Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everybody. I’m still in this no man’s land awaiting the results of my assessment. I was seen on Feb 1st and my husband has been called in since then to complete a questionnaire on me. I’m not sure which one it was. What I really want to know is what does it look like to unmask? I know that this is one think that I will hope to be able to do when I get the results but what does that entail? I’m in my late 60’s and have built up this very respectable, quietly polite, ladylike demeanour……which becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. I struggle to think of conversations to have with people. What do I have to do to make changes? Thank you.
I struggle with this too. I'm nearly forty and was diagnosed two years ago today and I've probably been masking for most of my life, certainly as long as I can remember. I've spoken about it a lot recently in therapy and elsewhere. A friend said I should try to imagine how I would behave on an island with just my wife (the only person I truly unmask with), but I find that hard to imagine too. I suppose I see myself feeling more comfortable to make jokes and to join in conversation. I have things to say (serious and humorous), at least when the conversation isn't just small talk, but I rarely have the confidence to say them. But that might be social anxiety as much as masking, and issues with understanding the flow of a conversation and when and how to enter it (I was in a group the other day where I wanted to say things, but every time I tried to speak, someone else got in first).
I don't secretly wanting to be blunt or rude to people and I don't really have many stims or other things that people might want to unmask, so I can't comment on those.
I do also feel that some masking is part of the human condition. Unless we know someone whose interests are identical to ours, we're going to talk about some things and not others. I talk about Judaism with Jewish friends, Doctor Who with fan friends and autism here; those people wouldn't necessarily understand what I'm talking about in the other contexts. That's not necessarily a bad thing unless it goes to extremes.