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?
Acting "normally" will eventually catch up with you, I know from experience and it's not fun.
My advice is if you feel you can't present your true self, try and project a modulated version that you can keep up, it's like a lie, it's easier to believe if it has an element of truth.
Masking ASD is like hiding a bright light behind a blackout curtain. The light bleeds around the edges.
But ask yourself, do you mask to make yourself comfortable or so people feel comfortable around you?
There is really no choice. Either you learn to make other people comfortable, or you end up as a bum or as a low-paid labourer doing bad job in an abusive environment. Thankfully I managed to work from home, but I still have to pretend to laugh at my manager's idiotic puns and revolting attempts to act "managerly". Masking is a vital skill and you need to master it to survive.
That's it, unless you want to live like Joseph Kaczinsky in a shack in the wilderness. The people that advise you to "unmask" and "be yourself" are either dependents from somebody else, or welfare recipients living on benefits.