The majority of us are told when we’re young to “be yourself,” yet this is never the case when around others or in public. We always have to put on a front. A happy face. A mask.
In particular, masking tends to appear in waves of debates amongst Autistic people such as myself. How for many years, I’ve masked my true self around people as I’ve grown up, finding the whole process incredibly exhausting and learning the hard way and consequences of pretending to be someone I’m not.
In and amongst playing catch-up on social and communication skills as a teenager came the trials and tribulations of finding my own identity. My personality, and how I would take that forward into adulthood.
As already established – and constantly cited back to – Anxiety and Depression grew to become residents within the analogised house within my head, making up part of me in many aspects. Flaws, traits, and how I negotiate this world and the people that inhabit it. What makes us all human I suppose.
But like for others, this journey towards who I am now wasn’t and still isn’t straight forward. Having to navigate; talking to people, ensuring I fit some sort of social norm, as a means of not drawing unwanted, negative attention towards myself. Anything for a quiet life and all that. Not necessarily compliance, just attempts to at least temporarily match frequencies or channels with others for a while.
I grew to know long before my diagnosis was discussed with me at 10, that I would have to behave one way at school, perhaps as a means of obeying and complying with the basic school rules, and another at home. The latter where sometimes my School Face would come home with me!
If you’ve read my other wettings, you’ll notice my recurring references to adolescence. In particular, how when I was honest with people (especially about my mental health), I was greeted with a barrage of insults. I didn’t really help myself though, putting on this confusing, failing class clown front that was as estranged from me as I could get. An arrogant, uninformed try-hard. Unintentional arrogance, and curtness to boot! Especially when I wasn’t clowning around, I was socially awkward or pin-drop silent in person, yet a completely different person on MSN Messenger. Almost as if I was projecting my own mixed bag of emotions to others as this Frankenstein’s Monster of a personality!
It didn’t help matters that incidents, such as my first school photo in Year 7 occurred. The Photographer asked me to smile. I put on my biggest, loveliest smile, full of teeth and happiness in the eyes. “Blimey mate, don’t smile that much.” The result is of a fading smile of discouragement.
If I sat depressed, some would approach me and remark “Cheer up, it’ll never happen.” And when I did cheer up, be scolded with; “What are you so happy about??”
The mentality behind the front I grew to carve was; “You’ve given them enough ammo with your social awkwardness, glasses, and weight issues, why give them more by disclosing you’re Autistic?” Though to those genuinely annoyed by me, the appearance of Learning Support Assistants circling me within lessons, as well as my ability to leave classes 5 minutes early, and have a “Time Out Card” if things got too much, probably raised such suspicions, especially if I at times displayed encyclopedic knowledge or intelligence on certain subjects or topics.
I seemed to (in my mind at that time) get on better with the opposite sex. Initially nervous, I suppose it was the primarily female influence I had from my Mother and 2 sisters after my Dad was kicked out. I was still awkward though, but perhaps got on better with girls, because I wasn’t seen as “one of the lads”. My dad’s obsessive and controlling insistence to force me to support football conditioned me out of that! And because I didn’t have my first relationship until I was about 19...well, this was the 2000’s, what sort of slur do you think was regularly thrown my way?
So with this social and personality hurricane unfolding before my very eyes, every day I was at Secondary School was always a trial and error of; “How should I behave around these people? If they even like me to begin with?” as well as; “Why did I behave that way? Do I even belong with anyone here at all?”, before an eventual segue into; “What’s the point? I’ll just do the bare minimum and then I can get out of here.”
Similar mindsets occurred when I was invited to house parties on the off-chance, my first ventures into alcohol and similar.
Attempts to perceive myself as “nice” towards people would often back-fire. The “nice guy” trope landed hard, and it took me a long time to realise that if you’re having to tell people that you’re a nice person, you may as well as be an innocent civilian in a crowded jail, holding a bloodied knife screaming “I’m not a murderer!” Such good and honest intentions often panned out negatively.
Or at home, my Stepdad having to explain to me, that by saying “I didn’t have those last 3 biscuits!” immediately places you as Suspect Number 1 Biscuit Thief!
When others were eventually told about my Autism in the final year of school, the “Oh, I thought he was just being rude” remark was made, but it made no difference about what people had thought of and how they still think of me.
The moment I left school and went into college pursuing something I was more passionate about, I still masked to an extent, but slowly began to adapt an “If asked, tell” outlook. But was still seen for the most part as obsessively encyclopedic about film and just generally eccentric, similar with University.
When I reached my early 20’s, I simply decided that I’d had enough of masking my Autism. It was unnecessary fatigue, on top of my mental health and sensory processing issues.
When I ‘unmasked’, I don’t mean I began acting impulsively in public and causing a scene, or running up to every stranger shouting “I’m John, and I’m Autistic!”. I simply mean, I’m just going to be myself, and don’t care what anybody thinks or says about this any more. It’s a carriage on the train of thought that needs disconnecting. One that seemed to work, especially when I am able to comfortably be myself around my partner of now 8 years, and of my closest of friends who have never really been fazed by how and who I am. I still have my nagging doubts, but don't we all to an extent?
Granted, I still have boundaries, am courteous and disciplined, but I won’t force myself to act or think how others want me to act or think when it really mattered. Why should I embroil myself in petty biased arguments with complete strangers on the internet? Or read the same sensationalist, clickbait headlines as everybody else?
Yes, I may appear curt or aloof, but that’s because I find small talk with a Taxi Driver or Cashier difficult. I may appear like I don’t want to be at the job interview, but I promise you, I am giving it my all. And I might appear uninterested or uncomfortable around a group of friends, but I’ve often appeared as an impartial observer, listening, taking things in, and eventually chiming in when I feel like I have something important to say.
With the whole “If I knew then what I know now” platitude, would I have unmasked earlier during my teen years? I want to say ‘yes’, but I think my life would’ve steered into a completely different direction if I took "Be Yourself" at face value and to its most extremes.