in my past crusing thru autism posts on the bad site, once in a while somebody would post something talking about this and it was like reading my own experience in somebody else’s words.
for those of you who read the subject line and know exactly what I’m talking about: can you also never shut off masking except when alone and in fact can’t even relate to the concept of being able to “not mask” around others? or maybe around 99.99999% of the human race apart from a few people you know well and have known for years?
I’ve found (thru being homeless and couchsurfing starting well into adulthood haha do not recommend) that I can’t live with most people, even introverts, because their activity pattern is not like my parents that I grew up with, and so my brain fixates on what they’re doing and then I hear every. human. sound. in the house. at full attentional processing. every waking moment of my life. forever.
this decimates my ability to work because I touch computers for a living and I can only touch them correctly in 1 of 2 ways, either collab with others using tools like kanban and a ticket system, or solo hyperfocus for days on end, which has 0% chance of happening without the above going on…
but I got off topic. the question I am curious about is: if you relate to the subject line of the post, do you think the mental energy drain comes from being unable to shut off your awareness of (potentially) being perceived by others in the house; by your having to keep your mask on standby, warmed up and ready to go at all times when others are in the house; or, both? and do you have other thoughts on this particular topic which I suspect is related to a subtle but extremely impactful neurotrait some few tortured souls among us have???
masking isn’t something that I can “stop” doing, it generalized and became permanent at age 12.
I have been quite fairly described by more than one shrink as having blunted affect, which describes my level of displayed emotion, not how strongly I feel it.
so, I can only “unmask” to some degree around … well, he’s dead. so nobody.
I was honestly having trouble following your post, was starting to get it more and more in the comments, but this stopped me dead in my tracks.
I don’t know when I started masking but it was well before I was aware I was doing it. Very early conditioning, etc. With hindsight I can guess it happened sometime between 7-10. And as I came to realize much later in life, the person known as MelodiousFunk grew around the mask. Like a tree growing around a chain link fence. There is no removing it, just working around it. Or breaking it. And when the mask fails, so does my sense of self. I’m still recovering from the last failure. Pieces of the mask are still in place, but no longer as connected nor as strong. As maladaptive as the mask is, it’s still critical structure. I’m still working on shoring things up. And it’s taking all of my energy.
I’ve never had a professional say this to my face (have never even heard the term before) but this feels like yet another puzzle piece clicking into place. I can talk about upsetting things and remain stone-faced. I’ll get news, good or bad, and have no automatic external reaction. Just conditioned social responses based on context, to meet expectations. It’s like everything inward is turned up to 11, but everything outward is running through a massive compressor. My boss gets me a promotion and a raise: “Man, what does it take to get you to smile?” My nephew after watching me give a eulogy at my dad’s funeral: “How did you do that without crying?”
“Even-keel” never felt right, because I never felt even. “Poker face” isn’t right either, because I’m not controlling it. “Blunted affect” fits.
Thank you.
Stupid question: Why do you want to unmask? I’m not questioning you but as someone who is generally bad a masking I’m curious to hear a different perspective.
To avoid exhaustion and burnout
So is it sort of like shooting your self the foot long term? I’ve met Autistic people who are high masking and it seem like they can do it all.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to here. Masking or not masking? I would say that masking all the time would qualify as shooting yourself in the foot long term. It’s a lot of wasted energy that could be spent doing something else. When you get sufficient time to turn off and relax, it really does feel like autism is a superpower.