A Mask For The World

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Finding places (besides on line) to take off the mask has helped this writer.
They include small group at church, improvisational comedy, celebrate recovery and a few friends. The latter included my wife. Taking off the mask is something we call "fart real".
I have been fat and thin. Now I'm in between. When I was thin I even go "body checks" at Over Eaters meetings. Folks who had not seen me for awhile kept asking me of I was sick. They never asked that when I was obese.
Puppets are one of my ultimate masks.

Are emojis mask. Do I LOL when it's not funny?????
me...."Reader and Righter"

For me? After almost four decades with this "disease," after having to negotiate learning to live in a neurotypical world on my own??

The Mask just is what is. It is the reality, it is the necessity, it is the tool that makes something approximating a normal life possible. You can wear The Mask, and try very hard to permanently graft it onto your face, or autism can define you and pretty severely limit your life.

By the most liberal estimates, counting every autistic person, we're about 3% of the population. Grudging acceptance-- being tolerated with pity, or humor, or scorn, or by "passing" and letting the mockery pass because they don't realize it applies to us too-- is The Happy Ending.

That makes me feel very sad, and very tired. The Mask is draining. It is isolating. It means never relaxing, never really having a genuine connection with another human being.

But at least we are teaching kids younger now. I was 13 when I first put on The Mask; I had learned to conceive of a life without it (had been taught that I was fine as I was, beautiful in fact, there was nothing wrong with me, and had lived under that premise until I got tired of having taunts and objects thrown at me and took it upon myself to put a stop to it) and resented it very much (still do). Maybe if young autistics are taught to craft and wear the mask from early childhood, it cuts down on the cognitive dissonance. I don't know.

How old are you? At what age were you diagnosed?? What therapies did you receive??

62
various therapies
use of Celebrate Recovery
self diagnosed years ago
officially recently
my counselor and I talked about down side of meds L/T decreased creativity. (Which I use on and off stage- the creativity not the meds)
It was my side gigs mentioned on my resume which led to my present long term position.

Probably the earlier and more tightly you put on a mask the earlier and harder the inevitable breakdown and ensuing mental illnesses such as depression and disassociation will occur. Depression can be treated with drugs, forgetting who you are, very difficult to overcone. This is a true lose lose situation. It SEEMS like it is almost impossible to change the status quo. It IS an impossible task for most autistics to continue on with the status quo forever.

Mask can create baggage.
One that I kept close to my heart was the SHAME bag.

One of the "voicesinmyhead.com"
would whisper They know"

A twisted quote I use in my gigs
If it don't kill me , it goes in the act.

Someone said ""If we can't laugh at ourselves, others will beat us to it." My add on...or it will come out in daggers towards others or ourself.

"Esther remembered
Vashi would not strip herself for the king and his crowd
And she had her head
Well I am not her, and though I’d rather die I’d give in anyway
Ester remembered this
But I am not Esther
I am not the wife of Queen
And when I stand, I bleed
As the bullets fall like rain "

The mask has been very deadly for me. When I go outside and into the world, it's pure performance art. When at home, and alone, I am the same inside, but not stressed from having to perform. It's going to take me a while to get to a natural balance.

The Dx explained me. Did not define me. It did that all by itself by causing massive implosions. Sometimes when the masks failed in public. My stressors are because I know how badly things can fail. Now that I know a mechanism, I want to learn prevention so that instead of climbing up and then falling back to the bottom again, I can just keep somewhat a balance. Each time the fall takes me back to a 'beginning'. And, it's harder to get back up each time.

I am just finding new things to do. A lot of time has been wasted by people who just want to drug me up instead of focusing on skills. That's bugging me more than anything else.

I try to break away my mask; at least, the one that i build to hide my autistic traits.

I am a regular person, i have my strengths, flaws and quirks. some of them happen to be described by the label "Aspergers syndrome".

Indeed, i do not let my label define me, but i do speak up when i see others using it as the punchline to a joke.
I do also speak up to other autistics that try to use their autism as an excuse, i am against that. AS is (part of) the reason i make mistakes, and it might be an explanation, but never an excuse.


When i joined my college campus home, i introduced my diagnosis along the lines of "I am diagnosed with aspergers, which means i interpret social situations differently, i might make mistakes becouse of that. I apologize in advance and ask of you to correct me on such mistakes, i promise i will not feel offended when you do."
I did not do this the first day, although in retrospect i should have, but after a year.
After disclosing in this way; we went, as a group, over the bottled-up frustrations my housemates had and, as a group, found ways to mitigate similar issues.
Indeed, there were no more issues after that. i made mistakes, i got corrected, noone felt hurt; these same 'rules' were explained to newcomers.



A mask is not needed in a semi-tolerant society, all you need is the willingness to adapt.

Was the dandruff question to make a point or a joke. I do comedy and sometimes don't get humor. I don't wear labels of other things such as my blood type, religion, hay fever, profession etc or Autistic level 1. Outside of here, church, select venues of gigs, and a few friends my Diagnosis is not used.
My creativity is used on and off stage. ( my day gig) Some like it some view my behavior as wired. Besides accepting my weirdness ,
I'm known as a resource in my field locally and regionally. Inspire or because of it, has led to presentations on local , state and regional workshops / conferences. I'm told my whimsical presentations have more substance than traditional ones.
Sometimes that surprises and amazes me.

I've noticed being more balanced with mask versus finessing situations I have fewer melt downs. I noticed also taking off the need for everyone to like me helped. Other people's opinion of me was not my business and continue to do the next right thing. ( whije using trusted mentors to test my views)
I can only share my experience as a new diagnosed 62 year guy working in the same field since 1978 ish. (Both comedy and the "day gig")

I need a detachable mask to save my life. I wear that mask when I'm with my family and when I'm at work. When I'm back in my part of the city, I can take that mask off and put my helmet on. That mask helps me to save my ass around my parents and at my job. It will make it possible for me to have a job and be a part of my family for many years to come.

Okay, I read all the responses, and I think many people are misunderstanding the point the author is making. First off, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with you letting autism define you or not, it's about how OTHER people define autistic people. Second, the point with the mask isn't just a matter of courtesy, it's not a matter of not looking autistic so people don't just you for being weird, it's about not looking autistic so people don't judge you for being AUTISTIC. The point is not that we shouldn't have to act like decent people in public, but we shouldn't have to hide the fact we are specifically autistic due to fear of whatever from stereotypes.

ZK

I Think I understand your point
As a late bloomer( diagnosed at 62) I remember ways I tried to deal with this.
Unknown secrets in my mind were a conundrum to me, my family, employers and even my audiences.
During the comedy explosion of the 80's - one set would go smooth another the next week or day could go south.
Speaking of melt downs
I'm going old school and me or my wife puts a sticker on the fridge after days without them.