Published on 12, July, 2020
Tonight I went out with work colleagues for drinks and dinner. This was my first “night out” in a very long time indeed (at least a year).
I knew all the people well except for the partner of one of my colleagues, who I hadn’t met before.
But I was completely unable to mask, despite having done so for years. I was stiff and formal and weird, not the person I would normally be in this situation. So much so that my colleague’s partner seemed to almost take things in hand to look after me. I honestly felt she realised I was autistic and was lovely about it.
But I’m quite distressed at my complete loss of masking. Is this because I haven’t been out for a long time? Because I’ve now had my diagnosis and have changed as a result?
Have any of you experienced a complete loss of masking like this?
I have, its a strange experience but over time youll end up finding it hard to mask at all. Which could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Good because you arent spending all your energy on masking and you also let people see who you really are. But it could be bad for things like a job interview, but thats more of a problem on how society is set up and not because of what unmasking is.