Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
This is my very first post here on the forum!
I was officially diagnosed with autism last Monday, I knew I was, but there was something around to official diagnosis that changed me.
I have been consciously trying to continue to mask at work, people would normally see me as a bubbly, outgoing, confident individual and I didn't intend to let my work "mask" slip any time soon. However, I find myself being more blunt when answering things, and being more reserved when I would normally be super involved in group meetings. To the point where my colleagues joke about me being quiet "for once" and wondering if something is up.
I actually didn't even know I was doing anything different, I thought I just had nothing to say on the topics being discussed, but I don't really feel ready at all to discuss this with my peers or boss (even if I ever do!)
Just wondering what everyone else's experience is like with this? I have heard a lot about learning to unmask but I just haven't gotten that far yet given it is really new for me.
Thank you
To be honest, I found this the most difficult concept of all to wrap my head around post diagnosis, but I suspect I may be doing this too.
I like to think that I spent 56 years slogging my way through life just being me. Certainly I have never deployed any conscious masking ever; like say pretending to be interested in stuff I'm not or dressing in particular ways to fit in. I never got that stuff and didn't care that I didn't get it or what people thought about the fact I didn't get it. Jokes are the classic. If I don't get one, I ask out of curiosity why it's funny, but I'd never laugh along and pretend to find it funny when I haven't even understood it.
Nevertheless, I am a trainer and it is important that the message is well received and I have learned ways to express and convey things in way an audience will accept and be positive about. To that extent I guess I have some behaviours that are not natural to me but engaged with for the benefit of others and I suppose this is masking too.
I think that now that I have my diagnosis and am very open about that I feel I have some permission to not adapt in most circumstances and am probably sub-consciously dropping adaptations. Certainly I don't hide stimming any more.
That said I still find it very difficult to define which of my behaviours is/ were masking. If I do catch myself out with something that is empowering because it then becomes my choice as to whether I wish to do that for the benefit of others or just bin it and not care.