Published on 12, July, 2020
Does this make any kind of sense to anyone?
For me, society seems to be present me with a choice
1. Act normal, uptight and be accepted on the surface, as a walk down the street, but feel depressed, isolated because I have internally obliterated some of the essential quirky parts of my character.
2. Relax, act a bit quirky, and have people avoid me in the street, and be treated like some kind of rapist, mad animal or wierd alien sub-species.
From my own perspective, it seems that people outside have this extra, unnecessary layer, that is like an armed militaristic assault vehicle designed to convince people of their social status - it makes them seem fake, uptight and often rather reactionary, even if they identify as progressive or left wing, because they can't see past their social conditioning needs, that they push in my face at every possible mimenf. If I try to conform to their behaviours of physical uptightness, pushing out my personality like some kind of armed militaristic assault vehicle then my body has to become extremely tense indeed, it's like I'm absorbing all their uptightness, and externally I seem to go to the extreme of their behaviour and often appear robotic or irritable or unreasonably idealistic.
So, that's my dilemma either become robotic or be treated like a potential alien-weirdo-rapist.
Sound familiar, or not?
Yes familiar, though I think how I get percieved when I unmask is quirky-inconsistent-oddity I was fortunate to be born with a "cute" and expressive face and retain it into adulthood or so I've ben told quite a few times from different sources, I am trusted as much as any stranger on the street because by good fortune I have a very non thretening aura by default.My issue is once I open my mouth people don't know how to pigeonhole me into the neat categories that society likes to put people in, I talk with a "posh" accent apparently but then I use extensive slang from multiple sources, people can't even tell where I'm from. And although they don't stop being friendly I can tell it makes thems standoffish because they feel like not being able to read certain things about me is a barrier to us being anything other than amicable aquaintances. So being outwardly approachable doesn't necessarilly equate to easy friendship building. But I am as I have said before the kind of person that puts the aut in autist, I'm very self contained and self content, and I don't get lonely which has not always stopped me feeling oestracised but it has always kept me from feeling isolated in a negative sense.I tend to mirror mask just enough to build a raport with people and then try let it slip in early that I am ND so there's no shock when I can't or won't hold the mask up anymore because it's not in me to be fake, and sometimes that's worked actually, because nice people like that you felt able to trust them with that information. And if it doesn't work out then logically I chalk it up to you can't be friends with literally everybody not even if you were NT anyway. Sometimes even if there's nothing unpleasant about you some people will just not like you and there's nothing you can do about it so it's important for your mental health to realise you cannot take all rejection personally.