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Unmasking as a adult

Bearer1976
  1. I'm 46 and I have spent my life masking.

I have to mask when I'm out,at work but mostly when I'm at home with my family.  They either get stressed when i say something or jokingly put me down or they simply get stressed there self.

How do people handle it? As I just feel numb most of the time.

Parents

  • I'm struggling with this also. I'm 41, diagnostic 40. Am doing a lot of self work to train myself to be authentic no matter the response. But it will take the rest of my days to perfect I suspect.

    Still just mystified that you get support for most issues these days, but get an ASC diagnosis and there's nothing. My sense of self has been blown out of the water and there's no support.

    I'm definitely more isolated after diagnosis, before that I just put things down to querks, now I know I'm not imagining my differences I am unable to mask the way they effect me to myself even. Seriously considering moving into the back of beyond on my own to get away from everything

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  • I'm struggling with this also. I'm 41, diagnostic 40. Am doing a lot of self work to train myself to be authentic no matter the response. But it will take the rest of my days to perfect I suspect.

    Still just mystified that you get support for most issues these days, but get an ASC diagnosis and there's nothing. My sense of self has been blown out of the water and there's no support.

    I'm definitely more isolated after diagnosis, before that I just put things down to querks, now I know I'm not imagining my differences I am unable to mask the way they effect me to myself even. Seriously considering moving into the back of beyond on my own to get away from everything

Children
  • in reply to JT
    JT said:
    My sense of self has been blown out of the water and there's no support.

    There is support here if you ask - many on this forum, myself included, are in similar situations and we feel your pain.

    I have been using a therapist to work through many of the issues I've encountered and they have been great. At arounf £40/hour they are not cheap but they have both helped me with talking it through and pointed me to many good books on the subject that allowed me to use my researching skills to look much deeper into the issues of being Neurodivergent.

    I get the bit about moving away to hide, but this is not healthy in the long run for most of us.

    Remember you hace a community here to be a part of - just reach out and you can get plenty of support, advice and probably a few new friends who understand how you like to be interacted with.