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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

  • I was only diagnosed recently, aged 46. For the 5 or so years before that things were really bad and my mental health suffered as a result. I’m sure I’m not unique in having this experience and being diagnosed with everything under the sun and referred to every type of therapy and counselling known to man!

    I think now, when I look back, with freshly opened eyes, across the rest of my life I can see how my autism could have played a part in certain events or situations. Like the fact I could only maintain one friend at a time throughout school.

    The reason my assessment took so long to come about and the reason I am still struggling to come to terms with it now, is that I have been so moulded by NT’s around me I have sort of become one by default. I’ve though I know I’m not because of the amount of anxiety that causes me when I mask.

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  • I was only diagnosed recently, aged 46. For the 5 or so years before that things were really bad and my mental health suffered as a result. I’m sure I’m not unique in having this experience and being diagnosed with everything under the sun and referred to every type of therapy and counselling known to man!

    I think now, when I look back, with freshly opened eyes, across the rest of my life I can see how my autism could have played a part in certain events or situations. Like the fact I could only maintain one friend at a time throughout school.

    The reason my assessment took so long to come about and the reason I am still struggling to come to terms with it now, is that I have been so moulded by NT’s around me I have sort of become one by default. I’ve though I know I’m not because of the amount of anxiety that causes me when I mask.

Children