https://embrace-autism.com/cat-q/
How accurate do you think this test is?
Share your results.
Scores above 100 are considered autistic, I got 127.
I've been asking close friends if they think I'm autistic since I was 15 and everyone says no.
Idk, I think I might just have ADHD
Needing an exact number scored for it is pretty autistic in itself.
True
Compensation
Compensation is basically the acquisition and application of social skills through internalizing scripts. I would say this is nothing more than learning and using social skills. However, it’s compensating in that it’s an effort to internalize social rules that aren’t intuitive to us. Since it takes a deliberate effort to respond appropriately in social settings, it can be immensely exhausting to participate. Compensation probably doesn’t go directly at the expense of the self. Yet the draining nature of this process can still impact our mental health.
Speaking for myself, back when I worked at a design studio, at the end of the day I would come home absolutely exhausted; I would rest for two hours, then do some grocery shopping, and then eat and rest some more. And it’s not that I act like a social butterfly at work. I get completely drained just being around my colleagues, trying to anticipate what they say and respond appropriately, and have the occasional social exchange during lunch. On Fridays, my bosses and colleagues would stop working early and go outside to enjoy a beer together. I would always stay in the studio and continue working. My bosses were puzzled by that. Why wouldn’t I join them and be social? I wouldn’t because it takes too much out of me to stand there and think of things to say. Besides, I don’t like beer. I got a lot more satisfaction out of getting some work done than out of socializing with my colleagues.
By compensating less, I get drained less. But as a consequence, it’s a lot harder for me to develop emotional relationships with colleagues, classmates, etc. And looking at the group dynamics, I noticed that made a difference. My colleagues and bosses liked me, but since I was less approachable to them, I would be included less in discussions, jokes, and probably even projects and job opportunities.
Masking
Masking is the active suppression of the telltale signs of anxiety and (other) autistic features in order to maintain the appearance of confidence and social prowess. If you look at the individual items of masking listed in the social camouflaging model, they don’t seem that insidious. For example, monitoring your face and body to appear interested in others is something presumably most people do. But what if your face looks naturally uninterested, so your neutral look often causes awkward situations or even ends up hurting people? What if your tendency to look away from other people’s eyes is perceived as you showing deception or a lack of confidence?
Yes, we all regulate our responses to each other. But while a lot of our social behaviors are intuitively understood by others, people aren’t trained to understand autistic social behaviors. Since our autonomic responses can deviate from what people expect, autistic people are often confronted with the choice to inhibit their intuitive responses, and express themselves in ways we’ve learned other people have come to expect. As you can imagine, this is even more draining to maintain. And it’s a lot less superficial than compensation. Compensation is trying to keep up with others socially. But masking is hiding aspects of ourselves in order to fit in, or simply to make social interactions go smoothly. If we don’t mask, we risk being excluded.
For me, masking is too much. If I focus too much on assessing the emotional states of others, anticipating them, and responding in a way they appreciate or expect, I have less brainpower to dedicate to the content of what I want to share. But as a consequence, people would find me unapproachable, and I would be left out of many things. I particularly noticed this at the art academy. When it came to projects where we had to form groups to work together, I was generally one of the few people that found no people to work with. Oh there were plenty of people I would love to have grouped with, but they already grouped with other people. Yet people did come to me for ideas, so it’s not that people didn’t want to work with me because I lacked talent. I noticed a big difference in our motivations for working with others; I wanted to work with people that had great ideas and knew how to execute them, while my classmates seemed largely driven by social factors. They wanted to work with people they clicked with.
If you mask less, as an autistic person you might find people click with you less, which can have a lot of consequences for personal relationships, your career, and more. But if you mask more, you may start feeling like you have to alter who you really are for people to like engaging with you.
Assimilation
Assimilation is all about trying to fit in. This is masking on a much deeper level, as it’s no longer about covering up some proclivities, but about presenting as someone you are not, so as to avoid being excluded. In assimilation, you have to force yourself to engage socially, or avoid it altogether. To the extent you do force yourself to engage, you basically have to put up a performance. Some autistic women reported they consciously “cloned” themselves based on a popular girl in their class whilst at school, and would imitate their conversational style, intonation, movements, dress-style, interests, and other mannerisms, in minute detail.[17]
Personally, I have little experience with this, simply because it’s way too draining and difficult for me to do and maintain. But a very distinct risk of assimilation is also that you can lose sight of who you are. As I wrote in Masking: is it good or bad?, the more you present yourself as someone else, the less time you spend being who you actually are, resulting in the gradual diminishment of the self. This will have a major impact on both your sense of self and your mental health in general. Research from 2020 by Sarah Cassidy et al. indicated that assimilation, in particular, is significantly correlated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors.[18] So when people talk about the dangers of masking, they are most likely describing assimilation in particular.
So I'm not autistic, just a tryhard.
