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High masking self v Authentic autistic self

Lemon slice

Does anyone else who's high masking feel like there's such a massive gap between the external presentation of self to others and the internal self. Even with those closest to me. 

It feels like the bigger that gap has been, the harder the crash during burnout. It feels like there's further to go for me to get my true authentic autistic self. 

I was self diagnosed for 9 months before got official diagnosis. I went for this mainly because I was so good at masking (which I'd just found out about) that I didn't think anyone would believe me that I'm autistic!

I suppose I'm now in the period of shortening that gap!

Parents

  • I was thinking about masking last night and had a midnight, well 1am, epiphany; everyone has masks they use to get through the day and all the situations and roles we play, from teacher, to pot wash. The difference isn't that NT's don't mask its that they know that the mask they're wearing is authentically them in that situation. We on the other hand seem to think that to be authentic we should wear all our masks at once and that is us being authentic, only all the masks come with their own codes of behaviour, levels of attention etc and so we get a "short" as all the signals get confused and we're left with our brains frizzled and wondering why we don't feel integrated as a person?

    I wonder if the key word here is integration, we try so hard to ingetrate with everyone else, maybe we should try less hard and accept that all the masks, facets, faces etc are all real and authentic, we just use the one we need at the time. A diamond can have many facets and we can turn it around and look at them individually, but it never stops being a diamond. I think we can choose which facet is front facing whilst remaining a whole and authentic person.

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  • I was thinking about masking last night and had a midnight, well 1am, epiphany; everyone has masks they use to get through the day and all the situations and roles we play, from teacher, to pot wash. The difference isn't that NT's don't mask its that they know that the mask they're wearing is authentically them in that situation. We on the other hand seem to think that to be authentic we should wear all our masks at once and that is us being authentic, only all the masks come with their own codes of behaviour, levels of attention etc and so we get a "short" as all the signals get confused and we're left with our brains frizzled and wondering why we don't feel integrated as a person?

    I wonder if the key word here is integration, we try so hard to ingetrate with everyone else, maybe we should try less hard and accept that all the masks, facets, faces etc are all real and authentic, we just use the one we need at the time. A diamond can have many facets and we can turn it around and look at them individually, but it never stops being a diamond. I think we can choose which facet is front facing whilst remaining a whole and authentic person.

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