Published on 12, July, 2020
Since I got my diagnosis a few weeks ago,, (aged 51 female for those that don't know me) I'm not sure who i am. I have struggled always, masked most of the time an had catastrophic mental health problems but also raised a family of 5 children got a degree and held a professional job for 20 years untill i became too ill.
I don't know how to be me. How to not mask, I can do all of nothing, mask or curl up in a ball. Stay in bed or up but I'm my nighty or go out and be that ever coping mother/ house wife etc. This is not working for me it messed with my head being the super masked woman, I need to not be her, but how do I be someone else that isn't just a fat blob in a bed rocking.
I'm NOT feeling suicidal at the moment, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of point to it all.
How do I become me?
I'm trying to work out which masks (or parts of me, because I think they must be) I like, find enjoyable and / or productive, and keep those ones whilst dropping the ones that feel less 'authentic' (as judged by me in being the most difficult / exhausting to 'wear') or that I either no longer have a need for or that I dislike.
Is that selfish of me? Absolutely!
I think we have an absolute right to choose who / what we are and this diagnosis is as good a reason / time as any to embrace that right. Perhaps feeling like you're none of the things / masks you used to be is an ideal clean slate (horrible as it feels right now) from which to start from scratch to re-build yourself?
Greetings, and good answer in my opnion, Miss Endymion.
I was uncertain how to answer, because as far as I know - I have NEVER "masked"...!
Unless by "masking" it is walking away, staring at the ground, or saying nothing... then I have never done so. I always do what I can, and how I feel... which is just to walk away, stare at the ground, etc. etc. etc... (!)
Strangely - or not - I am happier doing this, than trying what I have heard about "masking" (Pretending to be happy, instead of leaving or challenging a situation).
My masking is at the moment things like. Getting properly dressed and taking my 16 year old to the dr, being able to list all her medication and talk very sensibly about her mess and problems, go the the chemists and get her drugs, drive home, tell hubby what's been said before I crash into the corner and shake/rock/ cry for an hour or so. Or go into school and have a meeting about her gcse's. Answer the door to a new post person without looking and sounding like a moron. Go to the supermarket without looking and sounding as if I should have a minder. Talking to people when they talk to me.
Me without a mask at the moment needs someone with me, I can't even organise a cup of tea half the time at the moment.
Um... Thank You for that answer (it saved me starting a new Thread about it, I think...?). I honestly had little concept of "masking", yet have read much about it, but it seems to not apply to me because I do not seek out friends or children... and when I am "overwhelmed" by any situation, I become physically Ill. Really.
My life is stuck in Neutral, I would say, but I prefer that, to the alternatives offered... hence what I post upon your 'anything good happen today?' thread: So long as nothing bad happens, then I consider that good (a relief) and that is sort of good... :-/