I thought at 63 I finally masked well: why am I so upset?

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In a one on one business conversation last week, after about an hour the other party, who is trained in working with families and parenting made a kind and non-aggressive comment making it clear that she recognised that I had ASD.

Now I am fairly high functioning, but had a very difficult childhood at normie school as most of us have probably have had pre-diagnosis. I’m 63 so of course diagnosis was still a distant phenomenon when I was a child. I have always thought of myself as having learnt to mask/pass quite effectively so it came as a real ( almost body) shock to me to be recognised. I acknowledged she was right, and I judge by her reaction that she saw I was surprised and a bit shocked.

It’s about three days later, and I’m still feeling shaken inside. It was in no way threatening or agressive and nor was it offensive. I’m not sure how to handle it - feeling vulnerable and exposed even just out in the supermarket food shopping or at my local bodega.

Id welcome any ideas suggestions or thoughts. I mean I can figure why it’s scary, and also how easy it probably was for her to see through the mask I just don’t know what to do with those feelings.

Ulf the wolf (in a world of cattle ranchers!)

Masking over long periods is a survival skill and requires a lot of mental and emotional resources - over time something eventually has to give.

I've been in the position of being "seen" (as in no matter how you look, or act or what you say - this person can see you.). Its extremely disconcerting and can cause a lot of self-doubt. Suddenly you are thinking that maybe you aren't as good at masking as you think or that maybe you just aren't as good as you used to be at it. Both are stressful thought to have.

What should you do with the feelings? Recognize them for what they are, acknowledge them, and learn from them or let them pass. Its probably just a sign that things are more stressful right now than you may realize.

I can totally understand this, and how this would mis-allign your sense of Self(if it’s ok to put it that way). Remind yourself of all you have achieved & done in your life & this person cannot possibly know or understand the impact their words have had on you. Wish this had not happened to you. Some people seriously don’t “think” of others!

Get on with your life, as best you can. You’ll always remember this, but when all is said & done, your life is about the differences you’ve made, the good you’ve done. Masking takes its toll. Many of us have done it for many years, unaware of the genuine toll it was taking, the risks to our health & well-being. It’s only natural that over time, even the best at it, may slip. We’re working twice as hard as an NT to survive in this world, if we’re masking though. You deserve respect. Life is short. I hope you pick yourself up & get on with it. Seriously, I personally wish that no-one felt it ok to take it upon themselves to vocalise their thoughts, unless asked. Others may not agree, but it can be very damaging if it’s out of the blue & you’ve not initiated conversation on it.

When I got my diagnosis at the tail end of 47, I was very surprised to read the report and to find out that I was much more severely Autistic than I had thought I was. And not only did the person who first told me I was Autistic, when I was 45, tell me that he was able to recognize that I was Autistic from the very first instant he saw me walk into the room, but the neuropsychologist who diagnosed me told me the same exact thing. I thought that I was passing really well because most people have told me that they had no idea that I was Autistic. So it is very likely that this particular person was more in tune to what Autism is than most people.

But as far as what you feel, I am wondering why you are so shaken. It makes me wonder if you might somehow, even subconsciously think that being Autistic is a bad thing. Do you think that maybe that could be a reason?

Being Autistic doesn't make you a bad person. There is nothing at all that is bad about being Autistic. We had to mask because other people cannot accept what is different from themselves but that does not mean that we are bad or that there is something wrong with us being what we were created and designed to be. It's not our fault that neurotypicals created a society that we don't fit into. That doesn't make us bad. Maybe this is a good time to try to stop masking and to discover that beautiful person that you authentically are.

Thank you both, Daniel W and Juliette,

I appreciated each of your comments very much. I’m lucky enough in my second marriage to have met an NT woman who met me as I was. I wasn’t diagnosed until some time after the end of my first marriage and for a long time believed that its failure was my fault, so I guess, I had some buttons ready to be pushed. My wife knows that I have ASD, understands, and I don’t feel the need to pretend which is wonderful. Daniel, I’ve definitely had to learn the recognise, acknowledge and work through it lessons, but I can’t quite seem to step past this event yet. I think that sense of self doubt and exposure you and Juliette both noted is on the mark, and yes, the pre- Christmas period, added to a huge project and some tight deadlines clearly up the ante. I’ve long noted how much of a toll it takes to mask of course - I always thought of putting on my suit, tie, cuff links, fancy watch and black shoes as donning my “persona” but I’m not necessarily still quite so clear after all these years what a toll that’s taken every day. I did take joy out of your responses thank you. Both helped me feel a bit more grounded.

Thanks Skibum,

Really appreciated your post thank you.I guess it made me feel uncovered, and yes, it’s clear she knew the kind of signals from her professional expertise. I think to answer your last question, there’s still that little boy’s voice inside me somewhere which can’t understand why he’s different, and feels alone, rejected and misunderstood. Not that there’s a pity party going on here, just that the big bad world still feels dangerous and unforgiving even at my age! My intellectual self has this in reasonably good control and a few years of therapy helps my analytical part to understand but somehow that doesn’t translate across - I think my emotional side headed towards inner (rather than external) meltdown. I kept under control and retreated to my office aka safe place lol.

I believe most decent people understand that there are some who are “eccentric,” yet viable.

You are successful in your job and marriage. That’s the most important thing in my opinion.

Autism is not a curse. A person is not “tainted” by having autism. Its a condition—like other conditions. You are not “normal—but, really, who is actually “normal” when on digs deep into a person?

A lady shrink I went to talked about renting out a room to prospective tenets. And said "I said to a certain couple -'Listen...if you two grow marijuana on the property I dont know about it- got it?'". Then she said 'when you're in my business you learn how to recognize certain things about people'. Apparently she could tell the couple were habitual pot users just by interacting briefly with them. Something most non shrinks ( you and I) couldnt do.

Same with autism. Thats what shrinks do. Sleuth out certain things that most folks cant.

And as Krafty said it doesnt matter whether or not you conceal someting or not. It that you have over come the thing and seem to have been rather successful in much of life.

I had the opposite life experience. Actually went to shrinks all my life, and NONE of them (including the mostly competent lady above) EVER made the connection that I was on the autism spectrum. Partly thats because I started being sent to shrinks in the mid Sixties, but autism wasnt officially expanded to a large 'spectrum' (that includes mildly autistic folks like me) until 1994. But even ten years after 1994 - the lady shrink I was seeing (a different one from the one above) said she still had 'never heard of aspergers before' and had to read up about it over night.

Finnally took the battery of tests like five years ago, and got the official aspergers diagnosis (apparently I may have been one of the last people in the US to get the diagnosis before it was phased out).

If it is very rare that someone sees beyond your mask, and it took someone "who is trained in working with families and parenting" (who likely has some training regarding Autism), then your mask is doing awfully good. Be proud of that.

Many Aspies wear mask to hide. I never did. I am me and I am fine with that.

When I was young and in junior high school, some of my fellow classmates attacked me (both emotionally and physically for three long years). But I never allowed them to change me. I STAYED ME. How did this happen? It was an accident. At the beginning they took me into a corner and asked me what my personality was. I remained quite. They looked at me, my small size, and decided that I was a JAP (This was many decades ago right after the second world war.) Now I was not Japanese. So for 3 years I was subjected to every Japanese joke they could muster. I had to train myself to not laugh because some of their jokes were funny. But I just kept a straight face.

They were attacking me but I was playing my own game. And I survived and they never were able to break me.

Thank you everyone for your comments. Really appreciated that you took time to reply. I’d like to be able to say I’m fine with me, and most of the time I am, but just froze time to time I get knocked off the bike, sometimes it’s surprise, sometimes it’s unequal power, sometimes it’s just that “you’re not like the others” like Jimmy talked about. Happy Holidays folks

Yes. You are right about the little boy inside you and how he feels. I relate 100%. It is extremely common in Autism for us to be socially and emotionally much younger than we are intellectually or chronologically. For example, I will be 56 very soon but socially I function at a ten year old level and emotionally I function at a four year old level. What that mean is that when I experience my own emotions and when I process them, I do all that at the maturity level of a toddler.

But my intellectual and analytical abilities are extremely developed. So I can analyze and intellectually understand emotions at a very high level that is much higher than most people can but when I feel and experience my emotions, I process all that at a four year old level.

One of the difficult things with this is that the intellectual, analytical, and logical understanding does not transfer to the emotional processing experience. So, it creates a very interesting situation where my logical, analytical brain understands a concept, but my emotional brain cannot. My logical brain is responding with a complete understanding of why something is happening but there is no way for my emotional brain to understand it. This might be what you are feeling. Your emotional center might be functioning at a very young age and if it is, it cannot understand why people treat you as if something is wrong with you. Your logical brain, which is functioning at a much higher level understands the concept that non Autistic people do not understand you yet they take the liberties of judging you harshly and they make decisions about you that they really have no right to make. But it's impossible for your child like emotional center to understand any of this. That creates a lot of emotional pain. It's as painful as if you were an actual little kid in that situation. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can really do about it because the solution does not rely on us. The only way that this will change is when nts understand how we are designed and choose to respect it. But understanding why you feel what you feel is half the battle and it really helps.

Being Autistic is difficult and traumatic, not because we are Autistic. It is only that way because of how we are treated by non Autistic people. And that is really sad. If they would just accept that we are what we are and that we were created and designed to be exactly what we are, and if society were designed to meet the needs of everyone in it, we would not have these issues.

You want to be very careful of having too good of a mask. That can have devastating consequences later on in life.

And the happiest of holidays to you too Ulf.

Well, Ulf said he masked so I take it as a given regarding his post.

Personally, I think I might be more in the jimmy m camp...I'm ME! With an addenda that I have been developing coping mechanisms. Heck, I didn't even know I was on the Autism Spectrum until I was 64...I didn't know there was anything to mask, but I sure knew I had to cope (with the World...not with anything regarding me!).

Now that I know I'm on the Wrong Planet I sometimes consider that my coping skills might sometimes also be considered to be infiltration skills for survival in a less-than-friendly world.