#Autism#ADHD#AuDHD#ActuallyAutistic
How does everyone know how, when and how much they're masking?
As a late-diagnosed #AuDHD, I struggle to differentiate between "me but masking" and "me but in a diff situation".
Now that I know I'm autistic, I even miss the person I used to be in some situations before I knew.
I used to call myself a "social chameleon" - I just changed automatically to suit the circumstances.
But who actually am I and what is just a mask? @actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd
I’m working this out. Before I realised I was autistic, I had already given myself permission to avoid people who bore or irritate me, whereas before I’d always focussed on politely engaging with them.
@theaardvark@actuallyautistic@actuallyadhd There are almost certainly times when you're not masking. They may not be often, but almost any little chink in the armour will tell you something. For me the starting point was -- I don't mask when talking to my cats! Once I recognised that voice I could start writing notes to myself without masking.
To complicate things: everyone switches between different aspects of theirself to suit their surroundings. That's not really masking.
@theaardvark@actuallyautistic@actuallyadhd
Before realising that I'm autistic, I realised that the more time I spend alone(up to a certain point), the less I am like others and the more I am like myself.
There were times, when I didn't even talk to people online, barely left the house and at least for a while, I prefered and enjoyed that.
I think I'm more the way I have been as a child, when I'm not adjusting my behavior to others.
@theaardvark@actuallyautistic@actuallyadhd In simple terms I started to get to know my unmasked self by spending a lot of time alone, and began to take notice when I stopped being that, notably during social situations. Masked me and unmasked me are very different.
@theaardvark@actuallyautistic@actuallyadhd
For those of us who have masked for a very long time, this is actually a very difficult question to answer. If you've managed to weave for yourself a mask that is not overly hard to wear or onerous, perhaps even more so. Especially as the masks we created had an undeniable practical purpose. They were not just to hide us from view, to stop others from seeing the strange, the weird and the different. But to help us interact, to be able to cope and deal with the situations that our lives presented and be able to function within them.
It makes de-masking when older much harder. The practical and functional nature is hard to overlook, or try to do without. But, in general terms and bearing in mind that this may or may not be necessary, or even possible, I would suggest.
Differentiate between inner and outer masking. We became champions at masking things from ourselves, as much as from others. But so often this meant masking problems and difficulties, sensory issues, potentials for trauma and the abuse that can come from not even being able to articulate, let alone enforce, the boundaries we needed to. Dropping these masks can be hard, because they will let you see and acknowledge the pain you've endured and maybe enduring still. But, without doing so you can't do anything about the ongoing damage being done.
Become aware of your body, when it's too still, too controlled, when you are aware of a natural way it wants to be that you are stopping because it's inappropriate and makes you stand out. The commonest of these processes is our need to stim. But there are other ways your body probably wants to move that you have always fought against, possibly to its detriment. Don't be frightened to experiment, especially with the movements that you always did, especially in private, that you didn't even realise was you stimming.
Let yourself become conscious of the times when something feels hard, or wrong, or simply something you're reluctant, or takes too much energy, to do. Those will be the parts of the mask that have always hurt the most and perhaps the bits you need to leave behind.
Maybe it's all you, and you adjust your behavior, language, and demeanor to whatever is appropriate to time and place. That's what all social animals do, from dogs to naked mole rats to humans.
You're still more like the rest of us than you are different. If you don't feel that way, it's due to the way the of the rest of us have focused on the differences to the exclusion of the similarities.
@marc_w@actuallyautistic@actuallyadhd
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I realised that a little as I read and then answered the reply before yours. It's all me. I never feel like a fraud or fake, but I'm still not sure who to "base" me is.
@lifewithtrees@theaardvark@actuallyautistic@actuallyadhd for me it's SO difficult to really perceive and feel those good feelings inside me, I tend to believe this is due to bad interoception and maybe also alexithymia [frequent in NDs]... but yeah, that's the way to go. ❣️I wish both/all of us success! [Late dxed only a year ago, then being 42yo.]
@rebekka_m@theaardvark@actuallyautistic@actuallyadhd it was like that for me too. As a kid, I would always ask my mom if I liked a certain food before I started eating it, because I could never remember what I liked. I externalized that task of executive function.
Asi grew up, to keep the effort low, I would stay with certain foods I knew I enjoyed (shoutout for Mini What's!)
It also left me out of touch with my own body's desires. I learned that I couldn't trust myself
@rebekka_m@theaardvark@actuallyautistic@actuallyadhd yes! It's taken my years to see it myself, and now I'm learning by listening to what my body wants and regaining my own trust that I CAN take care of myself. It's been helping!
@theaardvark@actuallyautistic@actuallyadhd Relatable, except in my case it's for recovery from CPTSD from ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) - I sometimes miss the person I used to be when I was hyper-social, overclocking at maximum intensities, in warp speed in both fawn mode and flight mode at all times. I used to walk into a room and utterly take it over. Now I rarely walk into a room that's not in my house. I still take THOSE over, but...it's not the same rush.
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