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greenstormI've been trying to write this for awhile -- I actually had the window open yesterday -- but today a lot more information came to me and everything makes more sense.
This is pretty weird for me to write because on some level we assume that other folks operate similarly to us. I've learned that I'm not sure how other folks act. This leaves me suspicious that maybe they do operate like me after all?
But. Masking. This is the term autistic folks use to describe unnatural, self-protective, camouflaging behaviours that allow them to be safer in neurotypical society. Masking can mean doing things, or it can mean not doing things. It can mean holding your body a certain way, matching a speech cadence, not saying what you think or feel, saying things you don't think or feel, and performing prescribed rote verbal, physical, and facial sequences. It can mean cultivating an acceptable hobby so there's something to talk about, or avoiding an unacceptable interest.
Many folks who discover their autism as adults feel like nearly everything they did for most of their lives, or at least when they were around other people, was masking. There can be a pervasive sense of not knowing who the self is, not knowing what the self wants, not knowing what to do when truly unobserved and not performing a role. Masking can be exhausting and so a lot of autistic folks can present as "introverts" who need time away from people (or at least neurotypical people) to recharge, but it's the masking and not the fact of other humans that's draining. Think of it like always being onstage in a play you haven't seen the script to, and need to guess at your lines and blocking from context. Except think of it happening for most of every day.
Many autistic folks really hate masking. Because they're treated poorly when they step out of line, they feel forced into it. There's a feeling that folks can't be themselves, that their true self is so terrible, that there's something so wrong with them, that the people around them ignore or subtly-or-less-subtly punish them when they show their true selves. This is why so many autistic folks have so much shame around who they are. Natural spontaneous autistic behaviour isn't tolerated by society and this creates the mask.
Autistic folks who are good at masking often make it to adulthood without knowing they're autistic, just carrying that feeling of something wrong with them. The medical model considers this to be "high functioning" autism, or colloquially "a little autistic" or "you don't look autistic". To be very clear, though: masking is a skill that some people are more willing or able to do, but it is exhausting and alienating. If there was less stigma around autistic behaviours -- if these behaviours were considered to be within the acceptable, normal range of human behaviours -- autistic folks wouldn't need to devote so much energy and skill to masking and could instead spend it on knowing themselves and making happy and fulfilling lives.
For myself things are a little different. PDA is a pretty weird place on the spectrum. PDA folks are described as "appears social, but lacks some understanding". When I first read this I didn't really agree with it and maybe I still don't. I'd like to revise it to "analytically and deliberately social" (rather than the neurotypical spontaneous unconsidered social participation).
Many PDA folks use social behaviours like word choice, tone of voice, body language, and clothing as tools to engage socially. Many of us like engaging socially. Fitting our mask to the situation can be a pleasant challenge. Using the mask to carefully and gently reveal just the right amount of our inner world to disarm and entertain folks. And I love language, like I love using any tool well suited to my purpose. To borrow a quote, "I'm fascinated by discourse and find it all intellectually interesting to read social cues but of course it's also draining. I'm so successful at this I've always been considered sociable and have also had the issue others describe of having such empathy that many burden me by sharing problems that are inappropriate to the nature of our relationship [...] I'm often considered a particularly interesting conversationalist in large part because of the norms I violate".
You know me. Sound familiar?
I've heard PDAers refer to masks as personas. Many refer to social behaviours as tools. I've been trying all my life to get folks to recognise that language is a set of varying tools, selected to be used on a particular audience to achieve a particular goal. I don't get a lot of recognition on this. Language is most certainly a thing I do, like sweeping the floor or driving a car, not a thing that's part of my internal experience.
Being in people's presence I want to communicate because I like connection, and so I shape most of my outward self to that end. I have no idea what neurotypical folks feel around other neurotypical folks, how they experience connection and reaching-out and communication and company. I understand it may be less self-aware and less deliberate. To be clear, I'm not saying I don't sometimes get into the flow of this and do it fluently and comfortably and almost without noticing. I am saying that, any second I'm within visual range of a human, if asked I could instantly list all the things I'm doing with my voice, body, words, and other social presentations to take that person into account. It's always reachable in my awareness.
I suspect this is why I'm energized by relationship discussions. I'm surfacing a lot of this awareness during those discussions -- how do we behave, what do we want -- so I'm masking just a little bit less during those times.
Most autistic folks want to throw off their masks and behave as themselves in public. Until I learned that PDA folks are mostly ok masking, I was really chewing on this. I am still thinking about this, doing the standard post-discovery review of everything I've ever done in my life and fitting it into this lens. I do know-- I consider myself to be an expression of my little piece of land, whatever piece of land that might be at the time. I'm not myself when I'm not engaging on that land somehow. I'm also-- when I'm alone and on my land and given time and space to engage with it, I feel like (and I'm stealing this phrase from another PDAer) a snowglobe settling. Eventually I feel like a snowglobe settled, at peace, though to the observer this might look like running a rototiller through the garden or sorting through seeds or chasing geese. My mind feels different during those times with no other people. I feel different.
And it seems like PDAers mask, not just because of particular stimuli from the world around them, but instinctively. Apparently it's not just the abused ones of us that automatically hide pain. I know that goes deep in me, to the point that my therapist has to keep reminding me that I can reveal this stuff to others.
To borrow another quote, "I've started working on consciously ignoring [every possible subtext and interpretation that people don't talk about directly] and give myself a fucking break. I used to end up being everyone's therapist because I got so skilled at cognitive empathy in a way that gave people space to feel whatever they were feeling instead of projecting myself onto them and expecting them to feel how I would feel. Now I let myself mask less and my boundaries with people end up way more appropriate and less draining on me".
I've been working on that lately and it's... true. That's how it works. When I make more space for myself there's less space for other people and vice versa.
That was a pretty long ramble and I'm not sure where it's got us, except that masking sucks for many people and is maybe more complicated for me. I'm done writing now, though, so-
This is pretty weird for me to write because on some level we assume that other folks operate similarly to us. I've learned that I'm not sure how other folks act. This leaves me suspicious that maybe they do operate like me after all?
But. Masking. This is the term autistic folks use to describe unnatural, self-protective, camouflaging behaviours that allow them to be safer in neurotypical society. Masking can mean doing things, or it can mean not doing things. It can mean holding your body a certain way, matching a speech cadence, not saying what you think or feel, saying things you don't think or feel, and performing prescribed rote verbal, physical, and facial sequences. It can mean cultivating an acceptable hobby so there's something to talk about, or avoiding an unacceptable interest.
Many folks who discover their autism as adults feel like nearly everything they did for most of their lives, or at least when they were around other people, was masking. There can be a pervasive sense of not knowing who the self is, not knowing what the self wants, not knowing what to do when truly unobserved and not performing a role. Masking can be exhausting and so a lot of autistic folks can present as "introverts" who need time away from people (or at least neurotypical people) to recharge, but it's the masking and not the fact of other humans that's draining. Think of it like always being onstage in a play you haven't seen the script to, and need to guess at your lines and blocking from context. Except think of it happening for most of every day.
Many autistic folks really hate masking. Because they're treated poorly when they step out of line, they feel forced into it. There's a feeling that folks can't be themselves, that their true self is so terrible, that there's something so wrong with them, that the people around them ignore or subtly-or-less-subtly punish them when they show their true selves. This is why so many autistic folks have so much shame around who they are. Natural spontaneous autistic behaviour isn't tolerated by society and this creates the mask.
Autistic folks who are good at masking often make it to adulthood without knowing they're autistic, just carrying that feeling of something wrong with them. The medical model considers this to be "high functioning" autism, or colloquially "a little autistic" or "you don't look autistic". To be very clear, though: masking is a skill that some people are more willing or able to do, but it is exhausting and alienating. If there was less stigma around autistic behaviours -- if these behaviours were considered to be within the acceptable, normal range of human behaviours -- autistic folks wouldn't need to devote so much energy and skill to masking and could instead spend it on knowing themselves and making happy and fulfilling lives.
For myself things are a little different. PDA is a pretty weird place on the spectrum. PDA folks are described as "appears social, but lacks some understanding". When I first read this I didn't really agree with it and maybe I still don't. I'd like to revise it to "analytically and deliberately social" (rather than the neurotypical spontaneous unconsidered social participation).
Many PDA folks use social behaviours like word choice, tone of voice, body language, and clothing as tools to engage socially. Many of us like engaging socially. Fitting our mask to the situation can be a pleasant challenge. Using the mask to carefully and gently reveal just the right amount of our inner world to disarm and entertain folks. And I love language, like I love using any tool well suited to my purpose. To borrow a quote, "I'm fascinated by discourse and find it all intellectually interesting to read social cues but of course it's also draining. I'm so successful at this I've always been considered sociable and have also had the issue others describe of having such empathy that many burden me by sharing problems that are inappropriate to the nature of our relationship [...] I'm often considered a particularly interesting conversationalist in large part because of the norms I violate".
You know me. Sound familiar?
I've heard PDAers refer to masks as personas. Many refer to social behaviours as tools. I've been trying all my life to get folks to recognise that language is a set of varying tools, selected to be used on a particular audience to achieve a particular goal. I don't get a lot of recognition on this. Language is most certainly a thing I do, like sweeping the floor or driving a car, not a thing that's part of my internal experience.
Being in people's presence I want to communicate because I like connection, and so I shape most of my outward self to that end. I have no idea what neurotypical folks feel around other neurotypical folks, how they experience connection and reaching-out and communication and company. I understand it may be less self-aware and less deliberate. To be clear, I'm not saying I don't sometimes get into the flow of this and do it fluently and comfortably and almost without noticing. I am saying that, any second I'm within visual range of a human, if asked I could instantly list all the things I'm doing with my voice, body, words, and other social presentations to take that person into account. It's always reachable in my awareness.
I suspect this is why I'm energized by relationship discussions. I'm surfacing a lot of this awareness during those discussions -- how do we behave, what do we want -- so I'm masking just a little bit less during those times.
Most autistic folks want to throw off their masks and behave as themselves in public. Until I learned that PDA folks are mostly ok masking, I was really chewing on this. I am still thinking about this, doing the standard post-discovery review of everything I've ever done in my life and fitting it into this lens. I do know-- I consider myself to be an expression of my little piece of land, whatever piece of land that might be at the time. I'm not myself when I'm not engaging on that land somehow. I'm also-- when I'm alone and on my land and given time and space to engage with it, I feel like (and I'm stealing this phrase from another PDAer) a snowglobe settling. Eventually I feel like a snowglobe settled, at peace, though to the observer this might look like running a rototiller through the garden or sorting through seeds or chasing geese. My mind feels different during those times with no other people. I feel different.
And it seems like PDAers mask, not just because of particular stimuli from the world around them, but instinctively. Apparently it's not just the abused ones of us that automatically hide pain. I know that goes deep in me, to the point that my therapist has to keep reminding me that I can reveal this stuff to others.
To borrow another quote, "I've started working on consciously ignoring [every possible subtext and interpretation that people don't talk about directly] and give myself a fucking break. I used to end up being everyone's therapist because I got so skilled at cognitive empathy in a way that gave people space to feel whatever they were feeling instead of projecting myself onto them and expecting them to feel how I would feel. Now I let myself mask less and my boundaries with people end up way more appropriate and less draining on me".
I've been working on that lately and it's... true. That's how it works. When I make more space for myself there's less space for other people and vice versa.
That was a pretty long ramble and I'm not sure where it's got us, except that masking sucks for many people and is maybe more complicated for me. I'm done writing now, though, so-
