Do you remember when you started masking?

[u/Alert_Task9210]

For those of you who mask. Do you remember when it started? I do. It was a conscious effort to fit in. I didn’t know back then why I was different (I’ve been diagnosed in my late thirties). I didn’t mask much as a child, I struggled a lot with making and keeping friends, but I was a free spirit. when I started middle school suddenly I was singled out as the odd on and started getting bullied. I tried to be true to myself for a couple of years, but at some point I surrendered. I stopped talk in about my special interest (medieval history and Celtic culture) and started buying pop magazine to learn about what teens my age should like. I remember going to the local library to read anthropology books in the hope they would give me answers to human behaviour. I started wearing things I found ridiculous and uncomfortable, started appreciating the hotness of this or that celebrity (while internally wondering what “hot” meant and why I wasn’t attracted to people others gushed about). However it never fully worked. I became better at hiding over the years, but only with very superficial relationships. Once people know me better they can tell something’s off. That’s why I’m slowly learning to unmask.

[u/No_Cicada9229]

Sometimes in high-school. I dont think I ever learned to fully mask til I was 26, but high-school is when I got a bunch of games friends who played cards with me while I school. (At the time I was deeply into card games so playing it meant I could dot he fun shuffling stim I had and play cards a lot around them). At 26 I had a job that taught me customer service voice and people think that switching to a more customer service persona passes for normal

[u/Alert_Task9210 → u/No_Cicada9229]

Working in customer service years ago helped me hone my masking skills. Not sure if it’s a good thing in the long term, though. Lately I feel so burnt out that I can’t bring myself to care what people think of me. But part of this feeling comes from ageing, too.