensitivities, and dreams. Where I can thrive as my true, messy self and be proud of who I am.
My diagnosis and these words are my first tentative steps into this new world. It’s a little bit scary, and my navigation system may look different from yours. What is guiding me now is better understanding, and a determination to believe myself when I say that I don’t suck. I am okay, and I have been okay, all along.
High-Masking Autistic Women: Next Steps
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Nathaly Pesantez
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