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#neurodivergent masking
bifflesnitch · 4 months
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The late diagnosed neurodivergent experience of being told you're wrong your entire fucking life.
You're too sensitive,
it's not too loud,
it's not too bright,
it's not overwhelming,
you're just overreacting,
it doesn't smell weird,
the texture is fine,
just eat it,
just wear it,
plans change get over it,
stop being so dramatic,
why are you so argumentative?
I was obviously joking,
why do you take everything so seriously?
I'm not yelling,
It's not a big deal,
stop nitpicking,
stop jiggling/rocking,
stop fidgeting,
stop humming/whistling/clicking,
stop talking about that,
no one cares,
you're annoying people,
you're so high strung,
just relax,
stop worrying,
stop overthinking,
just be normal
and then people act all surprised that you grow up to be an insecure, indecisive wreck. What else did you expect me to be when you spent my whole life teaching me my own perception was faulty and couldn't be trusted?
Grooming me to seek approval and validation from others for every decision I made because whenever I made them myself, they were always wrong.
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adhdxxsdiary · 1 year
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catmat · 1 year
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lying-on-floors · 4 months
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I always feel super guilty when I believe my friends don't like me anymore or that they hate me because they don't respond to my messages or posts. My rejection sensitive dysphoria just does not allow the rationalization to take hold, so I tell myself, "they hate me" or "they find me annoying" and other stuff that I just know is not true. Or at least I hope isn't true, because I only have three friends, as it's really hard for me to form and maintain friendships, despite having good social skills, and I think it has a lot to do with my social skills making up a large part of my neurodivergent mask.
I was really bad at making friends, or even getting people to like me, when I was little, and one of the biggest contributing factors was my neurodivergence, so, growing up, I observed what was considered acceptable from my well-liked classmates, and copied them. Eventually, as I grew older, and entered more "mature" spaces, I formed a very "eloquent" and "intelligent" way of speaking. In my junior and senior year of highschool, I was often paired with new kids, because I had the ability to make them feel comfortable. In fact, I had the ability to make anyone I was paired with comfortable, because number one, I made a conscious effort to make sure people around me were comfortable, to make sure they felt heard, because I know what it's like to be ignored and uncomfortable in a new space. Reason two, the mask I had cultivated was extremely likeable, as I fine-tuned all the positive traits that I already had, such as inquisitiveness, charisma, organization and empathy, making me a fit leader. I also was also told that I was "amazing at presentations and public speaking," as if everything about me hasn't been carefully crafted over my lifetime.
So, if I drop my mask around someone, I fear I will be rejected, which has happened before. So when I do drop my mask, it is a very intimate and terrifying thing for me, and I feel that my friends don't like me anymore, because I'm not the "me" they knew in school.
Sorry for the rant but I need to book a therapy appointment but it is so fucking nerve wrecking, so Tumblr is my personal diary right now.
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strange-nd-creature · 5 months
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Autistic Stigma Axis Chart
This isn’t meant to be taken really seriously, just comparing how different people experience different forms of ableism I guess. Honestly I think most autistic people have dealt with all of these things at some point.
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[Image: Axis chart with the horizontal being a scale from high masking to low masking, and the vertical being a scale from high support needs to low support needs. High support needs and high masking reads “told they don’t need accommodations because they look normal.” High support needs and low masking reads “infantilized by neurotypicals 24/7.” Low support needs and high masking reads “anxiety from being expected to be a savant genius.” Low support needs and low masking reads “perceived as allistics who are rude, weird, lazy, etcetera.”]
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Growing up with adhd/autism is constantly fluctuating between being too much and not enough for people like. Okay people have told me I'm annoying when I talk too much. But how much is too much? Because my normal is "too much" apparently. I'm just not going to talk at all and let them set the pace. Okay now everyone's saying "you're so quiet". Now I'm the weird quiet one who never talks. Fuck. But now how do I strike up a conversation? It's been too long without talking to them to get to know each other. I'm just going to wait for them to talk to me and then I can ask questions from there. Yay! They're asking me about myself! Wait. I said something wrong and they're not talking to me anymore. Fuck. *new person comes along* Okay. Don't talk too much and also don't talk too little and don't reveal too much about yourself because they'll think you're weird and stop talking to you and also-
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v01dg0th · 2 years
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I hear a lot about the autistic tendency towards honesty and authenticity, but what where are the other autistics who had their honesty and authenticity repeatedly and/or severely punished early on, and now feel conditioned to be inauthentic and insincere in social situations as a mask? It’s not that everything I say to others is an outright lie, but almost everything I say is very carefully tailored to be as watered-down, vague, inoffensive, passive and palatable as possible. It’s like I have such an intense, irreparable lack of understanding for what is expected/acceptable in every given social situation that I have to overcompensate by obsessively policing my own words and being myself and saying my genuine thoughts/feelings/opinions as little as possible.
It’s like knowing you’re supposed to color in a coloring page, knowing from experience you’ll be punished if you don’t, but not being able to see where the lines are drawn, so you color in as little of the page as possible in hopes that maybe you’ll be able to stay in the lines and avoid punishment, even if your art (or in reality- your self worth, ability to connect to others, etc) suffers as a result.
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bpdcrybaby213 · 1 year
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I just want to isolate and not tell them anything ever again. I wish I could be so secretive and good at masking that no one ever asks me what's wrong. I want everyone to be surprised when I eventually die by suicide. But I have a big mouth and a loud brain.
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fastbrain · 7 months
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Why didn't I make my faux neurotypical mask an idiot? Now people think I'm smart and I have to sacrifice all my spoons to the autism gods in exchange for entirely unnecessary quick wit and emotional intelligence.
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lucisadventures · 2 years
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Do you guys know that feeling
When you spend most of your teen years slowly accepting the possibility that you may be a sociopath but it turns out you're not a sociopath and it's called masking and now you have to learn to control it in order to not feel like an imposter?
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bifflesnitch · 9 months
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The undiagnosed neurodivergent experience of being the only friend to all the obvious/non-masking neurodiverse kids who used to get bullied by everyone else at school because you didn't see anything wrong with them.
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adhdxxsdiary · 2 years
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Undiagnosed autistic culture is obsessing over the topic of autism, feeling validated by the incredible similarities in your own life, relating to every autistic individual in some way or another, fulfilling most if not all DSM 5 criteria on ASD, taking every autistic test you could find online all confirming you are very likely autistic...
...but still end up doubting you even have it.
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It's always kind of shocking to realize how painful masking can be for neurodivergent people. I basically crashed and burned last Summer, resulting in a burnout & months off sick. And practically nobody noticed, even as I was crashing. Safe for a very few close friends and family, who knew partly cause I told them. Not because it's their fault, not because they weren't paying attention, they very much were paying attention and they very much cared about me.
But I am THAT good at hiding it. I'm so good at acting ok, that I myself don't realize when I'm not okay half the time. And I can't tell you how much it hurts, because I know people were so ready to open their arms for me, would have been so glad to take my hand, if only they had known.
I know for a fact that I'm not the only one going through this, so to my friends and mutuals and anyone else who sees this and feels like this is them: HUGS and hang in there. We'll get through this.
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catmat · 1 year
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My attempt of masking my neurodivergence slips a lot but even more when I'm in pain. Today I gave a compliment to someone only to be mocked in return because of my monotone voice and blank expression.
I'm sorry that I couldn't be neurotypical enough when in crippling pain. It's hard enough to mask let alone trying to do it when in agony.
Put them in my situation. I'd like to see them try.
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strange-nd-creature · 6 months
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I’m stuck masking forever and don’t know how to get out of this situation
I’ve been masking for so long that my parents think that’s how I naturally act. This means that if I attempt to relax and be myself for even one second, they think I’m being annoying, attention seeking, or lazy.
I want to stim whenever I want. I want to wear headphones in public when it’s too loud for me. No, I don’t care if it makes me “look disabled” because I AM disabled.
I need help with things, but I don’t get help. Daily tasks like getting dressed, making lunch, and even brushing my teeth are hard for me because of severe executive dysfunction. My mom says that stuff happens to everyone. But I’m pretty sure she’s never been in pain because she’s hungry but doesn’t have enough spoons to be able to eat.
I don’t know how I ended up masking this much, but I hate it. I’ve finally learned how to stop, but I’m not allowed to.
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The funniest thing about me never having any friends when I was little and only caring about books is that I just straight up never learned how to mask
Like I have this really weird very bad full body stim that I’ve had since I was little and kids would make fun of it and be like “wow how do you do that haha that’s so weird” and I just straight up didn’t realize that they were making fun of me
And then when I actually did get friends, they also ended up being neurodivergent so I never felt the need to mask
So I just straight up never learned how to mask. And then you look over at @olliesprettylame and they’re masking constantly. And guess what, he’s one of my best friends!
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