List The Ways You Mask

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Sometimes social anxiety makes you think everyone is staring at you and watching you and makes you think you are standing out and doing something wrong when in fact, no one is paying attention to you. If you don't give a darn this goes away and you won't notice it. Your brain stops making you think you are standing out and doing something wrong. You just simply stop worrying.

I think to be honest I have been going through such a tough time with an almost semi permanent stress the last few years. It is real scarey not to be masking. I feel so vunerable. I am noticing that I am walking differently... I mean... I stop if someone walks towards me unable to decide how to avoid the person... Stopping and waiting for the person to pass so I don't collide... This is a stop way before the other person comes near me. It is like I am being way too careful when I don't mask. Everything I am doing is way to careful. I am not normally like this.

I have noticed that I am overcautious while driving as well. This in a way is a good thing. It is like I am manually assessing everything rather then automatically just doing it?

It could be what my Mum said. Mid life crises... But I can't afford a Porsche! Neither do I need one. I have a little Mitsi instead!

I wonder what it would be like to be able to listen to the story itself without asking myself
" why are they telling me this?"
"What is the point of this story?"
People talk about "entering the stream of the narrative" but my mind always wants to know WHY?

I also agree with this. Sometimes I feel like saying... get to the point... is there a point?

I hope that you don't get into shallow breathing in those situations, I did and it affects your posture. I found myself doing it when passing people on the street.

I believe in these situations I am shallow breathing but I don't know. All I know if I try to do deep breathing like people say to calm me down I immediately go dizzy and need to hold onto something, so deep breathing is not what I need when it happens.

I'm sure a lot of these aren't necessarily ASD specific, but here are some behaviors I associate with masking. Most of these are conscious and take effort:

1) I soften my face, unfurrowing my brows and adopting a loose kind of smile.

2) I resist monopolizing conversations and instead realize the purpose is typically to build rapport and not to speak about anything substantial. It took a long time to make this realization. You have to be able to make fluid, real time decisions rather quickly to be able to pivot your words and not simply reply from impulse. Practice makes perfect...

3) I smile and laugh at jokes I either do not understand or do not find funny. Sometimes the barrier to humor is the social aspect...as in I might actually have found the joke humorous if discovered while alone.

4) I tolerate being spoken to when I do not want it. There are many moments where I am simply not enjoying interaction and find it tedious/boring but grind through it anyway. I hate when someone abuses this and pins me down, although I try to realize logically that this means they find me interesting.

5) I gesticulate with my hands to heighten expressivity. I have different styles I might use in different contexts.

6) I control my accent, volume, tone, and inflection. This skill took many years to cultivate and I see it as a kind of superpower. It's astonishing how much this affects people. For my work giving history presentations, I might be overly elegant with strict diction. With average situations, I might pull out a "Jake from State Farm" manner of speaking.

7) I attempt as much as possible to transform the perception of me while I am socially struggling from "awkward and aloof" to "quietly dominant and confident." The line between these perceptions is thin and can be managed.

I restrain my egocentrism and try to heighten others through sincere compliments about things that I know they care about or are self conscious about. A strategically placed compliment can win you a lot of long lasting rapport with someone.

9) I use sarcasm to deflect what would normally be a painful response. Lots of average kinds of "get to know you" questions are hard for me to answer forthrightly because they trigger negative memories and feelings. I want to avoid spilling my insecurities and use sarcasm to do this.

10) I try my best to speak to the education/knowledge level of my audience. What works in a honky tonk doesn't work at the country club, to use a severe contrast.

These skills were hard fought for and took a lot of failure, alienation, and anguish to discover. They are forced adaptations because of near total lack of supports in terms of familial patronage and social welfare. I need to be able to make people like me to survive, literally, because I really struggle to actually make it by while being completely independent.

- I also blur my vision but make it look like I’m making eye contact (@Persephone29)

- I think I’ve mastered the smile and nod, but I’m pretty sure I overdue it to the point where it looks unnatural sometimes.

- I pretend to understand what most people are saying. When it comes to conversations I do quite a bit of guessing because people don’t like it when you keep asking them to repeat themselves. I usually try to catch on to a few key words and then do my best to guess what the person is saying. My hearing is fine though. Thank goodness for tv shows having subtitles. I wish movies at the theaters had subtitles because even though I can hear what the people on screen are saying, sometimes I can’t comprehend what they are saying.


- I smile a lot, even when I’m unhappy because when I don’t people say I look worried or unhappy.


- When I’m in public I stim in a more discrete way by constantly cracking my knuckles, spinning the ring on my finger, rubbing the tip of my middle finger with my thumb, etc.


- I try my best with small talk, especially when I tried to work retail. It felt unnatural and forced.


- I sit normally in chairs when I’m in public places, at work, or in class.

I actually though I was doing pretty well in life, with my varied activities and began to think of myself as an emerging person, much better than I was years ago, until I was given the results of a recent job interview. That sent me crashing back to reality. Even though I have become much more independent and social, I have still made no advancements whatsoever in my working situation. I was told to try again but I don't foresee my results being much different ten years down the line. I have gone as far as I can. I don't see myself having full-time, rewarding work that could help me become truly independent. My mother never even saw me have as much as I have now.

As for falling in love, dating and marriage, this is a forlorn hope. If they knew I had Asperger syndrome, I wouldn't get more than a "pity" date. I don't want that. It's a "beggars can't be choosers" type situation.

Some things never change, and aren't likely to ever change. I don't want to imagine a life of failure at 65. If I find myself exactly the same ten years later, that would be unacceptable and I'd consider my life a washout.

At work? Grumpiness. That way, people don't stop by for a chat, but they don't outright avoid me, either.

Home? Self-deprecating humor and "clowning around".

Elsewhere? I avoid physical contact and crowded places.