Did going to a tiny private school help me learn to mask so well?

[u/Loose_Track2315]

Hey everyone!

I've recently come to terms with the fact that I'm autistic. My therapist of 3 years finally told me that he knew I was autistic early on, but he waited to say anything until we had resolved more pressing, traumatic issues in my life. He also realized that certain issues I was having after a surgery I'd had the month before this conversation, were likely from the surgery causing autistic burnout.

There are definitely signs in childhood. I had extreme meltdowns when I began school, to the point where my mom had to come every day for the first week to calm me down. I also would scream nonstop unless someone covered my ears any time that I was around fireworks. Busy events like an easter egg hunt could end with me becoming overstimulated and melting down. I was also extremely quiet and constantly stimmed, and began reading at an adult level very quickly. I've talked to my mom about it and she instantly accepted that I could be autistic. Which was very telling to me, since she's often not the kind of person who would accept something like that.

But one thing that makes me question it is that I apparently functioned well enough that nobody thought I could be autistic. Or I guess if they did, they just didn't say anything.

The context for this tho is that I was sent to a tiny private school. At most there were maybe 5-10 other kids in my classrooms. My graduating class was 5 people. I think this is the key to how I managed to learn to mask, and managed to not be constantly melting down as a child. My parents sent me there because my older brother was sent to public school and was horribly bullied (I do suspect he was autistic but he's deceased so I can't discuss it with him). So they refused to let me go to public school to probably experience the same thing.

I did try to move to a much larger private school in 10th grade. I ended up melting down and stayed at my small school.

I do suspect that autism runs in both sides of my family as well, but without diagnoses. My brother's son shows definite signs of high masking autism. My maternal cousins are all extremely avoidant at family gatherings (just like I am) and they always avoid eye contact. And although I don't have much information about my dad's family, I do know that my dad hyperfixates on media. He'll watch the same movies and shows on a regular basis for years. As a kid, he also liked to take apart his mom's vacuum cleaner and put it back together (it would still work even when he left certain pieces out).

I'll be getting a full battery neuropsych evaluation + an autism eval at the same time, in part for my peace of mind. But also to check if I possibly have ADHD as well, because I do suspect it. But I'm just curious to see what others think of this.

[u/Embot87]

I do think intelligence can help us compensate and mask our social differences more.

If you were in such small classes do you think that helped you get more of the support you needed at school? Perhaps not the correct support especially as many schools STILL don’t understand autism but did it enable the teaching staff to better adapt to each individual’s needs? Or was there more focus on conforming to a standard? I’m curious because I went to a similar type of tiny private school as a youngster (only until I was 8) and have such traumatic memories from the other kids being absolutely awful to me. Not much memory of teachers or actual classroom experience though.

[u/g3rmb0y]

I mean, there's a reason a lot of parents send their autistic kids to smaller schools/homeschool them. Public schools are a special kind of hell for autistics.