Interesting that he has an autistic friend, its very often the case that like goes to like. Autistic people can recognise other autistic people with ease. He's masking but that is incredibly tiring and he will burn out. Shame his openly autistic friend can't get him to accept himself as he is.
Yes. I really don’t know how that dynamic works, in truth. We don’t often see the friend.
Maybe your Son is able to be authentic without judgement with another autistic person, he just hasn't realised it yet.
That’s kind of my point - if you can be accepted for who you are rather than being predefined by some universal characteristics that, at the end of the day, don’t apply to everybody then that’s a wonderful thing.
Unmasking is very difficult and practically impossible if you haven't accepted that you're autistic.
Well put JD. Thank you.👍🏼
That’s a good way of looking at it👍🏼