• Replies 19 replies
  • Subscribers 84 subscribers
  • Views 6115 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Exposure Anxiety: How complex are your social masks?

Kit McDaydream

How complex are your social masks?  is it just you with a bit more (pretended) confidence to cope with a day at college or work?  or do you have complete alters that deal with particular things and are completely different to the 'real you', even though they're using your body to go to your college/workplace in? (so work colleagues etc would see the personality the alter portrayed as 'your personality')

Can you be 'you' in front of anyone at all or is your exposure anxiety so severe you can only be yourself in the house alone when no-one else is there? (other than pets maybe).

K

Parents

  • wow thanks for the answers, it's not quite what I meant so I'm thinking it must be something different and mine is more DID with proper 'alters'.

    My coping strategy is dissociating from anything I can't cope with or don't like. (though not consciously I just switch mask/alter). Being Avoidant is another technique so probably for me 'letting people assume I was deaf and unable to speak' got me out of any presentations or having to answer the phone. (I would do a presentation in sign if they got me an interpreter to speak what  signed and I'd sign the whole thing) and other students kind of thought it was cool as having interpreters in class lectures was a very new thing when I was at at college and lectures. Everybody wanted to learn to sign!  I was just happy to be the 'cool kid' rather than the 'weird one' that everyone made fun of so that alter served its purpose for that period of my life.

    You all seem more socially able too mentioning partners (and I suspect some of kids) Physical contact is another big phobia thing for me so I was never able to cope with a relationship where I'd be expected to sleep with the person every night. Babies and kids screaming trigger a 'rage' reaction to the noise (possibly phonophobia due to extreme sound sensitivity) so I can't be around young babies/kids in case they start screaming.

    I don't have any friends as 'myself' my alters made friends though I've lost contact with most as I tended to move when my main alter who dealt with daily life switched. My difficulty too is like if someone from uni found me and wanted to meet up again I'd really struggle, not because I didn't like them (I don' actually remember most of them) but to me, they were *alters name* friend and I know they still think 'i' am still that 'deaf student' they met 20 odd years ago and I'm not and can't relate to them at all now!   (I've been through another 4 alters since then)

    I ended up leaving social media for the same reasons at first I just used a chat room name (not this one..I make a different name and different email address for every different forum account- different alters have their own personalities and individual personal details for forums)  but everybody gets obsessed with meet-ups and I really struggle and don't even like video chat. It started to feel too intrusive so I closed the account and left.

    I guess I was just wondering if ALL my issues were down to Autism or whether some of them were due to other conditions on top? (such as DID or Avoidant Personality Disorder or something) Been a stickler for minute detail I'm trying to work out where one starts and the other ends kind of thing!

  • in reply to Kit McDaydream

    Oh sorry I didn't see this before posting my reply. Yep! Sounds like what you are doing is slightly insane in a cool and interesting way. No way would I bother being socially able if I could be as imaginative as you! Do you enjoy it? 

Reply Children
No Data