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Learn To Unmask - By First Learning About How Women Mask

DormouseAtRest_25

If women have masked for decades; it can be really difficult to recognise how / when the women mask - to the extent that the women themselves may find it difficult to recall who they were before the masking became their autopilot ...until that is; they reach burnout.

Re-learning about the 4 main ways women mask can help women who are trying to learn how to unmask (particularly relevant to the late diagnosed / self-identified / self-realised Autistic women).

Why do we mask?  What are the benefits and downsides?  How do Autistic women mask?  The biggest misconception about autistic masking?

"4 Strategies of Masking in Women"

By Autism From The Inside

Video: 12:35 minutes

www.youtube.com/watch

  • There are so many forces that affect autistic people in everyday life to behave in certain ways. I cannot help thinking that an expectation to unmask is just another one of these, this time from sections of the autism community. If masking and camouflaging do not cause you any distress and you cannot envisage how to unmask at all, please do not feel pressurised to conform to anyone else's expectations.

    Unmasking is not a universal panacea for all autistic people. It helps some, but to others it is meaningless and impossible to do.

  • in reply to Damojo

    Thanks for replying. My diagnosis is a comfort but it has raised so many questions - you’re right though baby steps.

  • in reply to Sho
    Sho said:
    The thought of being rejected or dismissed is honestly really frightening

    I'm in the same boat. My strategy is to take it really slowly. For example, I'm stimming much more often at home and, while I tend to keep it to myself, I'm slowly becoming less self-conscious about being "caught" doing it.

  • I’m not even sure when or where I’m masking anymore. Over time, I’ve learned to blend in, keep myself small, and focus on pleasing others—it’s become such an automatic defence mechanism. Now, I don’t know where to begin with unmasking. The thought of being rejected or dismissed is honestly really frightening.

  • Urgh I’m such a performer. When he read that bit I just thought it’s me. Very hard to drop the act too. 

  • I think it's been like a really deep exfoliation, just rubbing away all the years of crud until my real face is visable, but I think, I've been slowly unmasking for years, long before I knew anyting about autism, it's just part and parcel of the spiritual and personal growth world I was part of for so long.

    I think it's a bit like therapy where the therapist walks beside you in your own personal forest asking if that's a tree or a piece of wood that can be cleared.