One of the hardest things about growing up as an autistic kid for me was that I couldn't read faces and tones well and constantly thought people were angry at me when they weren't. It made me grow up terrified constantly of doing anything wrong.

Also, adults telling a kid "don't do that" without any explanation or context as to why gives me a lot of anxiety. Growing up my brain filled in that doing so would make me bad. It was just a social rule I had to follow.

Problem is, just about anyone can make up these rules

I would get very scared about getting any kind of reaction at all because it was usually very overwhelming. If it seemed negative, my brain read it as me being in huge trouble and a bad person. If it seemed positive, it was overwhelming. Slightly raised voices sound like yelling

Anyway, somewhere along the way I took some instructions too literally and misread peoples emotional responses to me and learned that if I'm not happy all the time & always nice to everyone, I'm a bad person.

I tried to mask very hard for a very long time starting at about age 3. I'm tired.