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Unmasking experience

Max

Has anyone else on the spectrum spent most of their time on earth presenting as neurotypical? I spent many of my formative years, including all of my adolescence and now adulthood, trying to appear as ordinary as possible. I don't know if I'm 'high-functioning' or simply a good mimic.

This has included:

- keeping my niche interests and tastes to myself unless I know for certain that others will find them agreeable

- keeping physical tics to a bare minimum

- hiding my true feelings/opinions (this could be related to C-PTSD)

- mirroring the personalities or quirks of other people

I'm a deeply unhappy person with no real sense of self, no real friends and nowhere that I belong. That's what you get for trying to please everyone else!

If anyone has had a similar experience, feel free to share them here.

Thanks.

Parents

  • Hi Max,

    The short answer to that list is - yes.

    I think that being a good mimic helps to cover up a lot of traits to the extent that one can create a semblance of neurotypicality - to the extent that people expect that from you - and 'slipping up' (aka being your unfiltered self for a minute) just reinforces the idea that there is something wrong with you because there is suddenly a set of unfamiliar behaviors on both sides of the conversation.

    I am often finding myself at the point that I don't know which bit I was faking and which bit was the real me coming through. I suggested this to a (very good) clinical psychologist recently and he just looked a bit sad and shook his head - I think he was trying to tell me that there won't ever be much chance of me working that out.

    I really crave the sense of belonging that I often see people describing but that seems to be something that is impossibly elusive from me. I have tried, really hard and in totally different ways, and not been able to engineer a situation where that is the case.

    I still have hope though. There must be some way of having a safe space where literally anything does - without judgement. And if it takes forever to to find it - and even if it lasts for just a very brief time - it might be worth it.

    Hope that's not too much of a downer.

    JJ

    (PS I have recently discovered that letting some physical 'tics' leak out here and there have much less impact than I thought!!)

Reply

  • Hi Max,

    The short answer to that list is - yes.

    I think that being a good mimic helps to cover up a lot of traits to the extent that one can create a semblance of neurotypicality - to the extent that people expect that from you - and 'slipping up' (aka being your unfiltered self for a minute) just reinforces the idea that there is something wrong with you because there is suddenly a set of unfamiliar behaviors on both sides of the conversation.

    I am often finding myself at the point that I don't know which bit I was faking and which bit was the real me coming through. I suggested this to a (very good) clinical psychologist recently and he just looked a bit sad and shook his head - I think he was trying to tell me that there won't ever be much chance of me working that out.

    I really crave the sense of belonging that I often see people describing but that seems to be something that is impossibly elusive from me. I have tried, really hard and in totally different ways, and not been able to engineer a situation where that is the case.

    I still have hope though. There must be some way of having a safe space where literally anything does - without judgement. And if it takes forever to to find it - and even if it lasts for just a very brief time - it might be worth it.

    Hope that's not too much of a downer.

    JJ

    (PS I have recently discovered that letting some physical 'tics' leak out here and there have much less impact than I thought!!)

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