Published on 12, July, 2020
Hey, I've been reading a few books (including "Untypical" by Pete Wharmby which has been recently released) and read a lot about masking, particularly in relation to girls and women.
Thing is, I don't mask so I find this a bit of a mystery. I cannot hide any of my traits or emotions, and when I read of girls sitting and watching how others interacted and copying people's social cues, I'm baffled. How did they do this? As a child I played by myself and was according to other people 'totally in my own world'. I couldn't copy other people's behaviours to fit in if I tried.
I do wonder sometimes if my life would be easier if I could mask - to be able to pass as normal when there's someone you need to impress who will only respect you if you appear to get the social code.
But I've also seen how damaging masking has been to my autistic friend who was late diagnosed - in these last few years I'm only starting to see the 'real her' because she's been masking the whole time.
Are there autistic people here who don't mask?
I recently stopped masking so much. I didn't even realize I was doing it. Late diagnosis in life. I started unmasking after reading the book, Unmasking Autism. It really hit me. I started unmasking in my last relationship. It ended the relationship as it was "too much" for the other person. Lesson learned. I'm learning how to unmask while operating within society. It's a balance. I did learn to copy my friends' social cues in high school until today. That's over 30 years ago now. It helped but not fully. I still have to mask or feel I need to. I haven't received very good results from not masking around a lot of people. There are a few where I can truly be myself.