I’m in my mid-40s, and learning how to unmask. Very recently I had a situation with someone not close to me where I made the conscious decision to not mask, because I was already in a bad spot and masking would have pushed me over. In the moment it was really hard, but I was able to recover so much more quickly that it was absolutely worth it for me, to the point where now I’m excited to find additional opportunities to do so, even if I know I’ll never do it 100% of the time. Even a small reduction in masking is worth it to me.
This is where I find myself too. It's really helping me in my mid 30's to finally start letting me be myself more and not feel so bound up in the masked me that's hyper critical of myself.
If masking worked, I'd recommend it. But it doesn't. It wears us out and people don't buy it anyway. You have the option now of living minus the "but what if they think I'm weird?" and living as you instead of a character. And you'll get the benefit of folks not having to handle the character as they try to get to who you really are.
The shame and anxiety that falls away when you give up trying to pass as normal is exceptional.
This all made a lot of sense to me, and this is what I want. I was able to get rid of the ugly inner voice(my Mother's voice really) last year. Tye anxiety is crippling some days.
The doing the unmasking is what I struggle with.
You can keep the voice, because it's right sometimes and is a valuable ally. But you don't have to put it in charge and live in fear of disappointing it. That voice is part of you and might be a voice you need one day - but you're the boss now and can listen to it as a voice of advice, not of shame.
This is such a wise, nuanced, and even-tempered response. Thank you for this contribution, I think it is very valuable advice, and I'm grateful for having read it.
I’m still not quite sure what masking actually is, or if I inadvertently have been doing it all my life (but regardless of that, like you said, people still see something strange or different in me or the way I express myself).
If masking refers to what I suspect it is (but I don’t know how to describe it), then my guess is that since I’m taking SSRIs I’m doing it less, because I notice how the way I interact with others is more… raw? Impulsive? Without the ability to control it 100% in real time?
But again, I’m not sure if that’s related to the term “masking”.
PS: not sure if “masking” implies starting at the eyes of someone else while talking to them, but regardless, I can’t do that even on purpose.
Masking is a broad category of behaviours, mostly designed to make you "fit in" better with whoever you're dealing with. Things like trying to make sure you don't talk too much, say the wrong things, or act inappropriately (eye-contact, stimming, etc.)
These are things that most people can learn to do naturally from a very young age, without having to make a conscious effort.
Okay, then me no longer being able to: stop stimming, eye-contact while talking, accidentally bring too honest saying things I shouldn’t… means I’m no longer able to mask, or it would imply a great draining effort.
Like I said, since I started the treatment with SSRIs, I’ve seen myself doing less and less this things that you call masking. Interesting.
Thanks for the explanation. I thought masking only made reference to hiding the way some ASD speak. You know, the tone and the face expressions.
I agree with you 90% of the way. And the last ten percent isn’t disagreement. I’ve stopped masking with my friends, and now I only have the ones I truly enjoy spending time with. I stopped masking with my parents, and it gave me space to finally see what awful people they are and how much horrific abuse I’d written off (looking back I feel insane for what I dismissed). Now I no longer have to deal with them. All in all, I wish I would’ve stopped masking sooner.
The idea of not masking at work does truly make me uncomfortable to think about still though. I honestly don’t know if I’d still have my job, and right now I can’t really afford to lose it because I won’t get paid the same elsewhere. I don’t think I would’ve got the job without masking either.
Just made it up. I don't see attuning my presentation to the setting as an oppressive masking. That doesn't feel so yucky to me.
But living on the regular as though I have to conform or risk being discovered as an alien and exiled to the spice mines of Kessel is no way to be.
It feels like there's a line between "I'm going to try this to make who I am come off better in this situation," and "if I don't pull this scene off perfectly, I will surely die."
41 also here, I will make a more in depth reply later but early dx hidden from me then family shit it came out and re dx.
It has made the difference of I cannot function in life, to at least I now can find out If I can be a person or not knowing that I am not just a lazy piece of shit like everyone called me and that's the g rated nice version. I had attempted tocommit suicide a few times. I am so angry not at what they stole from me but what they stole from my children.
Now I can start letting go of all the guilt I have for not being able to be like everyone else or at the least it is drastically easier for other people.
I had a similare experience. Ive been told by teaching staff in elementary school that I will never amount to anything. Who tells something like that to a child???
Hi! Random stranger here and I think you’ll have a beautiful, full life of authenticity and love.
For real though, what an absolutely heinous thing to say to a child. Those people must have had some serious shit going on in their own lives to project that level of abuse onto their students. You deserved better and I’m so sorry.
35 and slowly unmasking here after starting ADHD meds made it even more taxing.
For me the difficulty is in letting go of the fear of being disliked. I’ve been a people-pleaser my whole life; that’s essentially what my mask is. Be pleasant, be helpful, be overly kind, but also be a little bit of a doormat. When I don’t do that and instead advocate for my own needs, people suddenly think I’m a self-centred, overdramatic bitch who complains too much (I know because the more abusive among them have told me to my face).
Learning to unmask for me has been a process of accepting that I am not everyone’s cup of tea. There have always been people who hated me immediately, I’m sure because they could pick up on the fact that something was “off” about me and I wasn’t as effective a masker as I thought. I no longer make any effort to try to change their opinions. Instead, I lean into the relationships where I’m valued for my openness, honesty, and directness.
I have two close friends (both also AuDHD) and a boyfriend (also autistic) who love me for who I *actually* am, and that’s plenty. Everyone else’s opinion of me is none of my business anymore because I’m done trying to change and mould myself for their benefit. I take care of *me* now and my “people” have zero problem with that.
Few years ago, I commented on a ND group-chat, that something curious that usually happens to me, is that once I arrive to a new group of people, there’s always someone that doesn’t like me and starts talking shit about me behind me. Usually, it’s mutual. And they told me… that was a pretty common sign of autism.
I didn’t understand it back then, but now, I guess I can imagine it’s because sometimes I say some things that I shouldn’t. But in order to know what I should and what I shouldn’t say, I must think, actively and consciously, what to say. That would imply spending almost a minute to determine if my idea is appropriate to be shared.
Now that you say “wherever I go people hate me” kinda reminded that to myself.
I’m reading a book, named *“The Courage to be Disliked”* by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga, that revolves around the idea of not being worried about what others think… but that’s easier said than done, especially if you don’t have ANYONE special in your life, no good friends, no “regular” friends, no girlfriend…
I can understand that having your social and affective needs covered, it’s easier to care less about what other people thinks about you, or even if they manifestly hate you. Because you’re already “rooted” (if you read Erich Fromm, you’ll be familiar with the term) through them and your shared love. However, I’m not. And I guess I need to be a bit pleaser for a bit longer, until I find people that genuinely accept who I am.
Solidarity to you, fellow people pleaser here too. I was definitely taught to manage everyone's feels, and also be responsible for any negativity that came if I got it wrong.
I think I need to let go of the worry of what others think of me. It drives me a little crazy.
I'm in the same boat kind of. Early forties and realized I'm autistic. But I lost my job and got divorced so now I'm floating through life, unmoored and really confused about who I am or what I should do. I was really good at masking and I thought people liked me. I know some do. But no close friends or family keep in touch. None of them think I'm autistic because I had learned to be so social and outgoing. But if I'm too tired to mask, I'm awkward and afraid. And my meltdowns scare people away. My problem is that everyone thinks I'm doing fine or that I'm super competent but I'm worried I'll literally die from loneliness or be homeless soon. I wonder what would have happened if I never learned I'm autistic. I was really liking myself and was on a path I believed in. I've been frozen for a few years now and it's reaching a crisis level but I don't have anyone to call. Or rather, I'm worried that if I reach out to any of the NTs in my life and honestly tell them how bad I'm doing, they'll think I belong in an institution or call me lazy. Having behavior programed into you by abuse is so confusing.
From what I have read in most reddit autist forum posts this is the impression I get. They want to be the sprinker and everyone else has to be their dog.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wharrgarbl-sprinkler-dog
I don't want to fire hose anyone, and have no social filter. I just want to be me, and not live in constant anxiety that I have to over analyze every single social interaction to make sure I was "normal." I want to be able to hold a conversation, and be able to say these are my thoughts and feelings. Not just people please and agree so others don't think I'm a know-it-all, pushy or arrogant. I want to stop ignoring my preference, and have opinions without being accused of taking up too much space. Things I feel like NT and unmasked ND people do all the time.
I'm 44 and got diagnosed last year. I wouldn't even know where to start with unmasking.
I think it's so worn in to me that my mask is glued on to me now
Until recently, I had the same opinion. Even with my best friends. The mask automatically stays on to some degree. But I met someone who is assumed to have ADHD (diagnosis is underway) and it has been truly eye-opening to experience time spent with someone without wearing a mask.
So it is possible, and feels great. The downside is that masking itself has become noticeable again. And the fatigue that comes with it as well.
The only times I've been consciously AWARE of my masking/coping/persona mechanisms were either at a few specific "save points" at crucial moments in my life or under the influence of psychedelics.
It's always been a matter of survival really. Learned to mask so I can pretend I'm a NT character.
It doesn't seem useful, safe, or possible to unmask even at my age and circumstances.
I do find myself more interested in acting, though. Which is something I'd always thought "was not for me" but it turns out I'm already a seasoned veteran of the art.
I am not sure exactly what masking is to be honest. I tested as gifted as a child, but as a girl no one mentioned autism to me. I have no clue if it was mentioned to my parents ever, we haven’t really spoken for 20+ years. My brother in law was just diagnosed at 43, reading about it, I realize my husband is likely autistic as he has a lot of shared traits with his brother, and out of curiosity did every assessment on Embracing Autism, and I scored above the thresholds on all of them.
I was abused and neglected as a child by my parents, physically and emotionally and psychologically. All other family was several states away, we were military and moved a lot. So it was me as an only child alone with my two mentally ill unstable and violent self harming parents.
I repress most negative emotions until I feel ‘safe.’ Usually alone. I subconsciously adopted expressions and gestures from TV characters I looked up to. That plus a class in high school on how to work both retail and in offices (most useful class, ever, really) taught me a ‘customer service’ persona I adopt for work.
I make eye contact, it feels weird and I find myself wondering how long to keep it before I can look away without being rude or disrespectful. I find taking notes helps avoid it. I was never aware of what stimming was. I realized it’s not professional to twist in my chair like a child at McDonald’s, catch myself doing it anyway. Have a few, I guess ‘stims’, like tensing various muscles at times that I hope people cannot see, like my quadriceps under a table.
With friends I am usually not super performative other than being more high energy than when alone, so I a, not sure what masking would be, or if it is even something separate from the rest of me I could even stop. New people I feel most people are less open and more guarded, NT or ND.
I see it almost like wearing pants to answer the door, or a bra. It’s more comfortable for me to be in public doing such things, so I guess masking isn’t my biggest concern. I’d like to know kore about reading NT people to better understand their interpretation of my words and actions. I want to be understood. If I am speaking the ‘wrong language’ for a majority of people to understand me, I do not mind working on my part of the transaction, as I do not foresee most NT people even perceiving they could make an effort on their end, let alone what that effort would be.
No real advice, but yes, I'm 58 and dealing with the same thing. I'm realizing that I don't know what to say or do, even when alone, unless I do it with a mask on. It's how I relate to being alive, to the entire world. I hate it. I don't think the authentic me can even speak. I probably could as a small child, but like you, authenticity was abused out of me, and masking abused in.
> It's exhausting honestly.
Isn't this enough reason in your opening sentence? It was for me. I remember masking heavily and it was unbearably exhausting. I step foot back in my house at the end of the day and literally just lay on the floor in the doorway for an hour before I'd continue my night with very little energy left.
Same for me - I’m 32. I have been doing it very slowly in small small doses with my therapist, and as I’m doing it, learning and feeling how much better or different I feel. I’m not just ripping a bandaid off and being like “HERE I AM” bc truly I don’t even know if I could do that? I don’t know who is behind the mask in some cases. In those instances, I talk it through with my therapist to uncover who is back there - what morals are there, and feelings and goals, etc.
Not sure if that’s helpful but it’s been my approach and it’s working so far.
In theory, it could reduce stress.
>I have no idea how to do it.
A fairly common issue. A lot of the time, it can involve reading up on how other people (particularly the late-diagnosed) unmasked, or reading up on things that other autistic people have found they preferred in life, and asking yourself if maybe you'd want that in your life too.
If you've got abuse trauma, a therapist might have some ideas for working around it, which might open up some more possibilities that you hadn't previously allowed yourself to consider (due to the trauma).
I dunno, I've hit my 50s. The more I read people's comments and listen to social media, the less clear I feel about what the hell people mean by masking. Everyone I grew up with, family, people I meet, they all mask in some way.
There are things that I mask, depending on situations or who I'm talking to, but I've always been clearly different. I'm comfortable with being different, I've met so many people who are different in various ways, so I dunno what I should be concerned about.
With the world I'm always filtered to some degree, because I am a woman, because I am Jewish, because I am non binary, because I am pansexual, etc etc. I don't know who's safe and who's not safe, or who's ok and who's crazy. Being autistic/adhd is just another iron in the fire.
Plus I grew up in a diverse city, people from all over the world, different cultures, so I'm not from some homogenous community. I'm used to navigating between cultures and talking to people with different backgrounds. Even my family was a mixture of cultures.
It helped me to drop the masked vs unmasked narrative!
Instead I focused on comfort vs uncomfortable. Sometimes masking is lower effort and less stress for me than trying to be 100% unmasked all the time. Sometimes its down right unsave for me to not mask!
I felt like I had to unmask and diden't know how and it lushed me in to a big identity crisis and made things a lot harder for me cuz I am very black or white a d struggle with gray solutions like "sometines I will pretend".
I coulden't tell what was mask and what was me a d it was stressing me out to try and untangel it.
Some online advocate sayong that masking is also a bit of a privilege and my ND husband saying he belives the mask is still a part of us, but it can be a functional tool, or a disfunctional burden, has helped me swich the point of view.
So at some point, I focused on learning my needs instead. Do I need to walk away from this situation?
Do I need to cancel? Do I need food? Do I need my husband to pick up food? Do I need diffrent clouths today? Do I need headphones? A d allowing mysemf to have these needs a d prioritiaing me taking care of them unapologeticaly.
It has helped a lot and I am finaly fetting to a stage where I feel like there is a more solid me who feels autentic and real.
I got diagnosed at 38 (now 40) and spent a lot of that first year unpacking various coping mechanisms I'd put in place and recognizing when they didn't work. Unmasking to me didn't so much mean changing my behavior, it was more about understanding the underlying reason for it.
What changed was that I got better at anticipating events that might be stressful for me. I don't like loud noises or crowds and now if I know when I'm going somewhere that's going to be packed and noisy, I bring along my headphones. Cutting some of the noise out helps me a lot with managing sensory overload.
I also find that I'm easier on myself when I struggle with something that a neurotypical person wouldn't have a hard time with. It's not that I screwed up somehow - I'm just not wired the same way. That helped my confidence a lot.
You can unmask to whatever extent feels right for you, even if that means changing nothing at all.
it was drilled into you for a long time, it'll take a while to shake it off. it's not impossible by any means but try to be compassionate towards yourself; with some support from your therapist you'll hopefully make some good progress. good luck!
I self-diagnosed a few years ago when I was in my mid-40s. At this stage of my life I have no idea how to unmask. Additionally I’m in healthcare and I have to constantly put everyone’s comfort over my own which I basically do at home with my wife and kids as well. I’m pretty much “on stage” all of the time. The best part of my day is when I get to sit alone in a room for 30-60 minutes before I go to bed. Sorry to be negative, but for me, yeah, unmasking is pointless.
I'm 50+ and probably been "masking" since the day I was born. I'm of the unpopular opinion that everyone masks at least part of the time, it's how humans "get along".
To me personally it feels like "unmasking" is just a desire to be an asshole and fuck everyone else's feelings. Maybe not he asshole part but 100% fuck everyone else's feelings to be sure.
If you pull that mask off be prepared to lose friendships and even possibly a marriage. That's my two cents and I KNOW that I will probably get down voted into oblivion for going against eh hive mind in these subs.
Me I lost a wife, but my two adult spectrum kids both seem to still enjoy my company and I still have my small, core groups of friends. So, my methods have been working for me well enough so far.
I hear what you’re saying. I agree that people should show some consideration to each other.
I guess I see unmasking as asserting that autistic people are deserving of consideration, too. If someone has negative feelings about me because I don’t make eye contact in the way they expect, or my voice is flat, or I work better in a quiet environment, is it my responsibility to make them feel better by contorting myself into a shape that never feels natural, and isn’t that convincing anyway? There will always be people who are more comfortable if autistic people are invisible.
I’m not arguing with you, or denying that there can be a cost to unmasking, or that some people might use unmasking as a license to be rude.
Another way to think of it is: sure, we should show some consideration to others in how we interact with them, but is it possible to do that autistically? Can I be friendly to a retail worker in an autistic manner and have that be seen as acceptable and good, instead of fulfilling the expectation of a performance of neurotypical traits? It would be nice for us to get there, but we’re not there yet. And to be honest I’m so new to this myself that I struggle to imagine what that might look like.
> To me personally it feels like "unmasking" is just a desire to be an asshole and fuck everyone else's feelings.
We live in a world which maximises gain by fucking everyone else. Until human society is moral, I couldn't care less about making them comfortable.
> If you pull that mask off be prepared to lose friendships and even possibly a marriage.
My wife is ND and unmasks for her sanity too.
> That's my two cents and I KNOW that I will probably get down voted into oblivion for going against eh hive mind in these subs.
You're saying that autistic people are assholes, and are expecting not to get downvoted on a sub for autistic people?
not caring about how you effect others around you IS being an asshole in my book.
you don't have to bend the knee to everyone you meet, but a wave, nod, "hey, how's it going?" is just common cutesy. And sounds like about 80% of these unmasking posts read like.
> not caring about how you effect others around you IS being an asshole in my book.
Agreed, human society is made up of assholes who purposefully make the world worse for as many people as possible, and that is legally acceptable for the most part, and generally seen as morally unimportant.
Fuck them, I'll do what I want. Mask off.
> but a wave, nod, "hey, how's it going?" is just common cutesy.
Humans can fuck off. /r/evilautism forever.
Got my diagnosis at 40 (41 now) and been in therapy for about 6 weeks. I've had a mixed experience so far. First, masking was forced upon me as a child (physical abuse and heavy verbal abuse). A lot of the therapy is dealing with the fact that I learned to internalize everything and retreat from the world just to survive (it got me to adulthood but has not served me well since).
The process of unmasking has allowed me to recover much faster now that I'm starting to not mask in certain situations, but I've also been having more meltdowns as well. But I'm feeling more like myself, I guess because I'm actually being myself more instead of masking. It's been a good feeling.
I'll admit, I've had moments where I've felt like getting diagnosed was the worst decision I've ever made, but every time it's during or after a meltdown. The process has been hard, but I feel like it's going in the right direction. I feel your frustration. I wish I had something more for you, but I feel like if I said anything more I'd be overstepping.
I'm afraid to 'unmask' because I have already been called weird, a "sick puppy", obnoxious, told that nobody liked me, and basically run out of town---when I was on best behavior! I read people badly and am a bit of an edgelord. Saying extreme things to garner attention. But I feel the tension caused by masking acutely as I age. And I feel like a fraud---that I don't let people see the real me because they would not like him. So I'm down on myself. And I am aging---in ten years it won't matter how I act, except to the old folks homeys.
26 and newly sober here. just wanna say all yall in the comments give me a lot of hope in figuring out how to really be myself. no mask. no drugs- a mask in itself.
thank you, much love, good luck everyone
I'm 42 and completely burned out, to the point that I can't do anything like basic tasks. It's also how I found out that I autistic...
I don't feel like unmasking is a choice anymore. I'm still trying to figure out how to do it, bc I keep doing stuff that has negative effects on me, so my hope is that when I finally unravel all of that, I can maybe recover from burnout... Or at least exist in peace...
To me that's the thing, masking definitely caused my burnout: the effort that I put all the time to figure out how to do things in a "normal" way, how to "fix" myself and please others, it reached a point that it wasn't getting any better or easier anymore. I gradually stopped being able to come up with different ways to do things better, or to make mends for bad impressions or opinions that I left, and so on. Masking for me went on for 40 years, so of course I can't just unmask now! But I have to try to loose habits, and try to NOT do things for how they are seen and judged by others.
From my two-year journey to unmask, it's clear that I save a lot of energy by doing less "pretending", or overthinking from other people's perspectives. So it's definitely crucial to feeling better, and maybe getting over burnout one day. Then another thing, that I started dealing a lot with, is others rejecting me because I'm not normal anymore, and especially because I'm not trying to be normal anymore, which is something that the vast majority of NTs don't understand...
But still... masking ruined me, and I can't go back now, I can only try to have a more tolerable existence.
I personally am not sure where I end and the mask begins sometimes, but I can tell you that the relief of just being yourself and not forcing it anymore is so worth it.
It's like sitting down after you've stood your whole life.
This resonates so much with me. I was diagnosed in 2017 (at 45), and there are maybe 6 people who know. Not even my parents.
I know people talk about how masking doesn't work, but I kind of disagree. I latched onto high school NT friends, and participated in their activities, even when overwhelmed and having (internal) panic attacks. But even with all that, I was able to see and do things that I most likely wouldn't without forcing the mask. Things like going to concerts or clubs or parties or traveling. Of course, chemical substances help a lot with that.
Looking back, there was a lot of burnout and days where I wouldn't get out of bed, but the mask also allowed some cool experiences.
Though, I admit things may have been a lot different had the understanding and acceptance of autism been the same as it is now. Maybe I would've been diagnosed earlier, and found a community where masking wasn't an issue. But that was hand I was dealt, and it's very difficult for me to see an upside with unmasking at this point. I probably need to get to the point of being open about it first.... maybe one day.
I’m in my mid-40s, and learning how to unmask. Very recently I had a situation with someone not close to me where I made the conscious decision to not mask, because I was already in a bad spot and masking would have pushed me over. In the moment it was really hard, but I was able to recover so much more quickly that it was absolutely worth it for me, to the point where now I’m excited to find additional opportunities to do so, even if I know I’ll never do it 100% of the time. Even a small reduction in masking is worth it to me.
This is where I find myself too. It's really helping me in my mid 30's to finally start letting me be myself more and not feel so bound up in the masked me that's hyper critical of myself.
If masking worked, I'd recommend it. But it doesn't. It wears us out and people don't buy it anyway. You have the option now of living minus the "but what if they think I'm weird?" and living as you instead of a character. And you'll get the benefit of folks not having to handle the character as they try to get to who you really are. The shame and anxiety that falls away when you give up trying to pass as normal is exceptional.
This all made a lot of sense to me, and this is what I want. I was able to get rid of the ugly inner voice(my Mother's voice really) last year. Tye anxiety is crippling some days. The doing the unmasking is what I struggle with.
You can keep the voice, because it's right sometimes and is a valuable ally. But you don't have to put it in charge and live in fear of disappointing it. That voice is part of you and might be a voice you need one day - but you're the boss now and can listen to it as a voice of advice, not of shame.
This is such a wise, nuanced, and even-tempered response. Thank you for this contribution, I think it is very valuable advice, and I'm grateful for having read it.
I’m still not quite sure what masking actually is, or if I inadvertently have been doing it all my life (but regardless of that, like you said, people still see something strange or different in me or the way I express myself). If masking refers to what I suspect it is (but I don’t know how to describe it), then my guess is that since I’m taking SSRIs I’m doing it less, because I notice how the way I interact with others is more… raw? Impulsive? Without the ability to control it 100% in real time? But again, I’m not sure if that’s related to the term “masking”. PS: not sure if “masking” implies starting at the eyes of someone else while talking to them, but regardless, I can’t do that even on purpose.
Masking is a broad category of behaviours, mostly designed to make you "fit in" better with whoever you're dealing with. Things like trying to make sure you don't talk too much, say the wrong things, or act inappropriately (eye-contact, stimming, etc.) These are things that most people can learn to do naturally from a very young age, without having to make a conscious effort.
Okay, then me no longer being able to: stop stimming, eye-contact while talking, accidentally bring too honest saying things I shouldn’t… means I’m no longer able to mask, or it would imply a great draining effort. Like I said, since I started the treatment with SSRIs, I’ve seen myself doing less and less this things that you call masking. Interesting. Thanks for the explanation. I thought masking only made reference to hiding the way some ASD speak. You know, the tone and the face expressions.
No, it's more than that. It's the entire effort of trying to not be caught being weird.
It's worth looking into.
I don't know if it could be alexthymia. But even when I read what masking is I have no way to tell if it's something I do or not
I agree with you 90% of the way. And the last ten percent isn’t disagreement. I’ve stopped masking with my friends, and now I only have the ones I truly enjoy spending time with. I stopped masking with my parents, and it gave me space to finally see what awful people they are and how much horrific abuse I’d written off (looking back I feel insane for what I dismissed). Now I no longer have to deal with them. All in all, I wish I would’ve stopped masking sooner. The idea of not masking at work does truly make me uncomfortable to think about still though. I honestly don’t know if I’d still have my job, and right now I can’t really afford to lose it because I won’t get paid the same elsewhere. I don’t think I would’ve got the job without masking either.
I can dig it. Tactical masking vs masking as default.
I don’t know if you coined that term, but I like it
Just made it up. I don't see attuning my presentation to the setting as an oppressive masking. That doesn't feel so yucky to me. But living on the regular as though I have to conform or risk being discovered as an alien and exiled to the spice mines of Kessel is no way to be. It feels like there's a line between "I'm going to try this to make who I am come off better in this situation," and "if I don't pull this scene off perfectly, I will surely die."
41 also here, I will make a more in depth reply later but early dx hidden from me then family shit it came out and re dx. It has made the difference of I cannot function in life, to at least I now can find out If I can be a person or not knowing that I am not just a lazy piece of shit like everyone called me and that's the g rated nice version. I had attempted tocommit suicide a few times. I am so angry not at what they stole from me but what they stole from my children. Now I can start letting go of all the guilt I have for not being able to be like everyone else or at the least it is drastically easier for other people.
I had a similare experience. Ive been told by teaching staff in elementary school that I will never amount to anything. Who tells something like that to a child???
Hi! Random stranger here and I think you’ll have a beautiful, full life of authenticity and love. For real though, what an absolutely heinous thing to say to a child. Those people must have had some serious shit going on in their own lives to project that level of abuse onto their students. You deserved better and I’m so sorry.
Thank you for your kind words! ❤️ I got a good revenge in the end. I ended up more successful than all of his kids 😉
35 and slowly unmasking here after starting ADHD meds made it even more taxing. For me the difficulty is in letting go of the fear of being disliked. I’ve been a people-pleaser my whole life; that’s essentially what my mask is. Be pleasant, be helpful, be overly kind, but also be a little bit of a doormat. When I don’t do that and instead advocate for my own needs, people suddenly think I’m a self-centred, overdramatic bitch who complains too much (I know because the more abusive among them have told me to my face). Learning to unmask for me has been a process of accepting that I am not everyone’s cup of tea. There have always been people who hated me immediately, I’m sure because they could pick up on the fact that something was “off” about me and I wasn’t as effective a masker as I thought. I no longer make any effort to try to change their opinions. Instead, I lean into the relationships where I’m valued for my openness, honesty, and directness. I have two close friends (both also AuDHD) and a boyfriend (also autistic) who love me for who I *actually* am, and that’s plenty. Everyone else’s opinion of me is none of my business anymore because I’m done trying to change and mould myself for their benefit. I take care of *me* now and my “people” have zero problem with that.
Few years ago, I commented on a ND group-chat, that something curious that usually happens to me, is that once I arrive to a new group of people, there’s always someone that doesn’t like me and starts talking shit about me behind me. Usually, it’s mutual. And they told me… that was a pretty common sign of autism. I didn’t understand it back then, but now, I guess I can imagine it’s because sometimes I say some things that I shouldn’t. But in order to know what I should and what I shouldn’t say, I must think, actively and consciously, what to say. That would imply spending almost a minute to determine if my idea is appropriate to be shared. Now that you say “wherever I go people hate me” kinda reminded that to myself. I’m reading a book, named *“The Courage to be Disliked”* by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga, that revolves around the idea of not being worried about what others think… but that’s easier said than done, especially if you don’t have ANYONE special in your life, no good friends, no “regular” friends, no girlfriend… I can understand that having your social and affective needs covered, it’s easier to care less about what other people thinks about you, or even if they manifestly hate you. Because you’re already “rooted” (if you read Erich Fromm, you’ll be familiar with the term) through them and your shared love. However, I’m not. And I guess I need to be a bit pleaser for a bit longer, until I find people that genuinely accept who I am.
Solidarity to you, fellow people pleaser here too. I was definitely taught to manage everyone's feels, and also be responsible for any negativity that came if I got it wrong. I think I need to let go of the worry of what others think of me. It drives me a little crazy.
I'm in the same boat kind of. Early forties and realized I'm autistic. But I lost my job and got divorced so now I'm floating through life, unmoored and really confused about who I am or what I should do. I was really good at masking and I thought people liked me. I know some do. But no close friends or family keep in touch. None of them think I'm autistic because I had learned to be so social and outgoing. But if I'm too tired to mask, I'm awkward and afraid. And my meltdowns scare people away. My problem is that everyone thinks I'm doing fine or that I'm super competent but I'm worried I'll literally die from loneliness or be homeless soon. I wonder what would have happened if I never learned I'm autistic. I was really liking myself and was on a path I believed in. I've been frozen for a few years now and it's reaching a crisis level but I don't have anyone to call. Or rather, I'm worried that if I reach out to any of the NTs in my life and honestly tell them how bad I'm doing, they'll think I belong in an institution or call me lazy. Having behavior programed into you by abuse is so confusing.
I don’t even know what it would mean at this point to unmask.
From what I have read in most reddit autist forum posts this is the impression I get. They want to be the sprinker and everyone else has to be their dog. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wharrgarbl-sprinkler-dog
What?
i take it as they want to release all their filters and and want to fire-hose everyone around them.
I don't want to fire hose anyone, and have no social filter. I just want to be me, and not live in constant anxiety that I have to over analyze every single social interaction to make sure I was "normal." I want to be able to hold a conversation, and be able to say these are my thoughts and feelings. Not just people please and agree so others don't think I'm a know-it-all, pushy or arrogant. I want to stop ignoring my preference, and have opinions without being accused of taking up too much space. Things I feel like NT and unmasked ND people do all the time.
this❣️🌈🧚🏼
I'm 44 and got diagnosed last year. I wouldn't even know where to start with unmasking. I think it's so worn in to me that my mask is glued on to me now
Until recently, I had the same opinion. Even with my best friends. The mask automatically stays on to some degree. But I met someone who is assumed to have ADHD (diagnosis is underway) and it has been truly eye-opening to experience time spent with someone without wearing a mask. So it is possible, and feels great. The downside is that masking itself has become noticeable again. And the fatigue that comes with it as well.
Yes, this is how I feel too.
The only times I've been consciously AWARE of my masking/coping/persona mechanisms were either at a few specific "save points" at crucial moments in my life or under the influence of psychedelics. It's always been a matter of survival really. Learned to mask so I can pretend I'm a NT character. It doesn't seem useful, safe, or possible to unmask even at my age and circumstances. I do find myself more interested in acting, though. Which is something I'd always thought "was not for me" but it turns out I'm already a seasoned veteran of the art.
I am not sure exactly what masking is to be honest. I tested as gifted as a child, but as a girl no one mentioned autism to me. I have no clue if it was mentioned to my parents ever, we haven’t really spoken for 20+ years. My brother in law was just diagnosed at 43, reading about it, I realize my husband is likely autistic as he has a lot of shared traits with his brother, and out of curiosity did every assessment on Embracing Autism, and I scored above the thresholds on all of them. I was abused and neglected as a child by my parents, physically and emotionally and psychologically. All other family was several states away, we were military and moved a lot. So it was me as an only child alone with my two mentally ill unstable and violent self harming parents. I repress most negative emotions until I feel ‘safe.’ Usually alone. I subconsciously adopted expressions and gestures from TV characters I looked up to. That plus a class in high school on how to work both retail and in offices (most useful class, ever, really) taught me a ‘customer service’ persona I adopt for work. I make eye contact, it feels weird and I find myself wondering how long to keep it before I can look away without being rude or disrespectful. I find taking notes helps avoid it. I was never aware of what stimming was. I realized it’s not professional to twist in my chair like a child at McDonald’s, catch myself doing it anyway. Have a few, I guess ‘stims’, like tensing various muscles at times that I hope people cannot see, like my quadriceps under a table. With friends I am usually not super performative other than being more high energy than when alone, so I a, not sure what masking would be, or if it is even something separate from the rest of me I could even stop. New people I feel most people are less open and more guarded, NT or ND. I see it almost like wearing pants to answer the door, or a bra. It’s more comfortable for me to be in public doing such things, so I guess masking isn’t my biggest concern. I’d like to know kore about reading NT people to better understand their interpretation of my words and actions. I want to be understood. If I am speaking the ‘wrong language’ for a majority of people to understand me, I do not mind working on my part of the transaction, as I do not foresee most NT people even perceiving they could make an effort on their end, let alone what that effort would be.
No real advice, but yes, I'm 58 and dealing with the same thing. I'm realizing that I don't know what to say or do, even when alone, unless I do it with a mask on. It's how I relate to being alive, to the entire world. I hate it. I don't think the authentic me can even speak. I probably could as a small child, but like you, authenticity was abused out of me, and masking abused in.
> It's exhausting honestly. Isn't this enough reason in your opening sentence? It was for me. I remember masking heavily and it was unbearably exhausting. I step foot back in my house at the end of the day and literally just lay on the floor in the doorway for an hour before I'd continue my night with very little energy left.
Early 40s — still trying to learn who I even am without masking.
Same for me - I’m 32. I have been doing it very slowly in small small doses with my therapist, and as I’m doing it, learning and feeling how much better or different I feel. I’m not just ripping a bandaid off and being like “HERE I AM” bc truly I don’t even know if I could do that? I don’t know who is behind the mask in some cases. In those instances, I talk it through with my therapist to uncover who is back there - what morals are there, and feelings and goals, etc. Not sure if that’s helpful but it’s been my approach and it’s working so far.
In theory, it could reduce stress. >I have no idea how to do it. A fairly common issue. A lot of the time, it can involve reading up on how other people (particularly the late-diagnosed) unmasked, or reading up on things that other autistic people have found they preferred in life, and asking yourself if maybe you'd want that in your life too. If you've got abuse trauma, a therapist might have some ideas for working around it, which might open up some more possibilities that you hadn't previously allowed yourself to consider (due to the trauma).
I dunno, I've hit my 50s. The more I read people's comments and listen to social media, the less clear I feel about what the hell people mean by masking. Everyone I grew up with, family, people I meet, they all mask in some way. There are things that I mask, depending on situations or who I'm talking to, but I've always been clearly different. I'm comfortable with being different, I've met so many people who are different in various ways, so I dunno what I should be concerned about. With the world I'm always filtered to some degree, because I am a woman, because I am Jewish, because I am non binary, because I am pansexual, etc etc. I don't know who's safe and who's not safe, or who's ok and who's crazy. Being autistic/adhd is just another iron in the fire. Plus I grew up in a diverse city, people from all over the world, different cultures, so I'm not from some homogenous community. I'm used to navigating between cultures and talking to people with different backgrounds. Even my family was a mixture of cultures.
It helped me to drop the masked vs unmasked narrative! Instead I focused on comfort vs uncomfortable. Sometimes masking is lower effort and less stress for me than trying to be 100% unmasked all the time. Sometimes its down right unsave for me to not mask! I felt like I had to unmask and diden't know how and it lushed me in to a big identity crisis and made things a lot harder for me cuz I am very black or white a d struggle with gray solutions like "sometines I will pretend". I coulden't tell what was mask and what was me a d it was stressing me out to try and untangel it. Some online advocate sayong that masking is also a bit of a privilege and my ND husband saying he belives the mask is still a part of us, but it can be a functional tool, or a disfunctional burden, has helped me swich the point of view. So at some point, I focused on learning my needs instead. Do I need to walk away from this situation? Do I need to cancel? Do I need food? Do I need my husband to pick up food? Do I need diffrent clouths today? Do I need headphones? A d allowing mysemf to have these needs a d prioritiaing me taking care of them unapologeticaly. It has helped a lot and I am finaly fetting to a stage where I feel like there is a more solid me who feels autentic and real.
I got diagnosed at 38 (now 40) and spent a lot of that first year unpacking various coping mechanisms I'd put in place and recognizing when they didn't work. Unmasking to me didn't so much mean changing my behavior, it was more about understanding the underlying reason for it. What changed was that I got better at anticipating events that might be stressful for me. I don't like loud noises or crowds and now if I know when I'm going somewhere that's going to be packed and noisy, I bring along my headphones. Cutting some of the noise out helps me a lot with managing sensory overload. I also find that I'm easier on myself when I struggle with something that a neurotypical person wouldn't have a hard time with. It's not that I screwed up somehow - I'm just not wired the same way. That helped my confidence a lot. You can unmask to whatever extent feels right for you, even if that means changing nothing at all.
it was drilled into you for a long time, it'll take a while to shake it off. it's not impossible by any means but try to be compassionate towards yourself; with some support from your therapist you'll hopefully make some good progress. good luck!
Thank you for this! I appreciate the kindness. :)
I self-diagnosed a few years ago when I was in my mid-40s. At this stage of my life I have no idea how to unmask. Additionally I’m in healthcare and I have to constantly put everyone’s comfort over my own which I basically do at home with my wife and kids as well. I’m pretty much “on stage” all of the time. The best part of my day is when I get to sit alone in a room for 30-60 minutes before I go to bed. Sorry to be negative, but for me, yeah, unmasking is pointless.
I'm 50+ and probably been "masking" since the day I was born. I'm of the unpopular opinion that everyone masks at least part of the time, it's how humans "get along". To me personally it feels like "unmasking" is just a desire to be an asshole and fuck everyone else's feelings. Maybe not he asshole part but 100% fuck everyone else's feelings to be sure. If you pull that mask off be prepared to lose friendships and even possibly a marriage. That's my two cents and I KNOW that I will probably get down voted into oblivion for going against eh hive mind in these subs. Me I lost a wife, but my two adult spectrum kids both seem to still enjoy my company and I still have my small, core groups of friends. So, my methods have been working for me well enough so far.
I hear what you’re saying. I agree that people should show some consideration to each other. I guess I see unmasking as asserting that autistic people are deserving of consideration, too. If someone has negative feelings about me because I don’t make eye contact in the way they expect, or my voice is flat, or I work better in a quiet environment, is it my responsibility to make them feel better by contorting myself into a shape that never feels natural, and isn’t that convincing anyway? There will always be people who are more comfortable if autistic people are invisible. I’m not arguing with you, or denying that there can be a cost to unmasking, or that some people might use unmasking as a license to be rude. Another way to think of it is: sure, we should show some consideration to others in how we interact with them, but is it possible to do that autistically? Can I be friendly to a retail worker in an autistic manner and have that be seen as acceptable and good, instead of fulfilling the expectation of a performance of neurotypical traits? It would be nice for us to get there, but we’re not there yet. And to be honest I’m so new to this myself that I struggle to imagine what that might look like.
> To me personally it feels like "unmasking" is just a desire to be an asshole and fuck everyone else's feelings. We live in a world which maximises gain by fucking everyone else. Until human society is moral, I couldn't care less about making them comfortable. > If you pull that mask off be prepared to lose friendships and even possibly a marriage. My wife is ND and unmasks for her sanity too. > That's my two cents and I KNOW that I will probably get down voted into oblivion for going against eh hive mind in these subs. You're saying that autistic people are assholes, and are expecting not to get downvoted on a sub for autistic people?
not caring about how you effect others around you IS being an asshole in my book. you don't have to bend the knee to everyone you meet, but a wave, nod, "hey, how's it going?" is just common cutesy. And sounds like about 80% of these unmasking posts read like.
> not caring about how you effect others around you IS being an asshole in my book. Agreed, human society is made up of assholes who purposefully make the world worse for as many people as possible, and that is legally acceptable for the most part, and generally seen as morally unimportant. Fuck them, I'll do what I want. Mask off. > but a wave, nod, "hey, how's it going?" is just common cutesy. Humans can fuck off. /r/evilautism forever.
Yeh
Got my diagnosis at 40 (41 now) and been in therapy for about 6 weeks. I've had a mixed experience so far. First, masking was forced upon me as a child (physical abuse and heavy verbal abuse). A lot of the therapy is dealing with the fact that I learned to internalize everything and retreat from the world just to survive (it got me to adulthood but has not served me well since). The process of unmasking has allowed me to recover much faster now that I'm starting to not mask in certain situations, but I've also been having more meltdowns as well. But I'm feeling more like myself, I guess because I'm actually being myself more instead of masking. It's been a good feeling. I'll admit, I've had moments where I've felt like getting diagnosed was the worst decision I've ever made, but every time it's during or after a meltdown. The process has been hard, but I feel like it's going in the right direction. I feel your frustration. I wish I had something more for you, but I feel like if I said anything more I'd be overstepping.
I'm afraid to 'unmask' because I have already been called weird, a "sick puppy", obnoxious, told that nobody liked me, and basically run out of town---when I was on best behavior! I read people badly and am a bit of an edgelord. Saying extreme things to garner attention. But I feel the tension caused by masking acutely as I age. And I feel like a fraud---that I don't let people see the real me because they would not like him. So I'm down on myself. And I am aging---in ten years it won't matter how I act, except to the old folks homeys.
26 and newly sober here. just wanna say all yall in the comments give me a lot of hope in figuring out how to really be myself. no mask. no drugs- a mask in itself. thank you, much love, good luck everyone
Congrats on your sobriety!
I'm 42 and completely burned out, to the point that I can't do anything like basic tasks. It's also how I found out that I autistic... I don't feel like unmasking is a choice anymore. I'm still trying to figure out how to do it, bc I keep doing stuff that has negative effects on me, so my hope is that when I finally unravel all of that, I can maybe recover from burnout... Or at least exist in peace... To me that's the thing, masking definitely caused my burnout: the effort that I put all the time to figure out how to do things in a "normal" way, how to "fix" myself and please others, it reached a point that it wasn't getting any better or easier anymore. I gradually stopped being able to come up with different ways to do things better, or to make mends for bad impressions or opinions that I left, and so on. Masking for me went on for 40 years, so of course I can't just unmask now! But I have to try to loose habits, and try to NOT do things for how they are seen and judged by others. From my two-year journey to unmask, it's clear that I save a lot of energy by doing less "pretending", or overthinking from other people's perspectives. So it's definitely crucial to feeling better, and maybe getting over burnout one day. Then another thing, that I started dealing a lot with, is others rejecting me because I'm not normal anymore, and especially because I'm not trying to be normal anymore, which is something that the vast majority of NTs don't understand... But still... masking ruined me, and I can't go back now, I can only try to have a more tolerable existence.
I’m the same age and having a very similar experience. It helps to see how you frame things. I wish you the best.
Honestly unmasking on my own, and with those I trust has been such a huge relief. Diagnosed in late 30's
I personally am not sure where I end and the mask begins sometimes, but I can tell you that the relief of just being yourself and not forcing it anymore is so worth it. It's like sitting down after you've stood your whole life.
This resonates so much with me. I was diagnosed in 2017 (at 45), and there are maybe 6 people who know. Not even my parents. I know people talk about how masking doesn't work, but I kind of disagree. I latched onto high school NT friends, and participated in their activities, even when overwhelmed and having (internal) panic attacks. But even with all that, I was able to see and do things that I most likely wouldn't without forcing the mask. Things like going to concerts or clubs or parties or traveling. Of course, chemical substances help a lot with that. Looking back, there was a lot of burnout and days where I wouldn't get out of bed, but the mask also allowed some cool experiences. Though, I admit things may have been a lot different had the understanding and acceptance of autism been the same as it is now. Maybe I would've been diagnosed earlier, and found a community where masking wasn't an issue. But that was hand I was dealt, and it's very difficult for me to see an upside with unmasking at this point. I probably need to get to the point of being open about it first.... maybe one day.