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what to do when your masks are gone

aurelis

I realised over the past few years that my masks were both listening to others and getting others to speak, and having some sort of achievement of my own or something I could talk about with people. Other than that, I realise I find it really difficult to speak. If I show my full self at the moment, it’s me being depressed, really lost, and circling around. It’s heavy and not something I want to put on people. After all, everyone gets those feelings.

I really don’t know what to do without those masks. I can’t speak much about myself and my life without feeling negative or trying to pretend I’m connected to something, and that is essential for deep meaningful connection right? Having that back and forth, having memories to connect to, and lots of humour.

I can’t lie so find it difficult to even fake the mask just so I can keep a good conversation going, and I feel as if I’m still very naive about the world, so I feel I have nothing to add to a conversation.

Something I’m dealing with and facing is the silences in conversation. It’s a scary thing to face, but I’m trying to sit with it, or even open up about my fear of the silences to some closer friends. And trying to be okay with the fact of “can I have friends even if I’ve got nothing to say or little to contribute? Will they still love me as I am, without the masks?”

  • I think you have the optortunity to chose whether to mask and which mask to use and when. Maybe your friends will like you more for being the real authentic you?

  • in reply to aurelis

    I am recently diagnosed so I’m working my way around to experiment with that. I’m very confused about who I am at the moment after a long time masking.

    i work by myself and I’m obviously unmasked then but there’s no interaction or feedback from others so I don’t think that’s a good representation of how I would be unmasked with others if that makes sense. 

    I’ll continue to be confused for the time being

  • in reply to Take5

    Thank you for the words. I have ND and NT friends. And I’ll mask with both, although I’ll reduce the mask with ND friends. I think what I have noticed though is that I have friends that are honest about negative feelings, and now I really pay attention to that in terms of thinking “okay, so I don’t need to default to “everything is fine”. I’ve had my dad say to me “you need to give people a chance” whilst I’ll compare myself to NTs and think “I’m just making excuses”.

    Take5 said:
    I often have nothing to say and very much feel like an extra on a film set, somewhat invisible and sometimes uninteresting. 

    Have you ever said to people about feeling this? I want to share this to some of my friends. The extra feels so relatable. I’ve been trying to fight that feeling but I often still feel like I’m watching life as a background character.

  • in reply to Damojo

    It’s a good point. You then just let them talk? Also I hope that they won’t ask me the same question. Recently when I read books, I can’t word how I feel about the book to them. And I have t watched much shows recently. 

    i don’t think it’s odd to read about such things. When I was younger, I read that it was news articles you had to keep up with to have a conversation point. So I was listening to the news radio for a lil bit. I’m now using radio 4 to help me keep updated so I have some world awareness for conversation.

  • in reply to aurelis

    I've been reading about a knack for this: ask about any good books they've read, or films or TV shows they've watched recently. It gets you away from small talk, but gives you a safe topic you can connect around. (Unless they're Gen Z'ers and only ever watch TikTok videos.)

    Of course, it's kinda odd that I have to read about things like that and practice them in my head before talking to people, but such is life.

  • aurelis said:
    “can I have friends even if I’ve got nothing to say or little to contribute? Will they still love me as I am, without the masks?”

    I believe you can and you definitely deserve to. Sometimes just being with someone you can share silence with is something very special in my opinion. 
    Are your friends ND or NT? either way if they are your friends I’m sure they would be very interested in your experiences and would appreciate you sharing your concerns with them about conversation and silences. 

    I often have nothing to say and very much feel like an extra on a film set, somewhat invisible and sometimes uninteresting. 

    Your friends should absolutely love you as you are and you deserve to be loved by them masked or unmasked. 

    Please try to go easy on yourself and stay safe 

    Take5

  • in reply to Martin

    That’s what I usually do, to work from what the other person thinks. Only thing is sometimes people ask about me and then I start to panic. I haven’t got the things to say in the moment and I’m scrambling to find parts to piece together. But I do think when I do this, I’m so worried about being interesting enough, and coming across enough like an “adult”.

  • I think that rather than being hugely interested in others, very many people are more interested in themselves. If you can find something in yourself that reflects or compliments what others find interesting you will be socially successful. Perhaps a little cynical, but I think it is true nonetheless.

    Rather than worrying about having a fund of interesting things about yourself to offer in conversation, concentrate on what the other person thinks and feels and work from that.