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"Putting on my best normal" - how to shed the mask and do it anyway...

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5509825/

Masks / Camouflage / Performance art etc,  call it what you will but after many years of "fitting in" - as a partner, mother, employee, daughter, sister, sibling, citizen it is possible to successfully drop the mask completely and does everyone mask to a certain extent. But, what happens when it becomes detrimental and shift has got to happen in order to save yourself?

"..... two key motivations for camouflaging; assimilation and connection. This suggests that camouflaging behaviours come from multiple sources. They may be internally driven by the individual to accomplish specific goals such as friendships, but they may also be produced as a response to external demands placed on how a person should behave in society. The differential influence of each of these motivations varies between individuals, but our findings suggest that people are strongly motivated by wanting to avoid discrimination and negative responses from others."

Do you even remember or know who your true self is or has ever been?

But think of the risks? Feeling more exposed, vulnerable, being feeling duped - "so you just "played a role" all of these years. What if they don't like the true you? The saying goes "you can bend a twig but not a branch...after so many years is it feasible to re-set self and start again?

And there, lies the rub, did you mask due to self preservation or just due to a fear of rejection and being outcast from society?

So question: Is it possible to drop the mask? Is that too extreme, or is it just better to find small pockets in life to "be" (you know, when everyone has gone to bed and no one is watching)? Why did we learn to mask in the first place?

Parents

  • I think I mask to accomplish specific goals but not in relation to friendships, rather to 'be' the person who would succeed in whatever it is I'm doing. For instance, I think every job I've had over the years has had a different mask. I've moved around the country a lot over the years too and I don't think my neighbours from one place would recognise the neighbour described from another place. Even accounting for time changing a person. I know I reinvented myself each time I moved because moving away was usually part of the reinvention. 

    I don't feel that all of them were lies though. I'm not sure about that. I think each 'Me' had authentic parts so they weren't total lies anyway. Or maybe they each just allowed me to express myself differently, to try out each type of 'Me' possible perhaps. Hmmmm. 

    I DO agree that all of the masks had an element of self-preservation. To me, it wasn't so much about lying to the people around me as trying to convince myself that "This one is the real one." or "This one will work better." I think, looking back. All the while keeping the inner 'Me' safe because if / when the latest failed, it wasn't such a big deal it was just time to move on. (Or run away?) 

    I still mask to get certain specific jobs or tasks done but I don't think I'm living a masked role anymore on a daily basis. The past three years have seen me hit a bit of a pit of exhaustion there for a while which I'm just climbing out of now with the help of this diagnosis so I haven't had the energy to keep up a role through all of that. Over the past three years I've also stopped doing nearly all of the 'Social Duties' that I always did so I don't spend much time at all these days in situations where I have a role to perform anymore. Partner, Parent, Neighbour is my self-imposed limit these days unless, like I said, I need to get a specific thing done now and then. It's the closest I've come to living mask-free anyway.    

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  • I think I mask to accomplish specific goals but not in relation to friendships, rather to 'be' the person who would succeed in whatever it is I'm doing. For instance, I think every job I've had over the years has had a different mask. I've moved around the country a lot over the years too and I don't think my neighbours from one place would recognise the neighbour described from another place. Even accounting for time changing a person. I know I reinvented myself each time I moved because moving away was usually part of the reinvention. 

    I don't feel that all of them were lies though. I'm not sure about that. I think each 'Me' had authentic parts so they weren't total lies anyway. Or maybe they each just allowed me to express myself differently, to try out each type of 'Me' possible perhaps. Hmmmm. 

    I DO agree that all of the masks had an element of self-preservation. To me, it wasn't so much about lying to the people around me as trying to convince myself that "This one is the real one." or "This one will work better." I think, looking back. All the while keeping the inner 'Me' safe because if / when the latest failed, it wasn't such a big deal it was just time to move on. (Or run away?) 

    I still mask to get certain specific jobs or tasks done but I don't think I'm living a masked role anymore on a daily basis. The past three years have seen me hit a bit of a pit of exhaustion there for a while which I'm just climbing out of now with the help of this diagnosis so I haven't had the energy to keep up a role through all of that. Over the past three years I've also stopped doing nearly all of the 'Social Duties' that I always did so I don't spend much time at all these days in situations where I have a role to perform anymore. Partner, Parent, Neighbour is my self-imposed limit these days unless, like I said, I need to get a specific thing done now and then. It's the closest I've come to living mask-free anyway.    

Children
  • in reply to Endymion

    Yes, Endy, I think it just all becomes too much like hard work.  It's like a bowl of corks bobbing in a bowl of water and trying to hold them all down with your hands!  They keep popping up!  No, best to limit it to masking on a "need to mask" basis.  Also I've given myself permission to be a bit odd and raise an eyebrow or two.  Once you get going and nothing bad happens, you are like "ok then, the moon didn't drop out of the sky" - Let me try this now . . . I'm finding bits of it quite fun! Smiley

    Gaining confidence in my oddness Thinking