The title says it.
this is what lead me to realising that I have autistic traits, and realising that I am actually autistic. The masking. Every. Single. Day.
When I was not aware of what I was doing, it was much harder. Seeing myself as someone else, fictional or non-fictional. A character from a show that I like. Copying micro mannerisms, saying the things that they say, copying every tiny detail about them, it could be a small head movement that they did for a single frame in the entire series. I was not actively aware that I had been doing it for so long.
but now that. i am aware of my autism and my masking, it is also hard because it is something that I am trying to get rid of. It is exhausting, having to tell myself that I am not that thing, it could be positive and negative too.
that is the problem of it. I become someone else entirely, and my decisions and actions can be completely out of my hands, because I have to be this character.
i have lost friendships, relationships and family because of it. I have never been able to make a true connection in my entire life, because I am constantly never giving someone my entire true self. It is debilitating.
the amount of energy, focus, attention and work that I put into trying to take off the mask, is enormous. I am struggling to type this, because I need to know that I put the most important points in here, even though I know that I will be unable to do that, because I am typing about a topic that has been affecting me for decades.
things started to go wrong in my life when I was becoming a early teenager. This is because as the kids around were also getting older, the differences between myself and the other kids in my class became more noticeable. The childish behaviour grew out of most children, but I did and I still do seem quite childish in my ways to people. And that is where people can quite clearly notice that I am autistic.
the masking led me down a confusing, harmful path, that I am still getting help to untangle and drop from my mind. It’s awful the things that happened, and all because of my masking.
i will never want to change who I am, or what I am like, as a person, because I am proud of what I have achieved, what I am achieving, and what I will achieve, Realising that I am autistic has allowed me to hone in on my strengths, and it has made me realise that I have superpowers in a different way to neurotypical people. My maths, for example, is extraordinary, my problem solving, my ability to make a decision without letting emotions cloud my judgement. My attention to detail, the strength that I have built. It has all crafted, forged me into the man that I am today.
but also realising that my masking is something that I will be battling to combat every day, for the rest of my life, because of a neurological condition, that I have no control over, and that cannot be cured, is devastating. I have absolutely no strategies whatsoever in how to consistently drop the mask and all the while, still then be able to juggle and carry all of the physical and emotional weight that I am carrying.
i struggle because of the way that I am. And it has made me realise that there is something that not only I, but every neurotypical person on the planet cannot predict or change the outcome of. And that is circumstance.
bad things happen to everyone, ‘disability’ or no disability. No one can predict what will happen, but I think from what I have seen so far, up until this point, in my life, that autistic people cannot cope with change as greatly as a neurotypical person can.
i have always hated change, and I hate when people leave. I can’t say goodbye, and I always tell people to never tell me goodbye.
if you read all of this, then thank you for taking the time out of your day to do so.
