[ants_everywhere]

> If you're autistic, don't mask

I strongly agree. Masking is a maladaptive strategy and it's described that way in the literature.

But you do have to figure out who you are and what matters to you. A lot of autistic people spend much of their youth trying to be other people and only really figuring out what they like when they're in their 30s, 40s, or older.

[dpark]

You could drop the word “autistic” from that last paragraph and it would still be accurate.

This is just the human experience.