zlacker

That’s what I’m curious to hear from you and OP…does that make the autistic person less autistic? Or is it a mask?

I—-as a non-autistic person—-have lots of default tendencies which were socially discouraged as a child and which are now no longer part of my self concept. I’m not “repressing” a desire to be awkward, I’ve simply learned to be less awkward.

But my understanding of autism, which is I think backed by the article itself, is that autism exists as a fundamental cognitive process and tends to be pretty stable.

Btw the reason I ask is to learn…as a software dev and manager, several of the people I interact with could probably be diagnosed autistic and I’m always curious to try to understand what that’s like better.

>>iambat+(OP)
I think you can mask to appear less autistic, yes.

I think autistic people would have less eye corner wrinkles, because they don’t smile automatically when others smile. A study would be interesting.

>>iambat+(OP)
As part of my job, I have to interview and hire people.

When I first started interviewing people, I would have crippling anxiety. On days I had a interview scheduled with a candidate, I would obsess and have anxiety to the point where I wasn't able to focus on anything until the interview was over. It was bad. I'd spend hours rehearsing every line I was going to say. I was an incredibly awkward interviewer.

Fast forward 10 years and hundreds of interviews later, the anxiety is completely gone and an interview doesn't even spike my heart rate anymore.

I absolutely met multiple DSM criteria for anxiety 10 years ago, but not anymore.

I suppose I was cured through "exposure therapy" (or whatever you call doing something repeatedly that gives you massive anxiety).

Interviewing still doesn't come naturally to me. But it's easy now because every interview is basically scripted. I repeat lines that I memorized over the years. I always start interviews with the same ice breaker. I use multiple tactics to put myself and the candidate at ease throughout the call.

Do I still have anxiety even though I've learned how to cope with it? I don't know.

Is someone still autistic if they were able to learn coping tactics that make the symptoms invisible to themselves and others? I don't know.

>>cj+K7
I think the difference is that if an autistic person learns to mask, that's probably useful as a coping mechanism but doesn't remove the autism in the sense of making the fundamental neurological difference go away. Anxiety (even in anxiety disorders) can be fundamentally reduced by exposure therapy, not only in the sense of finding more effective coping mechanisms but in the sense of the anxiety itself diminishing or ceasing to exist.

For what it's worth, exposure therapy is a real term and it's an actual part of cognitive behavioural therapy.

>>cj+K7
Very good questions. Some part of the answer might come down to your identify. Do you identify as an anxious person or a person with anxiety? The question would become even more interesting if you'd be taking a drug: is a person treating their depression successfully with an antidepressant still a depressed person? Or a person with depression? Do you have high blood pressure if you don't have high blood pressure due to meds?