Masking

Hi, Riddler:

Thanks for your great question. I mask both consciously and unconsciously, and perhaps because I’m in my mid-40s most of it unconscious, especially at work. I’ve just done it for so long.

My conscious masking comes when the person with whom I’m interacting is causing me stress, whether at work or in my personal life. In both cases, I have to actively choose to mask and deliberately choose how to. I do this rather than, for example, choosing to stand up and walk away, or telling them point blank they’re annoying me and wasting my time, or asking them to leave my workspace, or speaking my mind in another way I would if I wasn’t masking. 

I have the more “stereotypically male” form of autism and high test scores on the related testing categories, according to the psychologist who diagnosed me. The more I read about that, the more I smile and recognize myself. I have a lot of friends and good relationships with colleagues, but if I didn’t mask, I would probably have almost no friends.

The people with whom I interact at work, especially, would probably be shocked to know what I actually think and how I actually want to react to them sometimes. Half the time I just feel like I’m interacting with people who overreact and are oversensitive to essentially everything, My gut reaction to them is usually that I don’t know what the problem is and why they are so overwhelmed by and inefficient about everything.

When I get home from work I’m absolutely exhausted because it feels like 95% of my effort expended that day at work related to masking. And I say that as someone teaching high school students all day. The teaching part feels easy. The masking is brutal.

On a final note, because I choose to have personal relationships and I choose to have really good working relationships with my colleagues, I know masking is necessary. And I genuinely care for these people, which might not sound like it’s the case based on what I’ve said above.

It’s just that, and I don’t like saying this but this is the brutal truth about it, I just don’t have the empathy for others that appears to exist in other people. So I’ve had to learn to cultivate empathy within myself, and my expression of it, through masking. It’s not a bad thing at all. My psychologist encourages me to keep in mind the positive benefits of pushing myself and being willing to be vulnerable and build deep relationships.

Doing that feels stressful and forced and unnecessary for me at times, but then at other times I feel extraordinarily connected to people and I really enjoy our interactions and my need to mask suddenly drops. I am suddenly able to just “flow“ in my interactions with them. Suddenly the masking isn’t needed and I feel so comfortable with them that I’m able to just be my true self.

When I get to that point, it’s golden. And I know it’s that point my psychologist wants me to pursue. Fortunately I have multiple friends and family members and multiple colleagues with whom I am able to enter this “zone” most times I interact with them. I feel like my psychologist having challenged me to push myself has permitted me to really enter this place of flowing, naturally empathetic relationships. I’m really relieved to have been able to get to that place because up until the last few years that was not my experience, socially or at work. And that was a very isolating and brutal feeling and a difficult way to live.  

I’m sending you lots of support. Thanks again for your awesome post. And I’m not masking to say those things. :-)

Elizabeth

Thanks Elizabeth, I’m also mid 40’s, but waiting for diagnosis. Which I’m struggling with.

Thanks Elizabeth, I’m also mid 40’s, but waiting for diagnosis. Which I’m struggling with.

Thanks for sharing that, Riddler. Sending you lots of support as you wait for the diagnosis. :-)

Elizabeth