This is an excellent, complicated, and frustrating question. I am in my 40s and only recently got an official diagnosis. I’ve always been “weird” even though a lot of that got repressed in childhood because of ostracism/punishments/etc. Friends were few (but always “weird”) and relationships were nonexistent. I struggled through early adulthood, trying to do what was expected of me and just being exhausted all the time. Because, you know, “lazy.” I found a bit of stability in my 30s via the woman who I am still with (also ND) and a “good” job that wrung me dry for a decade. During that time I made some serious mistakes (mostly revolving around friends and housing) and it felt like that no matter what I did, whether it was following my impulses or denying them because I knew something was “wrong” with me and reality simply couldn’t be as I perceived it, it was the wrong decision.

2019 was a string of stressor after stressor, monumentally bad decisions as I tried to “do what I was supposed to do,” eventually culminating in a breakdown. After this, I knew something had to change. I was not aware that I had been masking the whole time, but I began to set boundaries. Friends were puzzled but went along for the most part. My spouse and I talked openly about them. And my employer was not happy in the least.

Things were finally starting to settle down a bit when Covid hit. She lost her job and I had to take a pay cut, but I got to work from home and as a result we got to spend a lot of time together. Work became less of a stressor for a bit after the initial mad scramble. The flip side is that I was spending all of my time in my poor housing decision. Every time I tried to take a positive step forward, it was like someone was waiting to beat my kidneys with a baseball bat.

It was around this point that we started spending more time with select friends as part of a “pod” (Covid still seems surreal looking back… especially because it never went away and society just abandoned any adaptations that weren’t actively rejected at the time), whose young son was exhibiting many signs of autism. This is the first time I started to wonder about myself, as I saw many of my early behaviors in him. And then again with my nephew not long after.

Work began turning the screws pretty blatantly. Boundaries were ignored, responsibilities kept accumulating, and any pushback was met with either silence or empty platitudes (“we are working on it” etc.). Neurotypicals would have generally been out the door and into a different job by that point, but the prospect of looking for a new job, the amount of energy it would take, and the very real possibility of the grass only being greener because the field was knee-deep in shit just solidified my freeze response (the usually-omitted counterpart to “fight or flight”). Within the space of two months, they hired “help” for me, in the form of the son of a VP’s friend who I had to babysit even though he was treated as my peer, more boundaries were ignored, and the company got sold to a much bigger fish. At that point it was clear that it was never going to get better there, and I made the decision to leave. I had nothing lined up, just some savings. The plan was to take some time off for me and “recharge.”

The recharging never happened.

I kept myself afloat by selling off some of the things that I had collected over the years, which hurt. But it didn’t hold a candle to the thought of returning to work. Then my dad died suddenly, just before the holidays, which I then had to navigate with a family in grief that I had mostly distanced myself from. Money was getting tight and for like a week the biggest problem was how to repair/replace the washer. Then a big storm hit in early January and realized several of the fears I had suspected about the house but was unable to confirm, validating years of anxiety and instantly adding sizable housing repair costs that there was no money for.

I broke. I had been barely functioning for awhile, and that was the straw bundle of rebar that shattered me. After a couple of weeks of sobbing through most of the day I reached out to my doctor, eventually ending up in intensive outpatient therapy. During an early session, I was reassured by several group members that it was okay to unmask in that space.

But I had come to a realization… the mask wasn’t just for the world. The mask was for me. It was ingrained into my internal structure. It had changed over the years, sure. But without it, “functional human being MelodiusFunk” did not exist. Could not exist. The concept of “me” grew around the mask. Without that structure, “me” is just a quivering pile of trauma, repression, guilt/shame, and maladaptive coping skills.

This is not the case for everyone (or at least I hope not, I don’t even want to think about it). But this has been my experience. I am working on healing. Various doctors have mentioned ADHD, ASD, PTSD, OCD, adjustment disorder, and an assortment of flavors of depression and anxiety. Not all of them agree with all of the diagnoses but they agree that I’ve been making progress.

The kick in the balls is that none of it matters unless I can afford to live. And as many of you have probably noticed, that has become more and more difficult even without mental health issues. My credit cards are maxed. I’m still 5ish months away from getting (likely) denied for disability. Sales of personal items has hit a dry spell. I have no wealthy relatives or friends to lean on. My living situation hasn’t been good but it’s only going to get worse once I can no longer afford payments. The obvious answer is “get a job you lazy bum,” but even if I can successfully navigate around the trauma and hold something down, I will no longer afford to be able to continue treatment (shout out to Medicaid for being the best insurance I’ll ever have). Then it’s right back to using all of my energy to wrestle with severe executive dysfunction just to maintain a status quo that makes me miserable, and from there it’s just a countdown to the next mental break.

It’s funny… society says it’s fine if I starve in the streets. My own fault, Just World fallacy, etc. But me saying “I no longer wish to participate in this rigged game, I’m tired” sets off sirens and klaxons and sets the stage for a (very very expensive) grippy sock vacation. I did the things I was supposed to do my entire life. Stretched myself thin to meet expectations. Followed the rules. And now that I can’t anymore… yeah. I’m still trying, though. Even in the face of bleak hopelessness, both personal and at the world in general. I don’t know why.

Apologies if this was not particularly helpful. But this is my lived experience as someone who also only connected the dots late in life. I wish you the best, truly and earnestly.

I don’t know if this helps but, I’ve kind of just become comfortable with things being awkward. If I have a serious conversation coming up or whatever, I just change my expectations about what’s going to happen. I will be misunderstood. I will not be able to express my thoughts exactly with the English language. I will over explain. I will ask a dumb question that “should” know the answer to. I probably won’t use someone’s name, even though I know for a fact what their name is (my brain gets in a loop of “what I get their name wrong after all this time, I’ll look like such an asshole”).

I don’t even feel like I accurately expressed what I’m feeling with this post. And I’ve read and changed it a couple of times trying to.

Hope that helps.

I am sleepy, and I can’t really think right now - but I saw the topic and got all =(! Cause it’s like a super painful thing. And I had to have a big girl talk with someone about this just today. I said there might never be a time when you can stop masking completely in social situations because deep down inside you’ll always be the stinky kid who really likes bugs and that’s just who you are - and like - own it but also realize that there’s ramifications for being “weird” and that you can find little hacks to make yourself more palatable but in the end you’re going to have to plan MASSIVE quantities of healing downtime to get back in working order. So plan things as smartly as you can. But also just live your life because fuck it.

Anyways, true story - around my partner I am just a stinky human and it’s great. I can’t tell you anything else. I didn’t talk for a hundred years until I found the love of humans, and now you can’t shut me up. So I think I got lucky, because one of my “hyper-focuses” is just enjoying people’s personalities and stories (as long as they’re not a snippy cunt because fuck thatttttt!). But I saw my sibling also kinda blossom like a little flower too. Doesn’t mean we don’t need our downtime. None of this probably helped, but I guess just be yourself like…most times. And snip anything that seems radical. Also if you don’t need to be around someone who triggers you (by this I mean they internally freak you out so badly you want to jump out of your own skin and they make you like actually scared to talk or just like…exist) please don’t force yourself. And if you do, go into super robot mode and just like - keep it strictly business. Because they’re not worth your time, and I swear to god - those kinds of people get a kick out of hurting others and will zero in on your “differentness” and just smash you to pieces like a lego house. So you know, fuck them - you’re entitled to live, breathe and take up space. You’re not a weirdo, you’re just different. I just say weirdo because that shit’s been shoved down my throat. But you know, I love myself - so like I guess that could probably help too. Cultivating self-love. Cause nobody, but nobody (outside of maybe your mama) is ever going to love you like you could love yourself. And I am not talking about in a superficial way. But more so in a like…accepting way and just being a strong advocate for your time, space and well being.

Good luck fellow mayhapsby bug-kid!

p.s. - DON’T MASK ALL THE TIME IT WILL LEAD TO BURNOUT AND YOU WILL BE FUCKED! Look into it. But yeah, don’t do it!

I had a unique upbringing. My father was an illiterate dyslexic (and maybe autistic himself) and he is fuckin weird - to put bluntly. That side of my family never really understood neurodivergence per-se, but they understood that everyone’s a little weird - but we embraced that we’re VERY weird. Hanging out with my dad’s extended family is a lot of flailing, weird humor, and zany shenanigans and they embraced every moment.

My mother by contrast was more “abled” but she relished the “weirdness” that my father had in spades. Her own family had a bit of a zany streak as well - with my maternal Grandfather very obviously being undiagnosed autistic and having his own brand of severely understated and jump-scare humor.

Masking was entirely unnecessary in my family - and I can recognize the state pretty easily. It’s more mentally relaxed, less hypervigilant, and generally more comfortable.

It was great not having to mask in my childhood - until I went to school and it suddenly wasn’t a good thing.

Learning my masks was an absolutely agonizing process because “being myself” wasn’t acceptable “out there”. I felt so out of place compared to my peers. I was also bullied relentlessly to the point of PTSD. My masks eventually became automatic through the tumultuous times. It wasn’t until my diagnosis in my early 30’s that I even began to understand what it all was, and start deconstructing the masks.

Unmasking was as easy as accessing a “younger” me and simply not caring about the social results. (to a point)

For my echolalia, I don’t hold back my vocal stimming anymore. I used to feel embarrassed and self conscious around it. Now I embrace it and have fun with it. Will you get movie trailer voice me or death metal voice me? Who knows!? Will I throw a random phrase using an English accent into an otherwise monotone statement, yoooouuu bet!

For my special interests, I LET my excitement bubble over. Sure, I might need to regain my composure from time to time, but hiding my excitement about these things nearly destroyed me. I try not to be hyper-focused though so as to allow natural conversational flow, but I also don’t overly police myself anymore.

There’s a few other things, but it’s hard to reflect on them all.

Ultimately I’m unsure how helpful my experience is to others - it’s a bit unique having a deep family culture of being really weird. I think that really helps me put my guard down and unmask. If I didn’t have these memories, finding my unmasked state would be a LOT harder.

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.

I’ve found that if I can somehow stop myself from auto responding, and think about what I want to say, I find what I really meant to say becomes the second thing I thought of. I will say that.

The stop doesn’t have to be super long, just enough to catch your thoughts and try again.

What helped me was moving to a small town a bit away from my friends and getting to spend a lot of time with myself, just being myself with myself.

That mixed with the loss of all fucks because I finally accepted how meaningless this all is and how little I actually care about what other people think.

Those two thing helped me become a more authentic version of my self. Although I still have to be careful sometimes, it might get me in trouble at work one day, but at the same time if it does happen then w.e I’ll just find a new job

Im a vegan anarcho-communist/sydicalist and I catch myself saying some pretty unfiltered shit to my colleagues when topics come up that I have answers for, I’ve stopped holding my punches I just don’t give a fuck anymore.

Seriously. It’s come down to not giving a fuck, much like the others have said. We have faked for so long to protect ourselves. We have a right to be tired. That’s not a free pass to go out and be mean, that’s what NT’s might think that means. I know for us to get it, we have to tell ourselves extremes. Our internal extremes are their “normals”. Which is why it’s so hard for us to accept or understand their help.

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?

That’s the neat part. I don’t.

Sometimes it’s your quick answers that get you in trouble. Maybe slowing the pace of the conversation, or letting others speak first if it’s a group, would allow you to respond in a way you find honest and reasonable. Of course this depends on context.

I’m waiting to find a group of weirdos that unmask too. Once I find them, I’ll let loose. Until then, I’ll keep it mostly masked except for my regular escapes where I do weird dance movements, fidget, or mentally check out in short spurts as pressure builds up.

It’s tricky but caring less what other people think about how you act is a strong start. Also when things are confusing socially ask stuff like “Why are people doing that?”. Don’t force yourself to make eye contact and when people ask if you’re listening then say stuff like “Yeah I can’t focus when I look people in the eyes”.

It’s trying to do whatever is easy for you instead of whatever is the most “normal”