Who has a mask?

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Earlier today, while I was driving to a job interview, I was running over different scenarios in my mind, and preparing myself for different questions that I might be asked. I arrived in the parking lot and got out of my truck. Headed towards the entrance door, I thought to myself, god-damn, I might as well be wearing a mask with NT inscribed in the forehead. Then I reassured myself that it was only temporary, and went on to the interview. Needless to say, it went well and I'm pretty sure I got the position. My point...

Don't you hate it when circumstances "require" that you act and talk a certain way? I know I do.

Masks, persona's, etc are how most of us get by............However, the need to come home to our true self is of great spiritual and emotional importance.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

It's an oldie, but a goody! I just had to take my old poem out of mothballs for you all.

Masquerade

I have a little secret I wear upon my face
I keep it very near to me in a most convenient place.
I hope you do not guess it, you might take me to task
I take it out and put it on, it's my "normal" NT mask!

It keeps the world from pressing in; it makes me look like you!
I wear it so easily you won’t believe that it's not true
I laugh and nod and make my mouth do what passes for a smile
I walk and talk and do the stuff that makes me rank and file.

But underneath the artifice, I am bored with all your talk.
Your gossip and your ‘he said-she said’; at all of this I balk!
You're constantly rattling on about the very least of things
your husband's warts, your baby's farts, your last romantic fling.

I’m sure it’s very interesting, and I tilt my head just so
I don’t want to be left out, so I put on the show.
After all should I decide to let my Aspie out?
I could bore you too, to TEARS, and be thought of as a lout.

So when you’re on and on about the rights of "people of the pod*"
and force your strict conformity on politics, style, and God.
Mind games you play with no regard for innocence or youth
you're quick to point with fingers gnarled at what you see as 'Truth.’

But I bear it all with stoicism, and onward do I march
to keep lock step with all of you when inwardly I lurch
you rub me wrong, you irritate, you scrape my nerve ends raw
you constantly regale me with what you did and saw

So if I inwardly rebel against the draw of luck
and stifle yelling to your face, “you idiot! you suck!”
and out from the mask cracks the rebellion wells and oozes
pardon me, in the genetic crap shoot; YOU are the bunch of losers.



· (Pod people) obscure reference to a 1957 black and white horror movie called "The Night of the Living Dead" where people were cloned in pods like peas. it's poetic license, so sue me!

I have mine. NT's do this too. They call it "putting on your game face". Because if you want to win, you gotta play the game.

"Eleanor rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?"

Has been a running joke for me for years. For everything and for every body I seem to have a mask.

New here...


What is an NT? My guess... if i am on the wrong planet, NT may be a Normal Terra-rien... Terrestrial??

Oh, sure, we all wear masks. Its an integral part of living in such a subjective society.

I just smile a lot even when uncomfortable... it seems to put people at ease and I dont think Its a too freaky fake looking smile.

NT means Neuro-Typical (person without a nuerological disorder)

I definetly have masks. I don't like it, but I know it's necessary.

I have a mask. I wear it when I go out crime-fighting

Seriously, though: trying to be "normal" is something I've tried (and failed) to do for a long time now. Although from the sounds of things, I have managed to successfully conceal some of the deep-seated psychological issues I've had for a while now, with people at work (and even my own mother) not quite realising how unhappy I was... which was probably not the best outcome, to be honest...

I hate that and because of that i were so many masks i don't know what my true self is.

follow this link to were i talk about a song that has to do with that were i talk about too many masks

I've never had a mask or a persona. When not at home, I've just always been a subdued version of myself, quiet, speaking pretty much only when spoken to, not taking initiative.

The concept of not being entirely myself is obvious to me, but the concept of a mask/persona, has never remotely occurred to me.

also, pod people weren't The night of the living dead, it was a term from Invasion of the body snatchers, one of my fave movies

NTs have masks too. Like much else, for them it's so automatic that they forget they're wearing one, or changing one for another. It's effortless and learned in childhood.

For us (or at least for me), it's a conscious, analytical process. And it takes a lot of energy.

I have a mask that I wear in the company of my family. The mask that keeps my mum's suspicions at bay.

Keeping this mask is extremely draining for me, which is the reason for I avoiding social events whenever I can.
Lately I've been trying to be somehow more autentic, which means just being the introverted and quiet person I am, and not forcing myself to make boring small talk, smile, etc.
Yeah, people can think whatever they want, but I'll just not try to be like them anymore. That's my goal for now, of completely getting rid of the need to put this mask.