@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.