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Lol my sister(whos autistic) described me as someone who has all the benefits of being autistic without the drawback. Also because i grew up with her i dont really care if someone had it. In school i was both friends with the cool kids and the kids who were always alone. I think we should educate people more about how not to be a dick btw.
I used to think I got all the benefits without any of the drawbacks but eventually I found out I just got really good at masking all the drawbacks, even though it still tires me out.
(not saying it's your case too)
What is your experience with masking?
Not the same person, but my experience has been that it's not some unique thing to autistic people, it's basically just the same thing anyone would do in a different culture.
Just stuff like "urgh this is so boring and uncomfortable, but i can't just walk out.." or "i should make sure to smile now so they know i'm happy".
In the moment it doesn't feel like a huge deal most of the time, but when you do it constantly you end up spending so much mental energy on it that you get exhausted, at which point i need to immerse myself in stuff like sitting at the computer or going for a hike, where there's no need to mask and i can get the mental stimulation that i need.
Same story here. My brother struggles greatly with autism. Meanwhile I am a very very logical thinker but I've been blessed with enough of a capacity for intuition for it not to take over my personality.
Any example come to mind of some urge you have to fight, maybe when you see or are told something illogical?
Hmm it's more Special Interests that I have to fight, as I can find it simulating to spend hours and hours on them but it would get me nowhere in my life/career/financially. They're things where only I can see the beauty in them
I personally just mastered the act of reaching the "autistic zen", where I not really feel the drawbacks.
Autism life hack: depending on how you learn math, you too can get the "being good at math" autism. Math is a way more interesting subject, except we're learning the subject out of the context where it would be applicable rather than in a more natural form (you can tell a good math book by looking at it having actual use examples, not just the raw functions).
Happened with art too for me, I'm still not a master at it, but once I no longer were taught art fundamentals out of context all while being forced to paint, I got to a relatively good level in a much shorter time I actually learned art in school.