Everybody acts differently in different situations. Autistic masking is no different than that. Um, what? The first statement is true; even Autistic people act differently with their friends than they do in a professional setting, for example. The second statement is a complete and utter load of nonsense. When an Autistic person masks, it is not about putting on a persona. Rather, it is hiding their actual person. At least, it is for me. I do not don a persona because I am with friends so I can just be silly and cut loose. I do not don a persona because I am at work and need to be professional. When I mask, it is about removing the parts of me that make neurotypicals uncomfortable. Or when I was self-masking, that was removing the parts of me that were deemed unacceptable because they were not neurotypical behaviors. (Again, it is bad enough that I did that to myself, it is truly unconscionable that medical “professionals” do that to patients under the banner of ABA.)
Of course, I was unaware that I was masking and for most of my life had no idea what “neurotypical” or “neurodiverse” meant, or even that they existed. I despise the term “mask” even though, unfortunately, it seems to be widely accepted within the Autistic community (and I do use it, too, despite my personal objection). To me, a mask covers up. It is additive. What I do to get by in society, and did to myself, is not really covering up. It is subtractive. It is exhausting.
I am not prone to hyperbole (at least not legitimately; it does have a place in comedy, though). It has been less than six months since my breakdown and the self-mask finally fell. That subtraction is so unfathomable to me even though I am still barely learning how I am and what I need to cope. Healthily cope, that is. In hindsight, I now know that the reason I isolated myself so much was because without doing the things that I need to do, like stimming, I was on the edge of the mother of all meltdowns. I truly do not know how I made it for so many years, so many decades. Even thinking of my breakdown still causes my heart to race and my hand to reach for a worry stone (an unbelievably effective stim for me that I am so glad I found – story on that will be in another post). But I wish it had happened much, much earlier. Well, technically, if I am going to wish, I should probably wish that I had been diagnosed and given the necessary knowledge and accommodations so the breakdown never happened. (Please note, that I do not wish that I was not Autistic. I am Autistic and that is not a bad thing, or something that I would ever wish away.)
My actual life is not all that materially different than it was before. But now that I am beginning to finally understand how I am and what I need, I feel so much better. I even have moments of happiness. That was impossible when I was self-masking. I have a long way to go, of course, but removing so much of me will never happen again. I will never stop myself from stimming again. I may, and probably will, choose stims that may be relatively unobtrusive in public, but I will stim. (After completely stopping myself, I am still discovering what sort of stimming behaviors work for me.) While my life has not changed all that much, I am optimistic that it will change. As I heal from my breakdown, as I learn what I need, I will be able to find others that accept me for who I am, rather than shut myself off from the world because I was too scared to be who I am and too stupid to realize that I could not let anyone in because I did not even let myself in.
The things I do are absolutely necessary. My brain developed differently, and society is not at all built for me. I do not know how I was able to survive after removing so much of myself, but I do know that there is no chance that I could have continued much longer. That subtraction was devastating and kept me miserable for so long. Unfortunately, I suspect that there may be times when I do need to mask to the public, but I sincerely hope that one day, neither I, nor anyone else, will need to mask ever again.
I want neurotypicals to accept us. We will still have challenges, but if we are not forced to subtract pieces of ourselves, our strengths can help us tackle those challenges. When so much of our energy goes into maintaining the mask, we have so little left. Autistics have masked too long, primarily just to make neurotypicals comfortable. It is long past time for neurotypicals to make us comfortable by allowing us to be our authentic selves. There are so many Autistic people that have shared their stories, and more are adding theirs every day, so there is no excuse. You may not like our hands flapping. You may not like our agitated verbal deliveries. You may not like our honesty. You may not like where we look during a conversation. But you must accept all of it. You must accept all of us. It is cruel forcing another human to subtract behaviors that do not hurt others. It is cruel forcing another human to hide their authentic self. We are all people. We all have brains. Some just work differently. Allow us to be different. Allow us to be ourselves.