Do autistic women wear makeup?

This used to be a big issue for me. From mid-teens I wouldn't be seen without full (caked on) make-up and would go to extraordinary lengths to avoid people seeing me without it - ignoring the door, even if it was a parcel delivery I had been waiting on, poor timekeeping at work (it takes a long time to do the full works) which led to me losing jobs in my teens and early twenties, RIDICULOUS lengths to avoid being seen. It was a very stressful and emotional thing at the time but I find it difficult to remember exactly why now. I would have palpitations and panic attacks at the very possibility of being seen without make-up! Autism wasn't even on my radar back then.  

The make-up became less caked-on and more 'natural' looking through my late twenties and throughout my thirties but the stress over being seen without it didn't lessen until my late thirties.

Very gradually, I stopped wearing it at home. Then stopped on the days I was spending out locally with the kids. Then VERY gradually, by the time I hit 40, I was only wearing it for nights out or things like interviews or important appointments. I stopped wearing it completely by the time I was about 43. It wasn't exactly a decision, I just somehow stopped bothering with it without particularly noticing. It's been two years since then and I can't say I'd never wear it again (maybe for a wedding or publicity photo?) but I don't like the claustrophobic feeling it gave me wearing it the last few times and the hassle of removing it all just doesn't seem worth the effort anymore, 

Knowing about my autism now, I wonder if wearing make-up was a sort of protection, or mask, which I needed to be able to function socially but that's with hindsight. I'm just relieved not to feel i 'have to' wear it at all anymore. Now I just have to work out how to function without the rest of my 'masks'. (Is that actually possible? I really would like to know!)    

Did you have friends from your mind teens? Other girls that wore a lot of makeup? So would you have needed it to fit in, to hide your differences, worn it because it is normal to Do so?

Do you know what the rest of your masks are? 

Did you have friends from your mind teens? Other girls that wore a lot of makeup? So would you have needed it to fit in, to hide your differences, worn it because it is normal to Do so?

Do you know what the rest of your masks are? 

Thank you for sharing about the masks, I use them all the time like you apart from when I am with my husband and with my children, except that one of my girls says i am different when I am just with her so maybe I mask a little with my husband as well.

The real me couldn't do an appointment, not even the one for my ASD assessment.

I replied while you were typing. Damn, reading the stuff you just typed really mirrors a lot I've gone through. Apart from the "goth" bit, lol. I do have a penchant for Shoegaze and Darkwave though!

I had 'friends' at all the different points in my life from school and throughout my twenties but not the same ones for all of that time. At Secondary school I flitted between the various groups or cliques fairly comfortably (in that I liked / got on with each as well as any of the others but never felt a particular allegiance to one over the others - I basically just slotted in to whichever was around at the time or how I felt that day).

Some of those groups wore make-up as if a school day was a night out, others more as a part of the Goth image (designs / symbols drawn in eyeliner), some wore make-up in a 'barely there' style, and others none at all. I experimented with various styles of make-up regardless of which group I ended up spending the day with. By the time I was in my mid-to-late-teens it was the heavy make-up that became my normal but my two closest friends from that time didn't wear any even for nights out. (They weren't allowed to.) I do remember feeling much more confident wearing it and it was a huge part of the image I wanted to portray at the time - confident, grown-up, in control etc. as if people couldn't see the real me when I was wearing it. 

I'm quite well aware of what the rest of my masks are and although some 'pop-up', as it were, I'm aware (at some point) of the fact that it's happening. I just can't always switch it off except by simply walking away from the situation / conversation. The the only people that I'm ever actually 'me' with are my partner and children.   

Often I consciously choose which 'mask' I'm using depending upon the situation (especially if it's a planned interaction) but it is exhausting and I can't sustain it for very long periods or over many repeated interactions. Masking like this is useful, it serves a purpose, but I do now avoid a lot of situations because it has become so much more of an effort as I've gotten older. I just can't be bothered with the effort unless the ends justify the means. I cannot imagine going to an appointment as the same me that I am at home with the family, I have no idea how that script would run or even what on earth I'd wear to such an appointment! It's unfathomable.