#ive only really ever heard of ppl talking about behavioral masking

[eleord]

there’s thought swirling in my brain

so i think there are 2 types of masking that i undergo. #1 is behavioral masking, as in, eye contact, controlling my body movements, following dialogue scripts. #2 is identity masking, as in “who *should* i be in order to be socially acceptable.”

#1 is exhausting but fortunately the circumstances when it comes up are quite rare nowadays, and i’m becoming more comfortable being Slightly Weird around other ppl. #2 is an amalgamation of what I learned from my parents and from peers (esp in HS) abt who I need to be to not get harassed/commented on. This masking is more insidious because it never lets up - I end up constantly self-policing my identity to try to make it match this idea - and because I haven’t really been able to sit down and be like “ok what are the actual components of this” because the “ideal mask” i’m comparing myself to was built up over such a long period of time.

BUT i am becoming Very Aware now of how it’s influencing - who i date and how i feel about it - how i feel about my body - how i feel about my career - my ability to enjoy hobbies

for example, I am nonbinary and have wanted to have a different relationship w femininity than it seemed like would be socially acceptable, so i repressed these feelings and grew my hair really long. my mom taught me that nothing short of stunning academic success is acceptable, so when i feel badly about my performance in grad school it’s not really about feeling like I let her down, it’s feeling like I am shut off from being a person who deserves to exist. And let me tell you, there’s not much that makes you dislike a hobby more than being overly obsessed with whether you should be enjoying it and if you’re enjoying it correctly.

What I am learning as I get older and am around other people is that whether this type of mask matters is extremely contextual, and as people regard you as being responsible for yourself their general tendency to judge your behavior and express that judgement changes. Again for example, I cut all my hair off and basically everyone either said nothing or went “yeah i like that.” If i flunk out of grad school, no one will care bc it happens all the time, and they will continue to regard me the same way (you know, a person they like).

I think identity masking got me through high school when I was living with my mom and when my behavior was much more heavily policed by my peers. I think a lot of the impulse I get sometimes to go back to high school is that I want to be like “LOOK HOW MUCH BETTER I AM AT MASKING NOW.” but this masking is actively making my life worse. when I say the policing is constant, oh boy is it constant, and it’s all pretty negative. i think it might help if i sit down and actually write out my “ideal mask” in all its horrible, self-contradictory glory, so that it doesn’t have more power in its obscurity.

OH i do want to add. that part of the reason it’s self policing is bc i HATE hypocrisy and i feel like if im presenting something to the world i have to really Be That. But of course I really have very little control over how others perceive me, and my own benchmarks for like “how much x do you need before you can be considered y” tend to be unreasonably strict anyway. so like. I have spent hours agonizing over I Need To Do This For This Person Or How Can I Be A Good Person and the other person is like “dude i really just like that we talk lmao.” the point is that i self police to avoid hypocrisy and my internal benchmarks are set at Literal Saint and Savant so it’s.. uh.. a whole mess. But am coming to realize more that no one gives a shit about any of this anyway and MAYBE i can have a little hypocrisy as a treat.

#autism #masking #i don't know if identity masking is a thing #i am a bad autistic who doesnt read works by other autistic ppl #ive only really ever heard of ppl talking about behavioral masking #so #hopefully this isn't like #completely off base #oh well #i want a shirt that says "i can have a little hypocrisy as a treat