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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

  • Yes. What you described is pretty much what I could have written for me.

    I'm on a long journey of discovering who I am underneath. Yet, I've read it's quite common for autistic people to not have the same sense of self as allistic people do. So, I'm doing my best to uncover who I am but without expecting that to be like anyone else describes. Not easy. But it has been absolutely worth it so far. Long way to go yet.

Reply

  • Yes. What you described is pretty much what I could have written for me.

    I'm on a long journey of discovering who I am underneath. Yet, I've read it's quite common for autistic people to not have the same sense of self as allistic people do. So, I'm doing my best to uncover who I am but without expecting that to be like anyone else describes. Not easy. But it has been absolutely worth it so far. Long way to go yet.

Children
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