when did you start masking and why?

masking is a tool of survival that can be overused

getting more sick and burned out has forced me to unmask more. i definitely still mask but much less than i have in the past, and i’ve been forced to listen to myself more because my body physically won’t let me not anymore.

it feels alienating in a way because everyone who knew me when i was highly masked thinks that i just got “more autistic” when i know that i’ve always been this way. it shows how little i let anyone know about me, even people who are close to me.

it’s also freeing in a way because i am finally outwardly expressing how i feel on the inside most of the time, definitely not without severe anxiety but still doing it because i need to at this point. stimming and avoiding eye contact around new people, wearing my headphones and sunglasses indoors, not forcing myself to smile, so on and so forth. it makes me wonder when my masking got so intense that nobody knew who i was anymore.

i go back to 2nd grade, when i learned that how i acted was wrong and that i needed to adjust in order to exist around others (even though they would still end up clocking me in the end).

i go back to all the social mistakes i made throughout my life and the extremely deep embarrassment and shame i felt about them, obsessing over making sure they would never happen again. you’re not supposed to hold your arms up like that, you’re supposed to swing your arms when you walk, but not like that ew, you’re supposed to smile when this person talks, why do you have such a resting bitch face? why do you sound like such a robot? why are you moving like that? you’re so weird.

i also wonder if i would have avoided all the pain that i’m in today if i just stopped caring about what others thought and listened to myself and stayed unmasked. how much sooner would i have started stretching and using heating pads? how much sooner would i have stopped scheduling so many things? how much sooner would i have started using canes and shower chairs and headphones and neck braces and sunglasses? how much sooner would people know who i really am?

i am eternally grateful for the people that i have in my life today, especially after my social life shrunk drastically over the years. sometimes it feels like i’m introducing a brand new person to them, and i get so scared that they won’t like that person. sometimes i feel like i’ve lied to them.

all this to say, i still definitely mask. i’m still trying to force myself to unmask more, even if my social anxiety won’t allow me to sometimes. the difference now is that my body is forcing me to do it much more often, and it feels like both a good and a bad thing for me. good because i know it’s what i needed to do all along and it feels good. it feels like telling myself, my childhood and adult self, that i’m okay and i don’t need to pretend anymore. bad because i still have the voice in my head, culminated from a lifetime of external comments and looks and reactions, telling me that this isn’t safe. i need to tell myself that i’m not going to die even if it hurts.

i will talk to people about my special interests. i will hold myself and rock when i want to. i will say “i don’t get it” and “i’m out of spoons” and “i’m overstimulated.”

i will look at 7 year old me and pluck them right out of the situation with the other 2nd graders. i will sit them down and listen to them infodumping about sharkboy and lavagirl and world of warcraft. i will give them a pair of headphones and sunglasses to try on. i will tell them that the way they emote and move and act is perfectly normal. i will let them scream or say nothing at all and it would be okay.

it can be extremely healing and extremely jarring to think about when we first started masking and why. i urge others to explore this and allow themselves time to process and take baby steps in the direction of removing that mask.

the mask is a tool of survival in a world where one wrong look feels like death. but the mask is suffocating and you must tell yourself that you will live. you will live.