Published on 12, July, 2020
I’m relatively newly diagnosed (in my early 40s) and recently been reflecting on the extent to which I mask. Some posts in other threads have questioned people’s masking at diagnostic assessment as if the person can choose when to mask and when not to. For me it’s not that simple - there’s masking I’m conscious of and ‘could’ stop if I tried/had to, but there’s other masking I definitely do that has been ingrained since childhood. I can’t just choose not to do this latter type and I’m working hard to identify all aspects of it at the moment as I haven’t been conscious of it but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t caused me problems - main thing being residual stress. Just wanted to share these thoughts. Has anyone else thought about this?
I'm the same. Being in my low 50s, I can't just switch it off. I don't even know where the off switch is! I didn't even know what I was doing was something that other people didn't.
In the camouflage questionnaire, I scored high for Assimilation, but low for the other two categories. As I reflected on this, I realised that I did do things in the other categories but on autopilot. I realised this before my report was finalised, and they put this self observation in there.
I even contacted the (very nice) creator of the questionnaire about it, and they were so gracious and gave a good rational why they had to limit the number of questions and that she was totally aware that some masking can become automated.
It's a fascinating subject.
Just seen that this is in "women and girls". I know that traditionally this is something more associated with females, but I am considered high masking.