masking

I have done the same since realising that i am autistic. As though having the diagnosis gives us permission to be ourselves and this is liberating. 

I wonder if others had already noticed my stimming and quirky ways, it was just me that hadn't so much? X

Yeah, he has been posting......DOH! You almost caught me out there 

Has anyone seen Amerantin today??

Ben

I can do a damned good impression of the Invisible Man.

Maybe not, but I believe many of us have had a damned good try.

Ben

I don’t believe that a person can disguise himself so much that he will not be noticed.

I think we all have this experience. I do, my mate and her undiagnosed family have started to do the same now they self suspect, everyone in these communities says the same thing. Masking gets harder when you know for sure you've been repressing your natural self all your life for the benefit of others. Full on dinosaur noises come out of mate now when she's excited. 

You can't put the jack back in the box once he's out.

I stim at school, I have the reputation of being odd but everyone is nice to me for the most part (except for some boys in my math class). I am also a female who is one year older or one year younger than 17 (I dont feel comfortable revealing my exact age). I think if you just were to tap your foot or squeeze your hands, people wouldnt notice too much (thats what I do). I also bring my house key clipped onto a carabiner and ill play with that, its a usual item to have so nobody sees it as strange as if I brought one of my fidget toys. I have extreme anxiety (along with selective mutism) but the more time that goes by of you starting to unmask, the less self conscious it will make you feel. Eventually you may even find it hard to mask at all!

I have only recently been diagnosed and I’m constantly thinking why do I now seem more autistic than I was before?! I think it’s a similar thing, like suddenly having an inner permission to be more free and realise why you do certain things. I’m really aware that the few people I’ve told will now think oh she’s just making a fuss or exaggerating things all of a sudden, whereas I now just feel okay to say things out loud (only at times) like no I can’t go there because I cannot cope with the noise or I’m struggling today because I cannot cope with the heat, but that is only around the very few people I know and trust. 

do people know about your diagnosis? 

If it’s something you’re worried about could you maybe do something like get one of those rings that you can spin, so to anyone else it would look like a “normal” ring and you wouldn’t be feeling that everyone else is noticing but still getting the sensory need that you get from stimming? For example I’m worried about the same thing and instead of wearing big ear defenders that everyone would suddenly notice, I have the inner ear loops. It isn’t to please or satisfy other people but just to make me feel less anxious and less obvious, whilst still benefitting from their purpose. 

Stim away - feel the freedom.

Maybe that's easy for me to say as I'm from an older generation, and quite frankly, I don't give a f*** what people think about my stimming. If they have a problem with it, then they can speak to me about it (or I will speak to them about it).

I appreciate that you are much, much younger and have different peer pressures, but please be free.
If it all goes t**s up, then at least we have the law on our side.

Hello. I think we all go through this after diagnosis, trying to figure out who we really are and where our masks begin and end.

I hope in time it becomes perfectly normal and accepted to stim in public. We shouldn’t feel we have to hide it.