@pathfinder @actuallyautistic Diagnosed at 51, I am also finding the experience of sensory unmasking difficult. It's as though some unconscious part of my mind has suddenly decided to stop filtering sensory information.

Prior to diagnosis, there were situations of "too much" yet they only made me irritable. Now, I experience similar as physically uncomfortable, emotionally disregulating, and debilitating.

It is as though my own nervous system has been lying to me for most of my life.

@elight @pathfinder @actuallyautistic I'm not officially diagnosed, but on realizing I'm #ActuallyAutistic in my adult years, it's like now all the truths of what I really face are more prominent, I can actually recognize sensory overload but can't always find my way to fixing it, etc. The masks we put up tend, I think, to mask the truth even from ourselves, then when the truth comes clear, it's another overwhelm all in itself sometimes, because we don't have the buffer we once had.

@punishmenthurts @elight @pathfinder @actuallyautistic I was kinda pressured into being like them. Because I was a blind kid, heaven forbid I should be anything different.

@Tarrenvane 😯😳Fitting in, while sighted, is hard enough. Did you have support at home? @punishmenthurts @elight @pathfinder @actuallyautistic

@Tooden @punishmenthurts @elight @pathfinder @actuallyautistic Only for my needs as a blind person. No one ever thought that maybe the things they were calling "blindisms" and constantly saying "You don't want people to think you're autistic?" about might *actually* be *gasp* autism. I was supposed to just be normal.