In my 30’s and only within the last few years have I been able to really introspect my life, and realize behaviors that I’ve “created” or “fake” in social interactions. I struggled a lot in middle/high school, and even through my 20’s. I’ve essentially “found” myself to some degree in my 30’s, but I’m actually not sure how much of it is me and how much of it is masking.
I recognize the signs when I’m being fake in interactions that would benefit from being more genuine. It’s automatic, and I’ve noticed others take notice when it’s the wrong mask at the wrong time. Which just means I get better at it, which is nice and all, but it would be cool if it wasn’t such an automatic reaction.
So my question to all of you is how do you reduce masking behavior in situations or relationships where it may be beneficial or necessary to not do so?
Awkwardly I guess you could answer this with “You get better at it with time”, which is true of most things. However, I’m looking for some emotionally intelligent advice or anecdotes.
So, I recently learned about my own autism, also in my 30s, and I have begun the process of consciously unmasking quite recently - not a lot of experience yet.
What I’ve been doing is using my overactive self-reflection that was honed from going undiagnosed and being high-masking, to analyse where I might have been masking, what behaviour I might have done just to fit a specific role. For example, today I accepted some cake that a friend advertised in a group chat, that no one else seemed to want. In hindsight, while it was delicious, I was neither hungry for it, nor did I want to deal with the stress of him coming over to deliver it. But when I reflected on it, I realised I actually did this because I had internalised it as behaviour that is conducive to social connection, and “what is expected of me” when someon offers cake, even when I now very much feel the stress of having been interrupted by the offer, by accepring it, by getting myself ready to leave my apartment, actually going outside to meet up, the smalltalk involved, walking with a cake through the street afterwards. All stuff that actually stressed me out quite a lot.
While waiting for him outside, I allowed myself to close my eyes, listen to music and rythmitically drum on my thighs consciously - something that I know I repressed completely before, without even knowing. Unlike in the decades before, I also did not focus on thoughts of self-loathing like “why is something so simple so hard for you? What the hell is wrong with you?”, consciously pushing thoughts and feelings like that away as best I could.
At the moment, I am very much still sorting what even is behaviour that comes to me intuitively from “myself” and what is a mask - mostly by reflecting on the amounts of stress and overstimulation I feel after the fact, and then trying to consciously avoid the things that I realise, after the fact, were most likely long internalised masking behaviour.
That all being said, I also try to appreciate my masks as something I can go back to as a talent, when the tradeoff of their use is worth the additional stress. Being able to speak publicly, being able to look people in the eyes/face if needed, and other things, are good to have in some situations.
Using the amount of stress generated by the activity as a heuristic for masking is brilliant. Thanks for your post!