I don't even know where to begin. Please be kind. (I'm sure you will.)

I'm a woman in my mid-50s. I've been a nerd, and in tech, all my life. Occasionally, when people have asked me about some of my behaviours (usually lovingly and compassionately; I ain't mad), I've said things like "yeah, I think I have some traits you might associate with autism, but I don't think I'm autistic." Over the last couple of years, I have been coming to the conclusion that they might be right and I might be wrong. I've just been reluctant to claim (or even investigate) my place on the spectrum. I don't do X, Y, and Z. Don't autistic people do X, Y, and Z? I can insert myself into any social situation, and I'm fine as long as I keep my mouth shut and play along even if I don't understand why, so I must be fine socially. It's not stimming, I'm just fidgety. I realize it's not COMMON to spend six hours a day on the weekend evaluating methods in population genetics papers when you're not a population geneticist, but have you SEEN how interesting population genetics is??? Here, sit down, let me tell you about the difference between rCRS and RSRS for the next 90 minutes. I can provide a formatted list of references from Paperpile.

I've even avoided reading much about autism. I've been afraid to find out too much more. I didn't want to label myself. I don't want it to be a "stolen valour" situation. I don't want to be a stereotype. Blah blah. A lot of what I want or don't want. Not enough "what is".

Except now I have a daughter who is a kindergartener. Before we had her, I never really spent much time around kids. If you'd asked me what kids were like, I would have had no idea. But I do now, because so many of my friends are parents, and we hang around other families. (It just kinda happens when you have a kid, I guess.) And now I've seen several kids who have been diagnosed on the spectrum. I feel such compassion for them, because I can SEE the world treating them like the world treated me. And I can see them reacting how I reacted, doing the things I did to get along in a world that just sometimes makes no fucking sense. And all of this has come together to the point where I started exploring self-diagnosis. And the results of that have been, uh... enlightening? Unsurprising? Validating? All of those things.

This whole year I've been thinking, "I'm 53. Even if I am autistic, what difference is it going to make in my life?" Until a couple of days ago, when a (male) friend who has recently been diagnosed as AuDHD mentioned "masking", which I had never heard before. Because, remember, I wouldn't let myself research autism, beyond answering online quizzes. Because I can't be autistic, right? For all of the reasons I listed in the first paragraph, right?

Masking explains SO MUCH of why "I can't be autistic, because X, Y, Z." I've been realizing that, for many decades, I've masked so much that I can't even imagine what life would be like without doing it. I don't know who I am when I don't do it, because I don't know how not to do it. But now I realize that there might be another, more authentic me behind all of that. I'd like to meet her. I'd like for my daughter to meet her. I'd like for my wife to meet her.

Then I read last night that there are places you can unmask. And that people in the community create those spaces for each other. And I've been crying basically non-stop since then. I don't have a community that can do that for me. I don't know where to find that community. And I can't even imagine what it would feel like to start to unpack this lifetime of shit and find myself.

Where do you start? Are there any other Gen X'ers out there who figured this out later in life, and can make some suggestions for how to find a community where I could explore existing unmasked, for even a little bit, in meatspace?