Introduction and advice

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Hello, I’m new to Wrong Planet and I’m looking forward to interacting with like minded individuals. Sometimes interacting with only neurotypicals can make me feel alone. I joined for interaction and also for advice.

I have been masking my entire life, and mimicking others behaviors to appear normal. I only semi recently learned what masking was, but I realized I had been instinctually doing it for as long as I can remember. I am unsure of who I am because of this. I feel like my personality isn’t mine. I’m not sure how else to describe it but I feel like a combination of every neurotypical that I’ve mimicked and not myself, and I am not sure how to be myself anymore. Has anyone else experienced this?

Welcome I hope you get a lot out of coming here.

I masked my entire life, I still think I do, for me, diagnosis didn't stop masking in it's tracks, I mask without even knowing and hopefully catch myself when I do and revert to being myself.

I'm 54 late diagnosis, username gives it away

It cost me parts of my identity and I think that is why I got borderline personality disorder, as that is a disorder involving identity disturbance.

I got clues of who I was by remembering what I liked in childhood. I'm a bit hippyish but that's ok. I moved away 20yrs ago and met hippyish people so felt more at home, but still masked as some of them were not like me.

A social chameleon is a good way to describe how I was, I got that from a borderline person on YouTube, we act and dress and be like whoever we are with at the time.

So, you are not alone. I didn't like myself, I didnt know I was autistic, I just thought I was clumsy, loser, soft, stupid, uncool etc etc ad nauseum.

Think of what you love doing, what music you personally like the sound of, think of everything that appeals to you personally and unashamedly be yourself. You will be more accepted by people with like mind, you will find you want to meet up with people who like the things you truly personally like, not old friends, or schoolmates, work colleagues etc, but you.

I hope that helps.

Everyone masks. NTs masks every time they feign interest in someone they would prefer to avoid so that they are not seen as mean.

Because Aspies have greater focus we can seem selfish to others because of special interests and a disregard for social conventions. To cope in a socially demanding world Aspies often mask and seek out solitude where masking is not required.

Who we are is who we are when we are alone. Since we all start out as selfish children, we may actually still be selfish. Some may have grown to moderate selfishness and have come to find satisfaction in helping others.

There can be a great variety of identity. However, one should be careful not to see an identity that is a reflection of what others think. Who you are is a unique combination of your experiences, abilities, values, and habits. Since you are in the drivers seat of your life, you can make changes or even experiment to see in what direction you would like to travel.

Navigating through the majority of the social world will require masking. However, there are individual encounters where you can meet people as actual individuals and possibly find one or two that also can respond to you as the person you really are. Those encounters have great value such that one may come to waste as little time as possible with those for whom masking is necessary.

One of Peter Sellers' friends got him out of bed for an early outing, and listened as he searched through several accents before re-discovering his personal one.

Brainiac42 - Welcome to Wrongplanet (or WP as it is sometimes called)!

I remember reading about Brainiac 5 in the Teen Titans!

https://muppetcentral.com/guides/episod ... lers.shtml

From the DVD intro to to the Peter Sellers Episode:

Brian Henson: "Hi, I'm Brian Henson. This episode of The Muppet Show stars Peter Sellers. A very funny story about this episode is Peter basically said he wants to do anything on the show except for one piece. It was a piece called The Wall where Kermit would interview the guest star for 30 seconds just about themselves. Peter said, 'I can't do that, I can't be myself. Ask me to do anything but don't ask me to be myself. I'll be Queen Victoria but I don't know how to be me.' Naturally The Muppet Show writers did a wonderful piece where they had him play Queen Victoria."

@diagnosedafter50

That did help. Thank you very much. My rotating special interests are one of the only things that remind me who I am. You've helped remind me that I am more than a product of human interaction.

I like that.

The Muppets are one of my special interests.

Interesting concept, a person ceasing to know who they are (and feeling bad about it). In a way I see it as strange that the sense of not knowing one's identity would be distressing, though I guess it's normal enough. In my own case, I guess I do have some kind of feeling that I don't know who I am - my self-presentation gets hard to distinguish from my "true self," but AFAIK that doesn't distress me. But I can see how for many people it could give rise to an unpleasant feeling of disorientation. Just that in my case, for some reason I don't seem that concerned that I can't be certain of much, though I gather many people seem to need a sense of certainty in their life.

But it would distress me if I felt I didn't know much about myself, so I guess it depends on what you mean when you say you don't know who you are, and whether or not there's any difference between knowing who you are and knowing things about yourself.

I know some of my strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, ideological convictions, hopes and fears. Maybe if you pondered a few of those things and got some answers, you might start to feel more like you know yourself. Answering a questionnaire or two about personality might be helpful. In my case my answers are usually of the "well, it all depends on the circumstances" kind, so the score at the end tends to be meaningless, because questionnaires tend to expect black-and-white answers, but I still find giving long, nuanced answers helps me to figure out what kind of a person I am, even when there's no space on the form for me to submit my responses.

I think the more people know about themselves, the better.

Gee now I remember that I was wrong - it wasn't the Teen Titans at all it was the "Legion of Super-Heroes".
Now I am embarrassed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainiac_5

"Brainiac 5 first appeared in name in Action Comics #276 (May 1961) and was created by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney. He was originally written as a descendant of Superman's enemy Brainiac."

Legion of Super-Heroes (1958 team)

"The 1958 version of the Legion of Super-Heroes (also called the original or Preboot Legion) is a fictional superhero team in the 31st century of the DC Comics Universe."

I know Brainiac mainly from the video game Injustice 2 where he is a character.

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

I understand what you're saying. I mask, and at times I feel like nothing more than an amalgamation of all the masking I've done throughout my life. I have utterly no sense of self. I also have no interests at all which makes figuring out who the hell I am that much more difficult. Buy hey...this isn't about me...it's about welcoming you to WP .

Here lately I’ve started taking off the mask, and I’m starting to feel better. Also thank you for the welcome

I get it. You mean this version of Brainiac

Thank you it's an honour to know that I am of help to someone.