A Mask For The World

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Where does anyone say your brain has nothing to do with your personality or behavior? I have autism and my identity is as different from other people with autism as all other NT's are. We are all individuals, autism or not.

Actually, research is beginning to show that we do have neurologies very distinct from NT people, though like you say we are also very distinct from each other.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/01/21 ... 80216.html

Yes, we do all have unique abilities and disabilities, but saying autism has no effect on your identity is measurably false. If autism made no difference in behaviour, none of us would ever be diagnosed. Your autism is as much a part of who you have turned out to be as your parents way of raising you, as your schooling, as your experience and as your family's genetic history. It ALL contributes to your identity. Saying it has no effect at all is wishful (and deluded) thinking.

It was a glib and funny remark. To be specific, I am no fan of identity and victim politics as they are a race to the bottom where groups of "marginalised" people fight between themselves for the rank of alpha victim.

"Alpha victim"?? Yeah, glib indeed.

Wonderful article! Beautifully written!

I'm learning to take the mask off. I'm lucky enough to be married to an aspie and have kids on the spectrum as well as a secure job, so I can do that. It is so freeing to just be me. My son has no choice - his autism is something he doesn't know how to hide. I don't want him to have to hide it, but I think it's nice to be able to hide it when you just want to fit in. I hope the world continues to move in a direction of embracing diversity - including neurodiversity so that in a not too distant future, no autistic person will feel a need for a mask.

I wish some of us could stop hating our autism and by extension, ourselves.

The NT's who are idiots make us feel bad enough. We shouldn't make it easier for them. We are NOT inferior, just different. It is THEIR problem.

In my world I have found it beneficial to me and mine to finesse situations.

I don't always show all my strengths or challenges.
This can happen at the Ping pong table to working with clients. (Such as when I worked at a State Prison.-almost 2 decades ago)

I have recently been evaluated and my doctors tell me that they think the official diagnosis is just a matter of time away. The mask that you are talking about is something that I have actually visualized before. "What do these people want out of me. What would they expect me to say in this situation.", I would think. I was a character. Never myself. Thanks for sharing this.

Unmasking myself from hiding all the years past has been an extreme challenge for me. I am tired of trying to be "NT" and ready to be myself. Thank you for this article.

This is really good! It brought me to tears! Excellent writing, man.

I love it

This notion is almost self contradictory because ALL humans put on masks to survive. Autistics are actually impaired in the art of mask wearing by being (to varying degrees) pathologically honest. Its hard for us to pull this off:

I appreciate and thank you for sharing this article.

I think the issue is that NTs tend to put on a mask opposite to what they feel, either for the sake of social harmony or tricking others. When autistic people talk about a mask, they mean appearing NT to express what they do feel inside, because it won't register with NTs otherwise. That's exhausting, and also has the psychological toll of making one feel like they have to constantly justify their having basic emotions to others. An NT mask doesn't feel that way, since it's meant to obscure.

An EXCELLENT article my friend. Very well thought out and it echoes much of my life as it has been. This "mask for the world" is what I like to call "my normal social shield." This shield is what I "put on" every time I go to work, as I've been fired so many times as well as suspended that I don't want to lose my job again because my co-workers "voted me off the island" for being too weird or... Autistic. As hard as I try to put on my "mask for the world", the stim suppression, the lack of pointing out of NTs mistakes, acting like NTs, etc. etc. it only created a lot of anger and stress and I would end up losing my job anyways. One wonders why I even try to act NT or "mask up".

Although, I have been making some progress lately ever since my diagnosis. I have been able to recall many of my stims from years before, like rocking back and forth, tapping my right hand on my right leg, etc. and I've been able to continue these habits, even in public. Stimming in crowded malls for example has been my latest achievement, stimming in restaurants too. When I used to stim as a child my father would hit me or would yell at me, especially my mother, to "stop fidgeting!" All. The. Time.

Stim suppression isn't something I recommend for any Autistic because of the stress and anger it creates. So, in my early 30s I had a heart attack. So did my younger brother, for the same reasons. All of that Autistic suppression, that "masking for the world" eventually caught up to us and our hearts literally gave out.

If I could "unmask" myself at work that would be ideal but that is an entirely different dynamic, and one that might cause me to lose my job... again. If I could retire and live in the mountains then I would be saved from another heart attack AND I wouldn't have to mask FOR ANYONE! *sigh*

One day maybe...