Newly diagnosed 47yo man

Waynelee10 said:

I want to be able to be me for a change without having to mask. But feel everone expects me to just carry on the same. 

Hello Wayne, welcome to the forum.

I understand what you mean about wanting to unmask and you can by all means do so, but be aware that to others they will see you start to act differently - weirder than you were before in some ways.

Consider how you would feel about another person close to you who started this strange behaviour change - you would probably think something was wrong with them or worse. It helps to realise this is the sort of image othes will have when you do this.

If you are comfortable with this and don't mind being socially distanced more so than at present then go ahead and unmask, but understand things will be different.

My personal experience and that of quite a few other late diagnosed males is that people don't want to know on the whole. There remains a stigma about any mental health issues and while you may want to educate them, there is a chance they won't want to know.

Especially with family be wary of pushing to educate them. There is an 80% chance of autism being genetic and even if they don't know this then you are raising the spectre of being one who is "wrong in the head" as I've been told by one relative. The taint of this in the family tree is something some are quite strongly against knowing about.

My own experience was to reduce my masking a bit while maintaining a survivable social life and not pushing it onto others to know about. I learned a lot about the subject and with the help of an autism knowledgale therapist was able to find ways to deal with childhood traumas I had completely blocked out, understand my experiences and behaviours in the light of autism and formulate approaches to making small changes in life to make life be much more comfortable for me.

It took a few years from diagnosis to get to my current state of being happy with myself, my traits and quirks but I feel in a really good place.

I even took early retirement to work on stuff I really love and it makes a tremendous difference not being a wage slave and needing to fit in just to pay the bills.

Just sharing my experiences - hopefully something in there is useful.

Waynelee10 said:

I want to be able to be me for a change without having to mask. But feel everone expects me to just carry on the same. 

Hello Wayne, welcome to the forum.

I understand what you mean about wanting to unmask and you can by all means do so, but be aware that to others they will see you start to act differently - weirder than you were before in some ways.

Consider how you would feel about another person close to you who started this strange behaviour change - you would probably think something was wrong with them or worse. It helps to realise this is the sort of image othes will have when you do this.

If you are comfortable with this and don't mind being socially distanced more so than at present then go ahead and unmask, but understand things will be different.

My personal experience and that of quite a few other late diagnosed males is that people don't want to know on the whole. There remains a stigma about any mental health issues and while you may want to educate them, there is a chance they won't want to know.

Especially with family be wary of pushing to educate them. There is an 80% chance of autism being genetic and even if they don't know this then you are raising the spectre of being one who is "wrong in the head" as I've been told by one relative. The taint of this in the family tree is something some are quite strongly against knowing about.

My own experience was to reduce my masking a bit while maintaining a survivable social life and not pushing it onto others to know about. I learned a lot about the subject and with the help of an autism knowledgale therapist was able to find ways to deal with childhood traumas I had completely blocked out, understand my experiences and behaviours in the light of autism and formulate approaches to making small changes in life to make life be much more comfortable for me.

It took a few years from diagnosis to get to my current state of being happy with myself, my traits and quirks but I feel in a really good place.

I even took early retirement to work on stuff I really love and it makes a tremendous difference not being a wage slave and needing to fit in just to pay the bills.

Just sharing my experiences - hopefully something in there is useful.