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Best wishes, Gina.

Merry Christmas Gina. Christmas morning here in Canada. It's not the easiest day of the year for sure. There is so much going on and so much to process and it is exhausting. But a great day for the little ones. They make it all worth while.

It is the first time ever i have heard the word Yuletide , thank you for teaching me this👍 🥳

So glad to see you are back and I hope you and your family makes some new wonderful memories without bruising the senses too much. I would literally dig a hole and bury myself if my extended family was not 9000 miles away. I would expect my wife or kids to dig me up after new year but I suspect this would get riskier every year. I can just imagine my wife standing with a spade. Thinking. Then "Okay, last chance. Dig him up"

❤

Quick additional note for seasonal well-wishing, no response required! 🥳 (Personally I prefer to go full hermit for the month of December but I make exception for autistic check-ins.)

TH-cam has been unsubscribing people from channels! I have to re-subscribe sometimes to even my favorite channels, it’s so weird! So please don’t take it personally if someone unsubscribes because it may not have been them.

Internalized ableism is insidious. It has taken years for me to dismantle it, and it is a continual practice. I am also late-diagnosed AuDHD. ❤

Wonderful thoughts again. I sometimes think my entire purpose is a safe place for me and my family unit. As kid was parents and siblings. As parent of course wife and kids. A tough thing to face is when we can perceive a threat or recognize a threat as far greater or immediate than others, and sharing this with those close to you. You may be alarmist. If you are wrong (phew!) you are thought of as paranoid. If you are right ( which historically I am) its much harder to convince others of the validity of your "perceived" but possibly arising storm. Case in point. America today vs America post Jan 20th.

Cannot hear you

If I recall Dexter had a passenger

Please can you put on a weekly " Raodtrips with Gina"? Some british comedians once did the worlds worst roads series. You can create more of your own or ask for contributions towards worlds worst autistic journeys starring autism and co-starring co-morbidities of your followers.

Not wanting to deal with messing up...because it makes us feel unsafe. You hit the nail on the head there Gina. Very articulately put. We do what we must to stay safe.

You gave words to my struggle, thank you.

Yep, this exactly, and definitely applicable to both genders. I left home at 16 (with no idea that I was autistic) and felt perpetually vulnerable, in part due to what I now recognize as the neuroprivilege of others, but also partly due to my economic circumstances i.e. poverty magnifies and concentrates one's vulnerabilities - it is simply NEVER safe to unmask. This remains the case for me even now, decades later, because I still don't have any supportive local social network. As such I'd argue that pervasive systemic undersupport is the root cause of a lot of autistic cPTSD.

I view masking for safety as equivalent to economic security. If I fully unmasked at work, I know I wouldn’t be employed, and would lose my economic autonomy and security. I isolate outside of work, so masking isn’t really an issue in the non-work segments of my life.

yes, we like you. rest well.

This is the most accurate interpretation I've encountered of the Internal Family Systems model as applied to AuDHD, and now I can't help but envision it as one of those teeny-tiny haphazard circus cars crammed full of clowns. 😊 (Personally I also find the circus tends to come to town after a major ordeal has passed and I've spent some much needed time decompressing. I have to wonder whether the duration of their visits remains historically consistent - it feels like their stays are shorter now than they used to be - but that may just be circumstantial as I hadn't previously thought to measure this.) In keeping with seasonal festivities I may have to contextualize this realization via a rewatch of Carnival of Souls - I guess my clown car is a Tim Burton model! 🤷‍♂️

I can relate to all of this. I still often feel like I have to hide this part of myself ... "what if" questions abound. I'm gradually being more open about this with people close to me, and it's easier online (eg. on IG). I'm getting better at accommodating myself, but I'm still so afraid of being noticed, judged or misunderstood.

Wow, I'm on a roll right now finding AuDHD women I relate to and it's SOOOO helpful ... thankyou so much for sharing your experience!! You've had a lot of insights that will help you in the future, and it's kind of you to share them so others can benefit. I was journaling this morning about what unmasking might look like for me. I'm so far self-identified, 49, soon to be evaluated and either diagnosed or given more insights into how my brain works.

my experience is similar to yours. good video. thank you

Glad your back and please continue to give yourself space and time to recover properly. Thank you for sharing this very relatable experience.

Hope you will feel better soon! And your story is very relatable. I started an autism support group this week and even find myself masking there.

Belated greetings from the other side of Canada! This adventure was tough to hear about, having experienced a similar situation a decade ago (prediagnosis) from which I still feel its disruptions as present-moment overstimulation (continental EU visit for three months.) One doesn't typically think of travel as traumatic but I think it may be one of the most disruptive/disregulating autistic experiences, especially for the un-/late-diagnosed. Perhaps it's different once one is autistically self-aware, but the circumstances of travel are immediately and perpetually at odds with monotropic needs for consistency/stability; masking is 24/7 out of necessity because even those quiet moments of rest are random/unfamiliar and prone to disruption. It may even be worse for a week-long trek compared to a longer stay, given that one is abruptly ripped from one's routines, forced into survival mode, and almost as abruptly returned to the familiar, now made temporarily strange by the heightened adaptive reactions of displacement - on the three-month excursion I got comfortable with perpetual discomfort, so the disregulation was more diffused and sustained, even upon return - come to think of it, coming home was like a slow-motion burnout: it took weeks to realize that I wasn't recovering as one would expect; rather, it felt like jet lag lingered for a month afterwards. (If supersonic flights ever become standard again I expect autistic folks would benefit enormously from the compressed flight times.) Also: is it just me or is the grocery store our number one location for unexpected meltdowns? It's like an autistic mobile lab for field experiments: "Am I really okay? Let's see what happens in the produce aisle..."

social chaos will definitely lead to more meltdowns. prepare to lose people who were benefitting from your people pleasing without reciprocity. I've heard that overall, our relationships will deepen and improve with the people who love us for who we are, not who we were pretending to be. and our relationship with ourselves will also improve as we learn self protection and self care. authenticity wins.

No need to "rush back". Just a message to say I hope you and your family are well and safe and all your discoveries re autism are helping much more than hindering.

Just checking in, hope you're doing ok!

I thought and thought and then thought some more about what to comment, just so I don't get it wrong, I almost gave up. So I totally understand and I do constantly feel just as you described. I really want to thank you for your videos as they are truly helping me see how some things are the way they are because I'm autistic and have ADHD. My mental health definitely hit rock bottom and I am struggling. So, thank you again 🙏💖

Love you! I've always felt like if i can't sprint a marathon then I'm cooked. Turns out i was right.

Lightbulb moment ... another person can be a special interest?! Yes! So often I've admired and mirrored people in real life and movies, as you said fascinated, not in a creepy way, then suddenly losing interest. Thankyou so much for sharing your experience. I'm still learning and awaiting diagnosis (I'm 49). My own personality type and traits have also been an ongoing special interest, perhaps because I always want to solve the puzzle of why I think differently, have sensitivities, obsessions and aversions, why I always felt like an alien, and so on.

During our adolescent years we really discover how much we stand out when we are trying so hard to blend in. Being a teen is so so hard. You're a great mum. Keep 'seeing' her. To have a mum who really gets it will make so much of a difference in her accepting herself.

Hi Gina. One of my new subscribers (Dawn) said I should check you out as she thinks we a quite similar. Well done on this video and I look forward to watching more. Trying to limit the amount of time I spend on TH-cam though 🤭 Nice to meet you, I'm EmJ and I have a channel too where I talk about my autistic journey. Are you in Glasgow? You don't sound scottish but I was told you are 🤔 maybe I search the wrong person but glad I came across you.

Did my earlier comment on this fail to post or succumb to gremlins? Either way I can't see it and I'm not sure whether or not that's a glitch at my end.

I have no doubt that 90% of what your kids need is their parents love, acceptance and understanding and I am quite sure they get this. Your kindness and empathy shines in every one of your videos and I am sure your kids benefit from this the most. It was no surprise to hear about your daughter's award. And although I completely understand the need to mask I think supported and informed kids will have a better chance to limit the masking to only what is vital and not lose who they are. I do hope there is a happy medium for all of us. Our kids are now grown. They have their own little neurodivergent journeys but are doing really well.

She's a lucky girl to have a mum who loves her as much as you do

FAIRN BREHDEE, WOOHOO! (As phonetic approximations of Scottish accents go, this is the best I can do.) Haven't listened to it yet but I've got the audiobook of Strong Female Character in my queue.👍👍 Love her, she's so clearly one of us. I find it interesting that you're looking at social connection as a form of special interest in itself, because my formative reactions to the shame of social awkwardness were so often to double down on whatever my interests were i.e. I would rather be alone to happily immerse myself in whatever the interest rather than defer to any social expectation which dictated that loyalty to a friendship ought to come before said interest. In that sense, how we engage with life itself as autistic people is exemplified by our social challenges: we want a deep, immersive involvement with anything and everything that catches our interest, to the extent that we don't seek external social validity for our activities - we learn to expect that other people just cannot relate to that intense degree of involvement. In astrophysics we know that certain stars have such a strong gravitational pull that they absorb all other would-be planets in their orbit (as a lay astrophysicist I admit I don't recall what they're called.) Perhaps this nevertheless serves as a good analogy for the autistic mind, in that we burn so brightly alone because nothing of interest can escape our fixation.

I can confirm that if one makes ones spouse a special interest, a genuinely nice, funny, gentle person may start threatening murder in ones sleep. But I can't help it. Oh well. I wonder if a provide her with a permission slip / mitigating circumstances she will at least avoid prison on my demise. I am becoming kinder of my past and current self. Only internally though. I find unmasked me is not anyones cup of tea so I have literally driven others away. I think primarily because if one can have a special interest word, for me it is understanding. I am trying to understand everything about others and myself. Internally I am happier and kinder because I better understand most things I have done in the past. And present. Its amazing how much of the shame is in "not feeling normal" and not in some bullying event or slight. But actual acts like having hurt someone, is still something to be worked through and corrected. Externally, apart from my wife no one has any interest or energy in understanding. Or finding new common ground. Quite understandable for someone I met yesterday. I am referring to people I've known most of my life. My kids are in their 20s, have always found me weird and although they have made no extra effort its all okay as they sort of adapted to weird dad long ago. And their poor mum usually gets awful dad first so they avoid him. My father passed away a few years ago and was a dangerously damaged man. But even as far as his treatment of me I have realized just how confusing this weird son was for him to manage. I am not sure if I pity him or enjoy thinking how many buttons I must have inadvertently pressed in him. Issues were minor with my mom. She was generally great. Currently though if she does something that upset me as a child I am far more upset about her current action. But evidence is never thrown out of a data hoarders brain. For example, something may lie fairly peacefully in my brain. But if my mom does something now, I get a deluge of related details from my brain stretching back +50 years in some case. Who says time is a continuum anyway. Even Einstein was confused by time, at times. I wonder if Einstein kept a diary? Anyway, I see no hope for future friendships especially because I have always preferred friendships with women. I may look like a rugby player but I enjoy friendships with emotional depth. And most importantly, women, justifiably have to be very careful of rugby playing looking men who are interested in everything about them. Of course this comes off as wanting something more. This is no criticism of women. Its them practicing common sense. Even my good relationships with men were only because they shared my special intetests and tolerated the depth to which I plumb emotionally. I have largely eliminated existing relationships outside our 4 walls. I just cannot envisage being unmasked me and having friends. And I have retired so don't face this at work. It does mean when I venture out it is much easier to mask a little and frankly, be pleasant and experience pleasant interactions with strangers. I have even found my driving has dropped another notch in terms of aggression and increased in terms of consideration. I gave up the full road rage high speed approach decades ago but its nice to be even nicer whilst driving. I do put this down to usually having more spoons available. In general it makes me feel whole but others think of me as an ass-whole. I know I can only manage this "I am a rock/island" lifestyle due to my wife as she is my rock and companion. But as you mentioned this is not ideal for spouse and I do drive her crazy.

I hear so much of myself in you and in all the comments here. So many autistic spaces have 20s and 30s in them mostly, which there is nothing wrong with them, it's just at 55 I'm in a different part of life. I find myself putting on a mask just without even thinking about it, but then I find myself rehearsing how to act to have my mask "off" in the situation and I think that's just masking as well. Somewhere in there is me, but it's scary to dig down to find the unmasked me.

💗

I think it’s really important to process those feelings of sadness about our past- being left out, masking, and struggling. I relate so much to what you said. Thank you for sharing!

It is scary to find oneself stripped of well-established and familiar markers of identity and behaviour, both one's own and others'; however I think this is directly linked to the return of unfettered joy i.e. the reward for vulnerability is a renewed sense of belonging/homecoming within oneself. Personally, since my late diagnosis two years ago, I'm surprised to find myself so unapologetically self-isolating; part of me feels similarly unshackled yet I've no desire to share that with the world. I feel that I've done my part, served my purpose as a member of a society that never understood me or appreciated my efforts anyway, and I am now free of social obligation: At last, I get to rest, and to be left alone. That's all I ever really wanted; but after the constant struggle to get by and play along for decades, the new *stillness*/calm of late diagnosed unmasking still feels strange, like I don't know how I got here. So, while not quite in my twilight years (unless there's any truth to autistic life span being far shorter than average), I find myself exploring a vertiginous, surreal twilight zone of unfamiliar contexts. Actually it reminds me of the pre-cogs in Minority Report: Freed of their traumatic job at last, they retire to a rustic cabin on a remote island and spend their days reading books. That's basically my idea of "happily ever after" but I never thought I'd achieve it.

I've been greatly enjoying your videos. I was told I am autistic last year at the age of 57, so am at a similar stage to you. So much you say here resonates. I've been able to keep a career for over 30 years but never reached the heights I could, because of my inability to network. But now I have a diagnosis and am winding down to retirement there is no reason for me to continue to mask - so I don't. My boss was taken aback by my sudden total refusal to attend conferences and other things that always stressed me. And, like you, I am seeing glimpses of the younger me again. Geeky interests I once hid because of trying to fit in have had a proud resurgence. I am very lucky in that my wife and the two ladies I work alongside had always suspected I am autistic but have always been kind and supportive. Keep posting - you express the feelings better than I could.

You are not alone. I feel that way frequently. Good for you for taking care of yourself.

So relatable. I have always struggled to gauge if people even understand me masked. Now its this x 1000. As I am finally able to understand myself others are drifting even further away. A few years ago I thought my goal was acceptance of myself. I now feel that being understood by others is essential for this self acceptance. Not loved, admired etc. Just understood.

Thank you for talking about this! It's scary to unmask and show your authenticity, I think i will receive more negativity but I'm not sure yet because I haven't interacted with that many people. I want to be honest with what I think and feel because I've suppressed it all my life. I was very quiet in school because of RSD and also not understanding I'm audhd. I think I will be having more conflicts because I don't want to waste energy on making people like me. I've become better at advocatong for my needs and questioning authority when I feel like I'm being controlled. It's really hard to unmask but also very freeing. It's very comforting listening to other people talking about unmasking and what we go through.

Great video - thank you. 'Fighting to change society to make it more inclusive' - yes! We're different not lesser than neurotypical people.

Thank you, this feels like a very hard and brave journey you are sharing with us. The opposite is also possible: I have ADHD, maybe autistic, male, Dutch ( blunt and painfully honest and direct) and my feelings bounce out almost unfiltered almost all of the time. This has its down sides ( people feeling threatened, being a weirdo) but also very many upsides: never worried about the "proper" response, being perceived as very authentic. And I am very very funny(witty) although I feel sorry for those who don't get it. Sometimes I feel I could do with a little more masking ability. Not being able to lie whatsoever makes me completely unable to integrate in the UK social culture.

Be reassured that your videos are massively helpful and likewise appreciated. I feel you are very brave for being so honest. Every day I cry because It's so hard to understand and support the tantrums of my daughter and my ex would be so helpful in teaching me how to support our daughter but she is too busy hiding the fact that she might be autistic because she and the world have to believe she is nothing but perfect ( and completely in control). What a nightmare for our daughter with a father who wants her to be able to be her autistic self and a mother who wants her to mask and be perfect and if not " be mended". I keep begging for honesty, but meanwhile your video's help me understand the inner workings of their behaviour. I have ADHD and I am very shameful about reacting with a meltdown if one of our daughters has a meltdown. I'll try wallpapering our house with harts.

All of what you say rings true. I would probably say it in harsher way as you always say it so gently. What I have discovered about masking is - I feel much better internally. In isolation. Mine is energetic is difficult to guide at times. But I am following my mind not forcing it to follow task lists. - the world does not stop and accommodate one - I am retired. I am incredulous you can work as I cannot believe anyone can work unmasked - socially, those I know don't know who I am anymore. - all of what I regard as much good emotions. My caring deeply, my sensitivity, my empathy, my ideas, my intelligence, just alienate people. - so I feel like I am destroying existing relationships and people I try to get to know soon push me away. Sometimes I understand why. Sometimes I have no clue. I suspect a common thought is always he is just too much. I got through my career using expressions very similar if not the same to what you expressed. Learnt from parents, teachers, siblings and bosses. Suck it up. Or. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. And I have confirmed I accomplished this by dissociating. I have ill fitting jumbled boxes in my brain. 1 for work. 1 for family. 1 for friends. 1 for finances. 1 for admin etc etc etc. When something became too much I just started shutting boxes. Before I met my wife and having kids this could mean close down box for bills. Heck, dont even check mail. For months. I use this example as it sort of creates a very real picture of what all my boxes looked like at times. I am looking into dissociation but even without the privilege of not working I am considering how to have suck it up days between just trying to build some sort of stability in my unmasked world. Keep thinking there must be a happy medium but I cannot just change on impulse. It is forcing me to behave in a way that may not match the need.

You don’t seem weird to me.