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.
To me the concept of 'masking' is not all that useful, It creates the idea that the mysterious process of 'unmasking' will produce magical results in wellbeing. Virtually all people modify their behaviour depending on their social setting - camouflaging. For each modification in behaviour there is a trade off between the behaviour having positive social benefits and it doing psychological harm. If you are doing something when in a social group, which is unnatural to yourself, but it does no harm, there is no benefit from stopping. If it is making you feel hugely uncomfortable and leading to social exhaustion or heightened stress, then exploring the consequences of dropping it might be worthwhile.
I don't know if it is 'unmasking', but since my diagnosis I no longer feel any guilt at not attending many of my wife's large family get-togethers. I didn't attend many before, but now I don't do so guilt-free.