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Masking positive traits

McFrost

Does anyone have experience of masking so much that even traits that might be deemed positive, needed to be covered up? My example of this is memory and observation. So many times I would be involved in, or be near to a conversation for which I had a very important piece of information that could really have contributed to the conversation, but I held it back. It was almost always to do with a piece of information that I remembered, often some trivia or a number or a name, or something I had observed that others wouldn't have noticed. I did it because I feared that others would think that I was weird for remembering or observing such a small detail, so I was embarrassed to say anything. Even if it would have been really useful to do so!

Just another way that we try to fit in with the neurotypical world I suppose. I just wish I had more confidence about the things I am good at!

Parents

  • I remember in the run up to A levels the school decided to run some sessions on past General Studies papers. General Studies at O/A and A level was a thing back in the day. The exams were rigorous in themselves, but it wasn't a subject that could be taught as a course or revised for. Going through the past papers was in the format of a teacher reading out non-essay type questions and there being about a dozen of us trying to answer them orally. I then found that I seemed to be the only one who knew anything outside of what had been taught in class, or previously at O level. I remember being acutely embarrassed because it was a choice of a long pause while no-one answered, or me answering and looking like a 'know it all'. I would let the pause go on in the hope that someone else would answer, until the silence became too much and then I would reluctantly answer myself.

    It was a conflict between my hard-won knowledge concerning allistic norms about not 'showing off' and the unbearable pressure of those pregnant pauses.

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  • I remember in the run up to A levels the school decided to run some sessions on past General Studies papers. General Studies at O/A and A level was a thing back in the day. The exams were rigorous in themselves, but it wasn't a subject that could be taught as a course or revised for. Going through the past papers was in the format of a teacher reading out non-essay type questions and there being about a dozen of us trying to answer them orally. I then found that I seemed to be the only one who knew anything outside of what had been taught in class, or previously at O level. I remember being acutely embarrassed because it was a choice of a long pause while no-one answered, or me answering and looking like a 'know it all'. I would let the pause go on in the hope that someone else would answer, until the silence became too much and then I would reluctantly answer myself.

    It was a conflict between my hard-won knowledge concerning allistic norms about not 'showing off' and the unbearable pressure of those pregnant pauses.

Children