Do You Wear a Mask in Public?

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To hide who you really are?

If I say whatever comes into my head people get a peculiar and lopsided impression, even more false than the impression they get from my relatively controlled performance as a relatively normal human being!

I don't know about you but my "true self" has many aspects. They can't possibly all be active at the same time!

For instance, with my girlfriend there is a big part of me that just wants to put my head in her lap and be comforted. I can't expect her to put up with that all the time, and if I did that other equally genuine parts of my persona would be crowded out and unable to express themselves. We always have to make choices about what parts of ourselves get to come out to play at different times.

It's not a coldly chosen mask to deceive, but certainly when I am with other people I am always a tiring construction. My true self is only for me. Inevitably.

I have a little secret I wear upon my face
I keep it very near to me in a most convenient place.
I hope you do not guess it, you might take me to task
I take it out and put it on, it's my "normal" NT mask!

It keeps the world from pressing in; it makes me look like you!
I wear it so easily you won’t believe that it's not true
I laugh and nod and make my mouth do what passes for a smile
I walk and talk and do the stuff that makes me rank and file.

But underneath the artifice, I am bored with all your talk.
Your gossip and your ‘he said-she said’; at all of this I balk!
You're constantly rattling on about the very least of things
your husband's warts, your baby's farts, your last romantic fling.

I’m sure it’s very interesting, and I tilt my head just so
I don’t want to be left out, so I put on the show.
After all should I decide to let my Aspie out?
I could bore you too, to TEARS, and be thought of as a lout.

So when you’re on and on about the rights of "people of the pod*"
and force your strict conformity on politics, style, and God.
Mind games you play with no regard for innocence or youth
you're quick to point with fingers gnarled at what you see as 'Truth.’

But I bear it all with stoicism, and onward do I march
to keep lock step with all of you when inwardly I lurch
you rub me wrong, you irritate, you scrape my nerve ends raw
you constantly regale me with what you did and saw

So if I inwardly rebel against the draw of luck
and stifle yelling to your face, “you idiot! you suck!”
and out from the mask cracks the rebellion wells and oozes
pardon me, in the genetic crap shoot; YOU are the bunch of losers. ·


(Pod people) obscure reference to a 1957 black and white horror movie called "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" where people were cloned in pods like peas. it's poetic license, so sue me!

Wear one here too, if I get what you're asking. Very seldom drop some form of mask, intentional mask. Don't think it's even possible to do. I don't think of masks in a positive vs negitive light, either. One could argue there really is no such thing as a mask, I do think. Masks in the symbolic sense are interesting concepts to look at. Perhaps the baby at birth wears no mask, I'm not 100% certian about that either.

I've battled for a long time between trying to be normal or popular and just being myself and lonely around other people, and all it did was bring me anxiety and depression. Now, I don't care what people think of me; I'm confident that those willing to get to know me will like me for who I truly am, and the others don't matter.

The only exceptions to this and times when I do put on a mask and pretend to be normal is in official situations, where any erratic behavior would be contrary to my benefit. For instance, job interviews, talking to police, bank tellers, hospital staff, college counselors. In other words, people who can or do hold power over me, and can make my life hell by denying me whatever it is I am seeking from them, or people who may get suspicious that I am something that I'm not.

Yes. Although it is not always an adequate one, I don't think. My favourite mask is the joker one, that is a lot like the real me, some of the time anyway. I also have a 'don't mess with me' mask that is useful when I'm feeling vulnerable.

I feel that I must where a mask to hide the fact that I am not "normal'' around neurotypicals. I'm always watching what I say, how I sound, how I walk, facial expressions or lack, eye contact (too little/too much), smiling or not smiling, and allot of other little things. I often wish I could just be myself like other people. But it is not socialy acceptable to be the way I am

Yes, I know what you mean. It's so tiring isn't it? I think that's one reason why those of us on the spectrum need time alone, as ourselves, or with people who accept us as we are, to recharge our batteries.
I used to wear the NT mask when I was at work, I think maybe you have to, but I don't so often now in other situations. I am reaching the stage where I think ******'em. If they don't like me they can do the other.

Merle, I love your poem. It also reminds me of the film "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers", remember how they did that horrible scream when they saw someone who wasn't one of them? That's NT's for you!

Oh! Thanks, but it wasn't a subtle clue Merle! I've never seen "Night of the Living Dead." It was just a lucky coincidence.

Been wearing a mask in public for years...only problem is that every now and then it cracks when I'm under stress.

Merle...love your poem. Keep writing.