In my experience, being a masked Autistic is eerily similar to being in the closet about being gay or trans. It’s a painful state of self-loathing and denial that warps your inner experience. Though it often feels like being “crazy,” it’s not actually an internal neurosis. It’s caused by society’s repeated, often violent insistence you are not who you say you are, and that any evidence to the contrary is shameful. Before I knew I was Autistic, I imposed a lot of rules on myself, to help me “pass” as neurotypical. One of them was that I could never buy a piece of furniture I couldn’t move by
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