MASKING MY AUTISM- what does it look like? what did it make me do?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
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0:00 Introduction
0:09 @PAIGELAYLE TIKTOK & INSTAGRAM
2:27 hand shaking
2:55 scripted convos
3:43 mirror practise
5:03 copying outfits
5:34 no personality
6:09 customer service voice 24/7
6:40 blend in SO MUCH
8:19 mirror mirror
8:33 people pleasing!!!
9:00 exhausted
9:56 prepared for social interactions
10:26 i was the joker
10:51 saying words weird
Masking is wild because, in middle school, I tried to mask by being very mean to everyone that I liked. However, I didn't know that was bad because people who I thought were my friends were actually just bullying me, so my brain made the rule that friendship = being mean.
I relate to this so much. When I was really young I equated being popular and cool and liked with being a bully because of movies. I used to be mean when I was really young until I realize that that was not OK. I thought that was the normal thing to do. But I learned better.
!!!! GOD THIS HITS SO CLOSE TO ME AS WELL HAHAH
I did the exact same thing when I tried to get into a friend group in 4-6th grade. I guess I sorta had success with it since I did hang out with them for all those years?? But in 5th grade one of them transferred schools and the other two said it was my fault because I bullied her. I was so confused though because I only did what the other two said or did. That's friendship right? Being jokingly mean and rough with each other. By the end of 6th grade they cut ties with me completely because they said I was an awful person and that took a long time to cope with because I was so confused by what even happened.
The girl who transferred schools actually reached out to me in 6th grade and told me that her transfer wasn't caused by me but actually by the other two girls who cut ties with me, but they lived under the impression that it was me because there's no way that they, her "real friends", could possibly insult her but it's instead, the intruder, who caused her to change schools.
That whole month of conflict still makes me confused but I'm suspecting that most of it was caused by my undiagnosed autism of trying to fit in with people and not reading them correctly.
Ooooh I remember that
I didn't necessarily have whole friendship groups but my one main bully in every school was always in my friendship group. Now I've got the last laugh because all my nice friends still talk to me but they don't talk to them anymore 😁 but bless you, kids are horrible I swear
Oh.wow, I did the same!
It's like being in a job interview constantly - trying really hard and consciously to appear right, say the right thing.
It is exhausting.
While I don’t mask hardly at all, I get this because I find just being around other humans to be too stimulating.
That is a great analogy. It really is just like that
Me at a job interview for a clothing store: Wow, you're so bubbly!!! We would love to have you
Me actually working at said job: Why aren't you talking to customers???
Masking is so funny
I hate applying to jobs because I feel like I'm lying... I can only keep up the facade for a while until the pressure builds up, I inevitably freak out, and leave the job completely haha
Oh yes, I've had that exact experience and then got fired after working one shift. Add it to the list of things that suddenly made sense once I knew I was autistic!
That is so relatable! I sometimes had to get into the door through a public facing position, but always tried to transition into a backroom type of position as quickly as possible before burning out. It got to the point where I only took jobs where social interaction was at a minimum like at warehouses, before I burned out altogether and went on disability.
Omg yes I feel like I don’t deserve the jobs because I feel like I’m “lying”
Trying to sustain it eight hours a day is exhausting. I loved working in an open design office because we spent most of our day working quietly on our own projects but weren’t alone and could interact on and off
it's so funny cause my masking strategies are completely different from yours which just shows how bad autistic people are at pretending to be neurotypical, like we're all doing different things thinking this is how neurotypical people act but none of us is doing it right lol
what were your masking strategies?
Agreed. I don't know if this is an accurate comparison, but masking is a lot like wearing a pair of trainers that are an inch short: walking is manageable, but it's uncomfortable, heh.
@@birdtabloid1704 in conversations: nodding constantly, raising my eyebrows, smiling, alternating between looking at someone's eyes and their lips so I get just the right amount of eye contact (keep it mind that I have to remember to do all of that consciously while talking to someone which is exhausting)
other things: talking way too much cause neurotypicals think you're antisocial if you don't speak, mimicking my friends' sense of humour cause Idk how to be funny, being overly polite in all situations cause I've been told I was being rude so many times as a child
@@joanams8353 I did similar things a lot except it was too difficult and I couldn't keep up
@@birdtabloid1704 completely understandable, I rely on masking so much at this point that unfortunately I don't know how to socialize with people outside my family without masking anymore
The insane number of times I've been "Manic Pixie Dream Girl'ed" and told "you're perfect for me," all because I unconciously shift and mold my personality to match whoever I'm talking to. Whoops.
No same 🫠
Samesies
OH MY GOD, THIS!!!! Theses were also my favorite movies as a teen. Just thought, oh, this is great. I guess i really took it like a guide for being a lovable person. Someone who knew me when I was in college (10 years ago) told me he thought i was doing the manic pixie dream girl thing and didn’t know if it was on purpose and really me😳 everyone was falling in love with me, and it really wasn’t my intention.
same!!
jup... ._.
I always used to have set personalities for different social groups, and I never realised how often I would switch between wildly different ways of .. existence? (Idk) I would be talking to one person in one way, someone would walk over, and I’d immediately switch mid conversation into the personality I had created for that person, and switch between whatever depending on who’s talking. (My 3rd grade teacher thought I was really weird dude)
Not me thinking this was normal I’m so deep into the mask even after embracing myself as how I am lol
Yeah. I always had this sense of, while I'm still "me," all the time, I presented different... facets of me based on the setting, and it was usually based on copying what the people in that setting were doing and calculating every movement and my posture and the meter of my speech, etc, even actively suppressing stims and faking eye contact (I look at the nose or their forehead or their mouth).
I do this as well. I can’t tell if it’s considered two faced or not. It’s not like my personality completely changes, but I’m definitely more reserved around some people than others. It’s very hard for me to be social. There’s a specific person at work who I want to interact more with, and I freeze up when I try. I want to start by making eye contact and smiling and waving, but it’s very hard for me. And some days are harder than others. Like I get physically tired of trying to fit in and be normal.
Wait, this isn't normal? I thought everyone did this. Or maybe I'm just overthinking because I do this too, but I never liked thinking too much into it
@@spongenoob4409 It is normal, but similary to how even non-autistic people stimm it’s all about intensity, how often it happens, and reason why
1:50: Eye contact.
2:26: Hand shaking.
2:54: Scripted convos.
3:42: Mirror practise.
4:01: Paid sponsor.
5:01: Copying outfits.
5:33: No personality.
6:07: Customer service voice 24/7.
6:39: Blend in so much.
8:19: Mirror mirror.
8:32: People pleasing!!!
8:59: Exhausted.
9:56: Prepared for social interactions.
10:26: I was the joker.
10:51: Saying words weird.
Thank you!
my adhd and i say thank you
You forgot the word "p*nis" or was I the only one who saw it scroll past during the instagram selfie part. (I really find it hard to look into eyes on this video)
@@jeremysargent5037 I did notice, but its purpose was to sneak up on people. Putting it in would have defeated this purpose (which is something your comment obviously did).
@@bruce5 to me it sticks out like a sore thumb (no pun intended).
I can relate to feeling like an adult in a kid's body when I was younger, although I don't think it had anything to do with me being smarter. I think it was more so because I was bullied pretty severely. I would retreat into my own mind as a coping mechanism, which lead me to consider things that other people wouldn't because they were too busy having fun and playing with their friends. It could also be that due to being in an unstable environment I tended to overthink my actions and choices as to not subject myself to further trauma.
Haha, same. When I was a kid, I was considered "shy" and "serious". Now that I'm (technically) an adult, I feel like people are starting to treat me like a kid.
Well that (yeah, most of that, save I wasn’t bullied and stood up to them rather recklessly), but also by being smarter. I guess all of the trauma related stuff and unstable environment is what I really identify with, which was why I couldn’t tolerate kids being mean or a bully even if that bully was a teacher. I mostly wanted to be around adults because I just didn’t understand children, not just their meanness but the sort of play they wanted to engage in.
I was also pretty fearless and so, when I was sent out to play by my mother to get out of her hair, I ended up stopping kids from killing bugs (and picking them up and delivering them to safety) or teaching school. (I was like a safety Cop, a member of the God Squad, saving all the creatures.) Once, I stopped a bunch of kids from stoning a pile of snakes in the apartment complex we lived in, and I draped myself in 5 of them (I knew they were harmless) and walked home sporting them like I was some sort of Sun Goddess. My mother was sitting out with friends in lawn chairs as I walked down the street with everyone else following me like I was some sort of pied piper. She said I walked down the road like the Queen of Sheba… other mothers seemed to love my fearlessness. Teachers took special interest in me and tutored me once it was discovered that I read and comprehended at an advanced level, and when I was 12 my best friend was 27. So, yeah, I never could figure out how to fit with my peers as a kid. That’s not to say I wished I could. I wanted to. I just couldn’t figure out how to do it and still be me.
I am unmasking at 38. It’s extremely overwhelming to be learning who i am at almost 40. I have realized none of my friends where my friends. And now i have to make new friends. I am over and done with hiding who i am and i just want to not want to off myself anymore so unmask it is. I have learned i am nothing like anyone and that is wonderful and ok. Wish i would have known at your age.
How do you make new friends? At 48, I have only a few friends all from meeting them in college at 18 years old. They are all pretty much neurodivergent like I am.
@@taoist32 no idea but i plan to join the gym and maybe some local Facebook groups and start there.
Fr after school making friends is so much harder esp when u got that emotional baggage LMFAOOO
@@taoist32 accept that for deep friendship with easy communication your going to be most successful with other neurodivergents so focus in finding people like that. The internet is your friend or the kinds of clubs that attract ND people. And there’s seriously nothing wrong with writing a post in a local ND Facebook group saying you want a friend and what your interests are. I see it all the time. It works. I met the most awesome friend responding to a post like that.
@@mommabecky83 join clubs for your interests, you'll have a common interest! I struggled to make friends until I joined roller derby.
I'm not diagnosed with autism, but I am diagnosed with ADHD with autistic traits (pretty sure they're more than just traits though) and I relate to this SO much. I'm 29 and it wasn't until last year that I actually stopped masking completely. I was basically so burnt out and depressed that I just went "WELP, pretty sure I won't be around for much longer anyway, so I might as well stop giving a sh**!"
My poor, neurotypical family was so confused in the beginning, lol. I actually remember my mom and sister telling me that it seemed like my symptoms had "worsened" lately, to which I firmly said "No. Nonono. You actually can't say that, because I've ALWAYS been this way. I'm just too exhausted to muster up even a fraction of the energy it takes for me to even try to care about pretending that I'm not."
I started going to therapy shortly after that, so my mental health is loads better now. Still not the best, but so much better than it was before.
Also growing up, I was always told my smiles, especially in photos, looked fake. Even if I was having fun, I’d get that. I’ve realized that when I’m unmasking, I naturally smile a lot, and it’s usually a full-on kind. I think maybe I stopped doing that when I was little because there are a few times, when I was very small, where I can remember people being freaked out that I’d just be existing and walking around with a full-faced smile. Now I just don’t care, because I’m a mostly happy person and I like the way my actual smile feels when I do it. A lot of unmasking for me has been realizing, you know what, if I’m happy and not hurting anyone, who cares what people think? That’s been powerful for me.
Dude same. My mom would get on my case and tell me to "get rid of the miss America smile and just smile normally." But if I was genuinely uncomfortable standing around waiting for a photo to be taken, I was not having a good time, ergo not able to actually smile. I stopped smiling with teeth after a while, but candid photos showed how truly happy of a child I was, always smiling, always laughing. It was posing that made it feel fake and even now I still don't like having my picture taken, all bc I didn't smile the way I was "supposed to." Why do people need to police such things?
Yep, I smile a lot when I’m interacting or just happy but am totally flat faced, expressionless and without non-verbal cues when listening unless someone makes me laugh. I don’t mask hardly at all and never have because it never occurred to me to and I was clueless about how to be like others while maintaining my true self, which I valued. (I suppose more so because I kept getting the message I was supposed to copy other people.) And so that means I cannot fake a smile for a camera ever. I look like a droid if I do. I think my father was autistic and I could always tell his fake smiles; meanwhile, my mother who wasn’t had a believable fake smile for the camera.
#6 No Personality: I refuse to discuss music with people because their opinion affects my opinion. I also refuse to learn about the personal lives of musicians because if I don't like them as a person than I will dislike their music. I just want to have my own 'objective' opinion and picking up other's opinions is just maddening.
One thing I'm very curious about is what happens when the video skips. Are you laughing uncontrollably for 5 minutes straight each time? Stimming in some way? I've never made a video and a lot of other videos skip the same way so I don't think it's necessarily something nefarious.
Omg the music thing I relate
The parts she cuts out of the video could be when she is pausing to think about what she’s gonna say next or when she’s stumbled over her words.
I pretty much agree with the music thing! One example I think of personally is that I saw this one video forever ago about Mitski’s songs that I’m pretty sure now was a joke, but at the time I thought it was mocking. Even though I hear so much positive stuff about her songs I can never seem to like them just because that one video ruined it for me 😭
I relate to this so much only also with movies. I refuse to read “professional” critics reviews because they are paid to criticize and often their opinions are poorly formed and not very intelligent (maybe that’s a separate issue lol), but if I read them my experience is colored and I can’t enjoy it as much.
@@nmg6248 I can't watch trailers for any show, movie or even anime because they're meant to make the subject look good so I immediately fall in love with said media over a 1 min video with cool music
“As a kid, I felt like an adult with a bunch of kids.”
LITERALLY SAME OMGGGG!!!! I recently talked with my psychiatrist and therapist about possibly being autistic because I have memories EXACTLY like this plus current struggles (they think 100% yes and referred me for formal diagnosis 🙃). I’d be so overwhelmed by other kids that I’d freeze and the teachers would bring me to one of the special ed rooms to play by myself lol. They called it “Annika time.” Then they told my mom I was just shy… 🤦🏼♀️
At least they were accommodating
I don’t know that I’m necessarily on the autism spectrum, but I think I relate to this from anxiety. A great example was standing in the hall in high school in the morning before classes. Like, it was what my friends did, so I did it. But I was constantly analyzing how is everyone standing? How is everyone holding their school stuff? How do I stand in a group in a physically normal way? What time does everyone disband to go to class? There is also tons of sensory input in a high school hallway before classes start. With all that running through my head, how the hell am I supposed pay attention? Lol
“idk that i’m on the autism spectrum” *goes on to describe fairly common autistic experiences*
i’m not trying to be mean mind you just maybe think you might have some stuff to unpack there /pos
@@superzooperhaze6597 it's a self conscious thing too. One relatable thing doesn't mean they have it lol
@@noiz1762 observing the people around you to see how to behave like a person isn’t an anxiety thing. like that’s just not a part of the disorder. can someone who is undiagnosed autistic have an already recognized anxiety diagnosis? 100%.
source: was me before getting diagnosed with ASD.
Not going to claim you're autistic because I don't know you. It may be an anxiety thing or and OCD thing, but that does sound like a possible symptom of autistic masking if you think it would be worth looking into further.
@@superzooperhaze6597 could it be maybe social anxiety? I'm asking because i'm also confused about myself.
When you talked about dumbing yourself down, it sent me into a brain gallery of all the conversations I've been having since I've stopped masking as much, and how different my vocabulary is. I use big, specific words because I assign specific meanings to them, and they can't be subbed out for a smaller, more friendly word naturally to me, because they don't mean the same thing. They don't give the exact vibe or feeling I'm trying to convey.
I remember I used to get in trouble for it in social groups when I was a lot younger before I figured out "oh, this is something people don't like about me, must adapt." People always seem to think that I was doing it to sound smarter, to show that I was better than them, a true intellectual. And yeah, while I do think I was smarter than everyone, and I still do (but I'm working on that a lot), I just used the words that made the most sense to me.
I used to have a more robust vocabulary, but I dumbed it down for other people and now it's both limited and limiting. I don't read nearly as much anymore, so I can't restore it without intentional practice. I don't see a point either because a lot of people I work with can't understand basic questions without me breaking them down... It's almost like the way I ask the questions is weird in the first place.
If people can't understand a word you're using, they will often just nod along and pretend they understood it, or in some cases they might think they understood when they actually didn't fully grasp your meaning. This is why it seems entirely pointless to use a large vocabulary in the first place. Language is for communication, so if people don't understand what I'm saying, that's a problem.
That said, it's extremely satisfying to talk to someone about something technical and get to use larger words or jargon. Too bad it rarely ever happens.
Same. It’s really sad but when I was a teen I wanted to drink so much so that my brain cells would die and I could finally be like everybody else. Like that was my objective…. So I became an alcoholic for a few years. Thank god I’m sober now… I still feel like I have to dumb myself down a lot.
this comment is so spot on! I really had to check if I didn't write it myself because this is my life 😱 it's such a struggle being smart while not being able to control the arrogance/narcissism. in many cases a healthy one because ppl are so dumb. I'm so amazed by stupidity 🥹 must be a chill life not overthinking :C
That is my experience too. Idk what there is to work on about thinking you're smarter than people that are not as smart. You're just in touch with reality if your on the right side of the Bell curve for intelligence. I'm going to start using the right words again, rather than the words that don't fit but that other people use.
Many autistic people get called "gifted" and get good grades at school but I'm autistic and I left school with one GCSE and I got put down as having learning difficulties
I never wore makeup and I was never interested in dressing up as a child which is weird
I hate that word so much. AFAICT it was a euphemism treadmill term made up just to avoid saying that people are smart (I guess to not embarrass all the non-smart people?) but why would it be less offensive to be "non-gifted" (giftless? lump-of-coal-esque?) than non-smart?
Intelligence is not equally distributed. Maybe instead of coming up with neologisms to mask (heh) what we're talking about, we should try coming up with a society that doesn't humiliate people for something they have no control over? Just a thought.
For me, Masking looks like:
- Hiding or stop engaging in my special interest when I don't feel safe (this happens subconsciously)
- Pretending to be interested in NT topics and actively engaging in an conversation about NT things
- Listening to conversations I'm not interested in
- Stopping myself from saying what's on your mind or thinking for a while, whether I should really say XY
- Not stimming in public or using stim toys
- Participating in NT activities
- Making eye contact, ouch!
How I masked when I was younger but I don't do these anymore:
- Learning Social cues and how to behave in certain social situations and applying them irl
- Initiating conversations with other people to make the impression of being nice
- Talking a lot, even I didn't want to
- Starting conversations with other people to "practice" the skills I learned from the internet and to make other people think I am nice
- Smiling a lot and trying to look like a friendly person
- Imitating current trends and getting into typical interests (wasn't so successful though) and trying to take more care of my appearance
- Participating in gossiping in order to belong somewhere
- At the age of 13-14, I also first started to hide my special interests and refused to openly draw MLP characters in front of other people. This issue is still present today, just with my new special interest Undertale now
I tried hard to act normal, be social, make friends, and be "engaged in the community" for years. I spent years running 2 different meetups groups, and going to two others. This meant that I would go to 4 different meetups a week. I ran an 8 hour long rock climbing meetup with dinner afterward (which I had to plan for every week) on Saturdays. I also ran another Bouldering meetup (4 hours) on Wednesdays. Then on top of that I went to a cards against humanity meetup on Tuesdays, and another social meetup on Fridays. I was also drinking a bottle of wine and a liter of beer a day throughout that time in order to cope with it all. I once organized a rock climbing trip with a few people and failed to stop everyone when we all started up a dangerous path on the side of the mountain because I didn't want to be seen and the timid weakling loser I had always thought of myself as. This lead to us getting lost on the mountain and almost needing to be rescued. We did some unsecured climbing that could have resulted in us getting severely injured or even killed. I did all of this in order to fight against my own nature and my own inner weakness which disgusted me and which I felt I had to overcome. So yeah, you can say that I tried hard to "Mask" my autism. All of this never really brought me any fulfillment though. The social relationships I found doing this were ultimately fickle and eventually, all but two of them disappeared. I now no longer do any of that nor drink any alcohol at all. I am now happily sitting in my room and I'm now going to continue playing the Witcher 2 for the first time.
I have ADHD (inattentive) and I can definitely relate to some of this. Struggling with the acceptable amount of time for eye contact to make it respectful but not awkward in different situations, blending in by adopting characteristics of other people and same interests to some extent, trying to effect a deeper voice, dumbing myself down, making myself smile in things like job interviews, planning out conversations to some extent (what things I can talk about so we don’t run out of topics), and trying to overcome what are probably sensory issues (such as trying to partake in conversations where there’s lots of background noise, but I seem to be the only person struggling to make out what others are saying). Other people also find me difficult to read in the sense that their guesses for my interests and likes are frequently completely wrong.
But I feel like I do have my own likes and interests, but just hide them from most people unless I’m comfortable with them. And similarly, I don’t think I’ve ever needed to check my facial expressions or body language. And I think I get better at talking to people if I know them better and aren’t restricted to just scraps of information they’ve mentioned in passing. I also don’t get quite as exhausted as Paige in social situations, especially around actual friends.
yeah, I can relate, I have ADHD and I'm autistic. I'm actually really good in social situations if I'm comfortable with the people I'm talking to. I also did hide my interests a lot as a kid although I still adopted some thinking they were actually my own.
So how do you know you only have ADHD and not also autism? just like the previous comment said they had both. How does one differentiate? I say this because I'm 100% hyper focused attention disordered. I get lost in things I'm doing and time flies. I often after completing tasks, reflect on my mental state before I started said task and feel like 5 minutes passed when 3 hours just did.
I can relate to alot of the things she said here too, but the not being able to find your own interests is something I'm the opposite on. I will die on every hill of the things I like defending why I like them. Unless it's a different view point regarding stuff I'm not too versed in, I'll consider their point too.
Adhd ramble.
tl;dr: how do you know you arent both adhd and autistic and can you just be one thing while having some traits of the other?
@@robosing225 They definitely have same overlapping traits, but there’s also some unique ones to each that I think can be used as a differentiator.
One characteristic of autism is difficulty reading body language and facial expressions. For example, Paige has mentioned being unable to read her mother’s facial expressions to interpret her mood, relying instead on noticing things like noises she makes when frustrated. I have never personally had an issue with this, and according to cognitive tests I’ve had to do, I have normal facial expression recognition ability.
Another characteristic is struggling to understand figurative language, sarcasm, or irony. Paige also mentioned struggling to interpret the meaning of figurative or metaphorical language, despite generally being good at English. I have also never had a problem with this.
As such, because I lack these traits, this makes me doubt I have autism. Descriptions of the characteristics of inattentive ADHD, on the other hand, fit me to a T.
In general, you can have traits of a disorder without having the disorder itself - such as people saying they have “autistic traits” like being able to easily notice changes in minute details or being very good at systemising. The disorder diagnosis also requires these traits to be severe enough that they affect functioning in daily life.
But to determine whether you actually have autism or just ADHD, what I would probably rely on most is a clinical diagnosis. Personally, I didn’t receive an autism diagnosis when I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid - I believe my mum said they did test me for it but didn’t think I met enough of the criteria.
@@robosing225 there’s a good screening tool online. I’ve got ADHD but not autistic (I don’t personally identify with or relate to a lot of characteristics of autism). You can have sensory issues and also have social anxiety from overthinking things without being autistic. I don’t struggle with picking up on, understanding, or recognizing social cues, body language etc. I end up missing fleeting cues at times due to my inattention and distractibility (inability to filter out irrelevant stimuli & focus on relevant stimuli), and developed social anxiety from criticism and bullying in childhood.
@@deliriumtrigger1024 this is pretty close to me. I'm pretty decent at picking up on social cues and have seen others who were actually on the spectrum be completely oblivious, almost as if the world is revolving around them (I'm sure that's not how they actually view it, but from my perspective it seems that way due to the fact that they are inherently neuro divergent).
I have a hard time learning new material since I'm cross dominant/left handed. So I'm prone to dyslexic traits. This causes me to take a bit longer to digest information since my hyper focusing disorder. But my determination means I will take however long to learn the material specifically because I know I lag a bit.
Every friendship I've ever had has ended probably because of me. Being asocial means I tend to stop texting or engaging with the friend in matters that I know little about or interest in. I'm aware I'm doing it though, I just cant help it.
I'll definitely take that assessment/screening. Since I sometimes using stimming (light leg tapping) to help me concentrate on certain things.
Thanks.
i am on my way to get a diagnosis in one month.. we will see. I'm pretty
certain at this point. i just got home 5 minutes ago from a party i didnt want to attend (decided to go because somebody asked). once i was there somebody dragged me into a group of people to introduce me. everyone started touching my hands, my shoulders and stuff, taking to me, telling me storys and wanting to get to know me by asking a lot of questions. i switched to the social person everyone expected me to be. after that i had a breakdown, screamed at my friends and drove home alone. i disassociated almost the whole way home. no idea how i got here. i have been sitting on my bed since i came home and now i am watching your video to get better and understand myself more. i am trying so hard not to cry rn this experience was just too much
That's rough, hope you made up with your friends.
@Smol Artist Bean ....if a group of people started asking me question or a person from the group...I would most likely look/assess everyone in the circle to see their reactions and if others were paying attention to hear my answers...I would 1) dis engage or try to make em laugh and if that didn't work for the "intaragration" lol to change direction i would..... 2) find it odd as I am soo uncomfortable being centre of attention in any circumstance that I would leave aka bathroom break n possibly leave asap with out saying anything... depending on the questions.... n how close I was to the leader of the pack...
*in my younger years that is...hahaha I don't go to party's per say but I'm like this even at a BBQ or something.
Love this video n the honesty spoken!
The smiling thing is so accurate. I never knew what to do with my face so I was just 😃 all the time
YES!! My friend smiled so much for a period of time and I could tell exactly that it was fake and that it wasn't her genuinely being happy. I suspect her to be neurodivergent, however she herself claimed that she wasn't autistic, although she shared and still shares some, but not all, autistic traits (with me)
I still subconsciously steal lines and quotes from series and movies all the time. And in High School I always tried to make myself like what everyone else liked for music until Grade 12. Then I started to explore what I really wanted and found what I really like.
I just want to say Paige has help me so much, even though I knew that I was, I tried not to think about it, and so my mask became, "get the fuck away from me". For the longest time, I didn't know that there were people like me, I thought I was extra weird as I wasn't non-vocal, so even though I knew for a long time, I didn't know I wasn't the only one until like a year ago, but I didn't find. people that helped me and didn't make me feel useless, that's not my family, until I say Paige, so thank you for making me feel more than a waste of O2
My craziest masking thing I have recently realized about myself is that I got so good at masking, that I was literally masking to myself… you talk about feeling relieved and having a melt down from exhaustion when you got home, which I cannot relate to. I literally developed personality traits and actually thought that was who I was. Now looking back, I realize I did not like XYZ, I just convinced myself I did because somebody else liked it. Just Quarter life crisis things now that I have been diagnosed and am searching my inner self
Best of luck to you💗
Same. Except at mid-life. Looking back on my previous 44 years knowing that I'm autistic is such a WILD re-interpretation of everything, it's exhausting and overwhelming, but I don't know how to do it gradually. 😕
oh gosh same, took “fake it till you make it” to heart and it had me in denial and frustrated about so many things about myself for so much of my life because of how hard it was to try to live up to and stay in character consistently even when I was alone bc “normal ppl don’t do that”😭
Not a real thing, sigh. Masking isn't an uncontrollable brain slug that takes over your body and hides your own thoughts from yourself.
That last note about people feeling like we have some deep chemistry is so relevant to me. I contribute interesting things to a conversation and don’t make people feel bad because of some random expectation (meaning they feel free because of my lack of expectations of them), and they feel refreshed by that. Then they feel like they wanna be my friend, whereas I’m done and just treated them like I would treat anybody normally. I don’t have to be your bestie to be genuine.
something I always did to deal with eye contact was to just blur my vision and just stare into other people’s eyes. yeah, I ended up being told I was “too intense” a lot, when I was the one finding everyone else too intense 😭
Paige, HOW do you deal with everyone saying: "But everyone does that" or "but everyone struggles with that". I never know what to say, and it feels like everyone tries to invalidate my autistic struggles...
I would ask them if they are curious why they relate so strongly with your autistic traits. Have they considered what they thought “everyone” deals with might not actually be something “everyone” deals with… and that until people like myself were diagnosed we assumed our autistic struggles were “normal” neurotypical struggles.. :)
This hit home. They'll never understand. Some may try to understand but will never understand. Talking with people who have autism will give you relief; they'll understand, you'll feel validation. When you are then faced with that horribly frustrating conversation with neurotypicals, you may find yourself not needing to explain yourself at all. Sending prayers your way 🙏 🙂
When people say that, it's because they have experienced the thing being discussed. A few times. They don't understand that for us, it's not something inconvenient that happens sometimes, just when you're already stressed or sick or slept badly, etc. They have no concept of dealing with Thing X every waking moment of every day and knowing it will never, ever go away. When they say "Everyone struggles with that," it's almost always in the context of "so get over it," and they think that should be easy because they deal with X occasionally and then it stops.
It's very much like those who tell someone with depression that everyone gets sad sometimes, feels tired sometimes, has no energy sometimes, isn't able to enjoy their favorite things sometimes. Like, Brenda, I did not have an emotion for three years, including the emotion of wanting, and not wanting food or company or rent money is not at all the same as not enjoying your lunch because you didn't get that promotion.
Similarly, yeah, everyone alters their behavior and thought patterns depending on who they're with. But for allistics, that may mean liking a different type of humor or gossip or entertainment, while for autistics it can be as extreme as experiencing your own gender differently around different people.
"Everyone does that" is meaningless without consideration of how often it happens and how strongly it happens.
Mostly when people say that they are trying to be kind, they are trying to say it is normal to do that because normal and fitting in is what they strive for. They can have no concept of the level of internal struggles because they have no way of gaining the life experience to understand from the inside everyday, so they relate it to the temporary struggles in life. Yes it feels invalidating but for the most part they just have no idea.
This is also said about adhd struggles a lot. Usually, when someone says this to me, I explain that the difference is the extent to which it happens. Like, yeah, maybe you struggle with it, but you struggle with it sometimes and I struggle with it all the time to the point that it's disabling and I need medication and coping mechanisms to manage it. Many disorders have symptoms that everyone experiences sometimes. Everyone has a backache sometimes, you would not equivalate that with chronic pain and you would not equivalate the occasional headache with chronic migraines. This is a symptom that is occasional and mild for you but severe and constant for me to the point that even in my most comfortable state, I still have these struggles in the background even if they are quieter. Everyone experiences a struggle with procrastination and motivation sometimes, not everyone lays in bed for three days because of it. You're valid in your struggles and you're allowed to tell them that they don't understand, many times they just can't understand fully because they don't go through it.
Masking makes me look confident and therefore it doesn't show others when I need help. I have to consciously make expressions to tell others what I'm feeling. I do that more now than I used to when I was a teenager (now 26) because I know it makes people uncomfortable if I don't react visibly.
I always knew I was a different person with anyone else compared to when I was alone and I actively decided to stop trying so hard in year 8. That was the one thing that helped and probably for a different reason than for NT people. I was bullied and I decided that if no one liked fake me then I would stop trying so hard. After that, my mental health improved by a lot and I stopped wanting to un alive myself. Masking made me want to not exist, in a way. Looking back, it was likely due to constant exhaustion that my mental health just went down hard.
It also meant that my parents didn't see my issues to an extend because I masked heavily, especially with my mother. It made my teenage years and adolescence a search for an answer as to why my self-perception was still so completely different from what others saw. I still masked apparently, I just didn't do it with the same intensity anymore. Learning who I am has only actually become possible for me after learning about autism and masking.
Thank you so much. I am a coach who isn’t autistic. I really appreciate the insider’s descriptions of the day-to-day living of autism, which is so much more than just a description of symptoms. I’m also very happy for you that you can be yourself now. You’re awesome. Thanks
I have to do this everyday at work and with friends.
I have a couple close friends I can myself around but even then they don't really understand why I do what I do or say what I say because they're probably judging me through a nuerotypical lens.
Masking is very exhausting I gotta say, but I'm very good at it because I understand people more than they do lol.
By masking I was able to be this awesome easygoing guy who everyone loves and looks up to.
People came to me with their problems and secrets seeking advice, probably thinking they can trust me.
And they can... At least they can trust I won't break character and do something I'm not supposed to.
What really hurt me tho, is the feeling of shame of deceiving everyone around me, and even though lots of people showed affection to me I never really felt anything back, because I knew they only liked the "fake" me and not the real me.
Any kind of social connection was impossible.
Sometimes I would fine very rare moments where I can be myself around some of these people, but then they would think I'm weird and try to laugh it off.
I'm good at masking but I hate doing it, that's why I prefer alone time the most.
Wonderful informative video 🥰
As a 50 year old who has spent her life more or less successfully making, I would like to advise everyone not to waste your time and precious energy with that. Instead find what you like and what makes you happy, explore those passions.
I taught my children to mask in pretty intolerant and angry ways because I was so afraid what would happen to them if they didn’t fit in. But they were wonderfully wild and found their own unique paths and taught me that the people you need will find you if you are true to yourself and explore what you love with joy.
I sing very well and have a rich and beautiful voice. I often wonder what I might have pursued in life with music and performance if I hadn’t been using so much energy to mask and fit in and have a “normal” life. I’m trying to learn to express myself now and heal from the trauma that led me to masking in the first place.
My daughter is 10 and diagnosed this year. I don't think she cares to mask lol! She's so unabashedly herself and it's awesome!
Don’t be so sure on that. I was exactly the same when I was younger and I still ended up masking a lot.
Nurture that individuality so she knows it’s ok because it’s still very much a thing among this type of person as well.
I should know, I’m one of them.
Although I kind of crashed after puberty (which I had early) I still was unabashedly me so my parents were like ‘she is still very much her’ but they wouldn’t know because they didn’t know.
I still mask frequently at 18 but I wear colorful outfits that I like and I spend time doing stuff that I like (but I isolate myself and I don’t have enough time to cool off)
That's because she's still a child. Kids in general don't care about what others think or their surroundings, but when they start getting older that's when things get tough and they automatically learn to mask.
This is great and it's wonderful you are accepting of her, but as the others said, it's important she continues feeling supported. She's about to hit the age where peer acceptance and socializing become all encompassing, and her peers ARE going to notice she is different and some will definitely treat her badly for it. I was undiagnosed, so had no idea why I just couldn't seem to "be normal" like the rest of the kids, and began to unconsciously, and unsuccessfully at first, learn to mask. I had no framework for explaining myself to my parents, so I essentially hid the bullying from them and tried desperately to change myself into the kind of person my peers would accept. It never really worked and the bullying continued nonstop until somewhat lightening the last two years of high school (graduated in '91) when it became fashionable to be weird and "alternative."
Your daughter has a head start with her diagnosis and supportive and accepting mother, but she is definitely going to need that support and acceptance to let her know there is nothing wrong with who she is, because unfortunately, the world is going to try to tell her the opposite, at least for a while.
I'm just seeing all these replies. Some ASD parents rake me over the coals for wanting to teach her social rules like shaking hands and politely looking someone in the eye in greeting. I literally had to delete a FB post asking how others have taught their kids the social custom of greeting and shaking hands. How dare I force her to look someone in the eye, they said. I get what yall are saying for sure. We are always going over appropriate talking points and mannerisms. She's made some good improvements this year. Perhaps her later diagnosis has related deep habits we used to attribute to being an only child and genetics. I appreciate all your feedback and will keep working on helping her function successfully in a world that's not set up for her!!
Please make a video of building your boundaries and how to become your own person. It would help me sooo much
Love your videos 💕💕💕
Yeah lol lately I think I’ve been doing this a lot the past year. This just makes me more convinced I’m neurodivergent.
For example. At the beginning of this year I dressed in my weird, “quirky” way I always have, but I found myself thing more and more about how others would see me. I was looking through my photos from like 6 months ago and I was so much happier with how I looked! Now I’ve been trying to dress as casual as possible, or at least not “weird” anymore. It makes me so sad because I miss that. I miss worrying less about how everyone at school sees me.
Yet ANOTHER example is how I literally steal my sense of humor from others. I copy their interests and take note of what THEY like. I hate realizing I have no hobbies or interests of my own. It sucks.
The last one I would like to share is Telling the same joke over and over because 2 people laughed at it. If I know people like that joke, it becomes my ONLY joke of the week or even month. And I always forget WHO I’ve told the joke to and I’ll end up repeating it like 3 times to the same person.
One of the most obvious masking things I did that I haven't heard other people talk about was change my accent. I was born in Texas, moved to Arizona when I was a toddler, but I spent my summer months with my grandparents in their tiny town. Their accent was more comfortable and felt like me (also as someone who struggles with speaking and forming words the slow sing-song, rhythmic nature of a southern accent was insanely helpful).
But when I would go back to Arizona to start school again, everyone noticeably treated me like I was stupid because of that accent, they assumed I was some dumb uneducated redneck and treated me accordingly. And my family in Texas would make fun of me too for sounding Arizonan because of how southern at heart I was.
So I learned to be able to flip that switch between accents instantly to please the people around me. And I taught myself how to sound Arizonan because there were already so many other reasons that I didn't fit in and I didn't need another one.
The downside is that I'm so used to unconsciously gauging how other people speak, their phrases, inflections, and their jokes and constantly adjusting my speech accordingly that I adopt any accent or dialect I'm around without wanting to. So it takes extra masking to keep my brain from masking by copying the speech of the people around me, if that makes sense.
I totally do this, at least the part of shifting into using the accent of people around me. It’s pretty embarrassing actually because I have a hard time controlling it.
I do this, too. For me, I'm not sure that it's a masking thing. I tend to do it when I really resonate with certain people. I pay attention to speech and voice is a lot more than most people do because I can't see them, and when I was younger, I would unconsciously mimic. I had no idea that you didn't do that and that it was weird.
@@khanhhm5762 yes I think it has more to do with echolalia. I wish it wasn’t weird I love accents! 😍
For me, I push through sensory overload and discomfort and I always keep my headphones on in the hallways during passing periods. I hate social interactions and I talk in a different voice to different people. I also force myself to speak when I’m burnt out even though it’s difficult
I really relate to "I'm used to dumbing myself down for others"
Like I genuinely feel like back then I was the only kid that actually wasn't stupid. I could speak well, (had horrid hand writing), my academics were second to only few, etc.
I think most of that is because people where I'm from are just....not that intelligent. People don't like to hear someone else tell them the truth but eh, it is true. Especially in HS. While other kids did have better grades than me, at that point I was too worried about getting bullied and picked on during class and school to focus on work.
My brain heavily struggles to think for itself, and it's just...used to being told what to.
I relate to a lot in this video.
I'm getting assessed for ADHD and I relate to this so much and didn't even realize this wasn't "normal". I have my next appointment in a few days, so I'm going to mention these.
@@sandpiper_ I didn't get my final report yet, but the doc says I have ADHD, depression, and possibly a learning disability. These are all things I suspected already, so I'd say it went pretty well.
The thing with me masking was that I just wasn’t great at it. At least not when it came to socializing outside of school. I can’t tell you the amount of times that I’ve hit up parties with my peers and just ended up standing around all quiet and not being interested in anything anybody was talking about.
Same when I started dating my first bf I couldn't look him in the eyes until like a month.
Same
This is why I never go to parties lol I’ve been told I follow my friends like a “lost puppy”. I don’t know what to do at parties and I’m not the best at conversations.
Thanks to your channel and others I was finally able to talk to my family about getting a diagnosis, funnily enough also at age 15! Thank you so much you’ve helped me so much 💕
Hi Paige! I’m currently getting assessed for autism rn as a 23f. Love ur vids!
Not knowing what your real voice sounds, not knowing what your interests are and not having a ‘presence’ beneath your outward personality is my exact experience too.
Thank you for making me feel less alone. I relate to you so much. So far though I feel like the only thing that I've developed on my own is my music taste.
Nice work with the sound effects! They’re so fun! I’d love it if the sound effects volume was a little lower (compared to your voice volume). Love you! Thank you for your videos!
Hi Paige. Just wanted to say thanks for making these videos. For the past five to six months I’ve been struggling so much. They’ve been some of the hardest times of my entire life. I’m 16 years old, and have since the beginning always created excuses in my head that this is just a phase of my life and all my struggles are caused by emotional hormones are whatever tf. Over time nothing seemed to get any better and I would always blame myself for everything, causing plenty of self hatred. My social life is pretty much non existent, and I even started plummeting in my academic life witch has never happened. Things were bad but I’ve always had my parents to talk to and slowly I would open up more to them, and they came to the conclusion that I should maybe see a therapist who could maybe help me more than them. I don’t really like talking to other people about myself and feel uncomfortable most of the time. But I agreed and it’s already been maybe two months and to be honest, I don’t really know if it’s really helping me at all. I speak openly about my issues but sometimes struggle with making myself sound clear and with her understanding what exactly I mean when I say certain things. But anyway, on my first session for whatever reason she suggested me to watch a video about autism. And long story short, I never really naught I had it since I had a completely different vision on it. But after doing research and watching your videos it helped me understand sooo much more. But still never wanted to belive I did. More so for the fear of thinking I might and not actually being in the spectrum. At this point all I really wanted is to know because even after so much help from family and a therapist I feel so solitary in my problems and feel like no one can understand, but I still think of the exude that it’s just a phase of life and it will pass. But I’m scared it won’t. But I needed to tel you that whenever I watch your videos it makes me feel sooooo much less lonely. Makes me even want to get diagnosed because I want to be able to have a better understanding of myself and accept my struggles and treat myself with more kindness. I can relate to so much of what you said, yet always deny in my mind. Sometimes I feel like I’m about to just slip my wrist. I have no friends my age I can talk to or relate to, that can listen to me and accept me for who I am. Because of that I can’t see myself as normal. Even the considered “weirdos” in society have friends. But I who am a weirdo myself can’t have any. How does that happen. How am I suppose to take that. I mf tired. Sick of it. But I needed to say thank you for being one of the few who make me feel like I have a friend who understands.
I love all the sound effects in this video, such a great touch
I’m Autistic myself but masking looked different for me. I was already diagnosed, but didn’t know I was Autistic, and I was in special ed but I had terrible special ed teachers. They would yell at me for stimming or basically just talking about things I loved and told me that everyone would just prefer it if I would just be quiet and only talk about school-related stuff. So for years, that was all I talked about in a whispery voice. I told people that I liked classical music, when I liked pop music, and that I didn’t have a favorite movie, which I did, cuz my terrible special ed teachers told me that I wasn’t allowed to do it. But then I unmasked in high school and it felt so liberating and like I was leaving prison.
Wow, you explained everything so well!!
I'm 32 and I just got diagnosed last august. I finally understand why I feel like I'm always pretending to be a character (subconsciously) in social situations instead of just being myself. I can't change it, it just happens as soon as I leave my house and enter the "world". I always thought something was wrong with me.. But now I just let it be, even though it's still exhausting to put on that mask :').. I just can't not do it x'D..
Also the practicing of conversations in the mirror and in my mind and basically everything you mentioned here.. it finally all makes sense now I'm diagnosed :)
At some point in my life, I just copied the way my sister speaks and behaves because she is very confident socially. Now I just can't undo it o.o.. Its so weird..
Anyways, I feel like I can show people your video to explain how it feels! Because I suck at explaining it xD
My parents once sat me down and asked me if I was being bullied at school again and had no friends because I never brought anyone over after school or on the weekend. I explained to them that no, school is fine, but that after spending the whole school day adjusting myself to the people around me, I was so exhausted I didn’t want to do anymore of it at home. And of course they went ok weird but guess it’s just a you thing
I am in love with this video. I recognize myself in a lot of masking traits. You are a true genius in how you make your videos, Paige. Never forget that!
Thank you so much for this!!!
I also adopted shaking peoples hands pretty early on.
I’m 43 and just diagnosed TWOish weeks ago and I’m in SUCHHH a huge discovery and release phase. AuDHD + (so I LOVED the ADHD vs Autistic video 😱. It was like two portions of my brain having a friendly chat 😂
It feels both amazing and scary to start actually learning myself and embracing new, naturally me behaviors. Putting my earbuds and sunglasses on BEFORE exiting the house is huge now… carrying my purchased and handmade sensory toys around with me (confidently) AND using them openly.
Even noticing that I have been using a slight Canadian accent 🤦🏼♀️ or speaking more robotically than usual.
It’s all amazing and your videos have been my go-to since my dx!
Thank you so much for the work you do and share ❤️
Oooooh I do the mirror thing. That, along with forcing myself to take more selfies because... what does my OWN FACE look like????what does it DO? i need to figure out how to move it in a way that is Not Threatening
...is the handshake a wrong introduction? was she expecting a hug? some people aren't huggers, how-- actually let's just ask first I guess
Zoom meetings have a little picture of myself in the corner. It's like a mirror - my eye is stuck on my own face. I have to turn it off otherwise I struggle to concentrate on anything else.
SAME
That’s such a great idea in social situations to have a list on conversation starters or things to say to different things on my phone, something I have always struggled with
Oh my gosh, I love this. You’re awesome for being so candid about your experiences, and a lot of this is relatable. I am an ADHD’r, no autism diagnosis……yet.
Always told how bubbly I am. In middle school I had made little personality surveys and passed them out to like half of my English class one day and asked them to fill out what they felt applied to me because I couldn’t tell how people thought about me because I had no friends even though everyone seemed to enjoy how I acted at school.
Yup. I used to be obsessed with being bubbly when I was younger because all the bubbly TV characters are also the popular TV characters and I was obsessed with all those bubbly characters, I wanted to become like them. Now, I'm not bubbly the comvenient way, but I am still bubbly in my own, autistic way
After this video, I realise that I literally copy the specific way of talking/joking depending on which friend group or group of people I'm with. Like, first conversations are super damn awkward because I don't know the rules. Then, after a few more times, before I know it I'm copying the way that person uses their words. Like, I copy the jokes and say them whenever things get awkward and I need a thing to say.
Also, I think child/preteen me had giant phases of copying certain fictional characters instead of masking. Did anyone else find out at some point that skipping anywhere is apparently not something other people do? I did. Also, for years I literally ran to the bathroom at school so my teacher didn't think I was wasting time until they told me "You don't have to literally run to the bathroom, you know? You can just...walk."
I relate to many of these strategies, but I've never been officially diagnosed with ASD. Thank you for making this video because it does help me to know that I'm not alone.
I LOVE THE ENERGY IN THIS VIDEO! The scrolling marque at 1:56 had me dyin'
masking for me was and is for the most part subconscious. Still, I have been told that I need to copy other people exactly, in real-time in order to do simple tasks like my mom wanted me to dust once but I practically begged her to do like 10% of it so that I could see the angle she was holding the feather duster and how much strength she used.
I am neurotypical and I just want to share a handshake story of my own. Recently, I job shadowed my brother's speech therapist whom I had never met at an elementary school. I have never put my hand out first for a handshake, but as she approached me I was feeling very awkward (probably my social anxiety) and just threw my hand out for a handshake and she seemed a bit caught off guard. She shook my hand naturally but the entire day I just kept replaying how awkward it was. I will never put my hand out first for a handshake ever again. I've never told anyone this and I replay it in my mind often so I figured this was a safe space to share it and get it off my chest. Have a great day everyone :)
Oh my gosh, little things like this can be so stressful! They wear me down so much. The amount of signifiance neurotypicals attach to the tiniest things... smh.
The squeaky toy sound u put in ur video reminded me of jenna marbles videos and omg it was like a random nostalgic feeling out of no where
The mirror, changing voices, people pleasing, masking.. so on point 🔥❤️
I have conversations in my head too lmao. Until now I just assumed it was a me thing . I have to plan what I say in advance even with people I’m comfortable with. Also the more comfortable I am with someone the more I can anticipate their exact response so I have something lined up in advanced. I also do this in arguments if I know they are going to happen in advance. I’ll be like “well they are going to bring up this so I’m going to bring up that because that would be an excellent point to why I’m right”. It’s also why I probably freeze in some interviews now that I think about it. I will go to the computer and look up questions they may ask with excellent responses. Sometimes it works depending the job and the times it don’t I freeze/shut down. The only response I can get out is umm and then a never ending pause until the next question.
This is so relatable
Really like the outfit in this one, got like a ‘90s Gwen Stefani vibe going on.
Just discovered this channel and it's very informative! solid content!!
WOW Paige - I was diagnosed ADHD/Dyslexic age 11 ( 1971) and ASD (2018) - So many of the things you are talking about I'm still discovering in myself. I think the key to recovering your true nature is to get in touch with your true feelings. This goes faster if you can have more time alone so you are not kicking your brain into automatic "masking" mode. There are so many habitual masks we use without even being aware of them. We become numb to the efforts it took to learn our masking behaviors. The real self, is still there like a dormant seed, just waiting for the light and nourishment you et when you are true to yourself. Best wishes to you and all who are on their ASD Journey.
I honestly can’t remember much about how I felt when I was younger in elementary school, but I do know that I was different. And I was always s u p e r nice to everyone. I could never say no or refuse anything or stand up for myself. (I’m still like that siwbdjwnf). All I remember is just being very different. Everyone had crushes at second grade or so, while I still couldn’t figure out what “hot” meant (I’m in the aro-ace spectrum anyway). I would constantly obsess over the things I liked, everything I did at school I made to be involved with my interests. The other kids would always look down upon me because I was “weird”, and whenever I DID make a friend, (a rare occurrence then, an even more rare occurrence nowadays) I would constantly try to spend time with them, talk to them, play with them, and had trouble recognizing that the world didn’t revolve around our friendship. I didn’t recognize their boundaries. Nobody wanted to play with me, the weird kid, and I was always picked last for games and sports in PE. There was a point where I completely stopped being so talkative and friendly, (probably around third grade) and i just became very quiet and shy. Maybe me being quiet is my way of masking. (Though I was always much shyer than my peers, no matter my age). I don’t want to ramble on too much, but I did recognize that I was different. One day, during PE, we had a free day (which I liked because I could play alone and I wouldn’t disappoint everyone by doing something wrong) and I was playing on my own. They used to use the timer buzzer thing (that big timer that goes on the wall that they use for basketball games) for our game timer so we could switch what we were doing. I HATED that thing. It was so loud. And so, with me knowing that covering my ears was weird, I used to put my arms up so they would cover my ears and clasp my hands above my head. Somehow i thought that looked more normal. Eventually, when a teacher asked what I was doing, I just cried. That’s one big memory that I do have. And I think some of my classmates bullied me in subtle ways, but I have to think back on it more.
Sorry for rambling, but do any of y’all relate? :)
(I also don’t know if I’m actually autistic, i just relate to a lot of the traits and im questioning it)
-Rusty :)
I can’t really understand how people even develops crushes, especially when they’re so young. Like, I had to ask my mom what it felt like to have a crush, and even then it just seemed weird. My peers even started “dating” around fifth grade, and I was just confused, mostly on how you could like any of the people in our grade. I’ve never had a crush, though I can’t tell if it’s because I’m on the aro-ace spectrum, or because my school is filled with very unappealing people. Maybe both. Who knows?
Anyways, I think there’s a possibility I could be neurodivergent, but I’m not too sure I am. I also relate to a lot of things I hear about related to autism, ADHD, etc., but everyone can(and usually does) in some ways.
Also, I definitely relate to the people pleasing in PE stuff. The sporty guys can be really douchey sometimes, and it used to really make me want to cry when I was younger. It kinda just makes me laugh now.
I hope you can get it all figured out, and I hope you have a good day! :)
@@crunchylettuce Yes! My peers always started to date at that time too and i was always so confused. My only “crush” I’ve ever had started when I was in 7th grade, and even that is only a platonic/aesthetic attraction. (And gender envy). I came from a really small school too, but I also haven’t seen anyone in high school that I like.
You too, have a good day :)
Hey Paige, I really like your videos and I learn a lot from them! I just wanted to let you know that the sound effects were a little too loud in this video, I don't know if anybody else found them loud, but some of them actually scared me a bit (maybe that's just me being autistic hahah) but anyway. Just a small feedback and keep up the amazing work
Oh my goodness this is so relatable!
Off topic a bit, but your editing is reallyyy good, and I love all the hardwork you put in!!
Watching this at work really called me out lol
Also I hope Paige had so much fun adding the sounds and effects, it threw me back to the early TH-camr days in the best way
Masking makes me wanna die srsly, it makes me so sad and ashamed knowing that if I was being my true self would be shunned and ostracized
Hi :) Thanks for sharing. Omg I can literally relate to everything!
Oh gosh I could really relate to this amazing video! My mask has always been a smiley sweet girl who always tries to say the “right thing”. Now that I’m old (46), I’ve dropped the exhausting mask and am learning how to actually communicate in a way that feels authentic. It’s so hard because my whole life, I’ve felt like a shell of a person. So it’s either learn to be me and deal with consequences, or become a complete hermit like my dad.
It's funny because I probably would've ended up masking so much more in school if I hadn't found such great friends similar to myself. Instead I took pride in being that loud girl who interrupted class to say something, who expressed myself with colourful clothes and weird combinations while also displaying the characters I liked from anime. Because I felt PROUD of being the weird girl, I wasn't scared of actually acting weird as well. I found it amusing when I intentionally played dumb only to get a reaction from someone...... But only because I liked the idea of them thinking that I was dumb when I know I'm actually not. Maybe that was a different way of masking? Instead of displaying the actual reason for my behaviour (being autistic) I made it seem as if I was just "like that" and people accepted it... Back then it was subconcious, however I'm at a new job atm where I feel like I've ended up doing the same thing again. But now I'm much more aware that people seem to know that something is Up. It's really weird to explain haha
Omg. I started masking cuz I had terrible special ed teachers who yelled at me for stimming. One of my stims was repeating lines from my favorite movies and trying to replicate the characters’ voices. I’m glad you had friends who accepted you for who you were. I mean, I think other kids liked seeing me repeat movie lines and all, but authority figures like teachers can really tear you down
I think I've tried (too) hard to create my own unique persona for as long as I can remember. I also adopted other's traits in order to create my own "remixed" identity. But, no matter how confident I was with my personal identity... the outside world never saw "me" how I knew myself. I was and am seen as an enigma. I puzzle people, and I am perceived as everything ranging from a dull to devious character, a chaotic artsy person to an uptight conservative. The conflict between "who I am" and "who they know" has plagued my mind for years, until I learned about the concept of the non-self. There is a philosophical concept that basically proposes personal identity is all a delusion in our minds (David Hume). Buddhism also talks about a similar theory. I now actively believe in this philosophy, and I am much happier for it.
Our culture is built on the concept of everyone "having a personality", while simultaneously categorizing all identities. Well, what is it?? Are we individuals or not? If humans were truly individuals (and believed it), we'd never be stereotyped. It seems like the entire social structure is nonsense, a paradox, a sick joke. I had to "mourn" my personal identity for months as I transitioned my perspective. I still mask when needed, but it is less mentally draining. When you believe you are nobody, why bother "sticking to a character"? I am whatever "remixed" identity I feel like being in the moment and dont worry about maintaining authenticity. The outside world is definitely still confused by "me", but I don't feel like I have to constantly show/prove my "true self" too anyone.
Ily thanks for ur help. I got diagnosed autistic , adhd, etc at 22 thanks to ur tiktoks
Oh god yes, the "I am interested in everything" used to be a thing for me in school and I subconsciously carried that in university when I didn't even had to. I remember the first couple of times when I tried to speak my opinions and interests and kids were like "you're weird, we don't like you" then of course afterwards being ostracized and bullied for being myself, I started to pretend to be into things everyone else liked while being myself only home or in front of trusted friends. So glad I can work from home where I could just stim in peace and not be judged.
Masking makes me talk at times when I'd rather be silent. I guess I've been harassed so much my whole life about not talking enough (however much that is) that I've learned people want me to talk WAY more than I do. I don't care what but you'd damn well better talk because people think silence is the worst thing ever. I really don't get it. I'd be perfectly happy to sit with people in total silence. The only thing uncomfortable about silence, in my view, is the worry that the other person is expecting me to talk, and I don't want to let them down.
I hear you but people should not expect you to talk. You're awesome the way you are! 🤍
Masking makes me talk when I don't want to talk as well.. trying to take off the mask completely
@@babyinvasion 😊
@@babyinvasion Silence is golden
Oh man, I can absolutely relate to this. Unless I'm instructing a student or discussing something work related with a colleague/manager, I'm a pretty quiet person most of the time. I only talk when I have something thoughtful to contribute. And, I absolutely love silence. But early on in my education, I was told to talk talk talk. But then when I'd talk, people would ignore me because they couldn't relate to what I shared, which wasn't small talk like the weather, my favorite toys, blah blah. It led to a lot of frustration and confusion.
Even at a previous job, my joke of a boss was like: "You don't talk enough. You don't ask questions. You should have a few questions prepared ahead of time so you can appear interested."
So I tried that and hated myself for it. Left the job not long after. Bother.
Someone told me that even my crying was a form of masking, since it's a somewhat socially acceptable way to express feelings (moreso than stomping, screaming, etc...all of which I also do lmao). Any thoughts/experience with this?
No, I don’t think that necessarily is true. When someone surprised me by being particularly nasty, it would sometimes short circuit my brain. I couldn’t think or act and I would burst into tears because this is where the anger went. It’s really the primary way I melted down as a younger person until I learned how to handle being surprised by nastiness to the point of being able to act in the moment. (I’m not always able but after working through some non-verbal ways to respond I finally found the room / space in the interaction to be able to think and respond.)
I'm 38 and I'm learning so much from your videos! Liked and subscribed! I'm autistic. People used to be disturbed by my actions for one reason or another. So I started just smiling exactly as you depict in the thumbnail! People used to call me smiley. I can only imagine what I must've been like seeing me walking down a street alone while smiling ear to ear. I still do it today sometimes actually. I just feel like it's a courtesy or something. Like I'm not allowed to be myself.
I mimicked a lot throughout my life and working in customer service I also pushed myself to be bubbly and outgoing, but it was often way too much and people would tell me I was trying way too hard. 😅 I’m still learning who I actually am.. it’s super difficult to sift through all the things I took on from other people and everything I hid away for fear of judgement or controversy, etc. I still overdo it when in social situations because I panic and just talk and talk 😬
The ultimate masking exercise … The job interview. 😩 Why can’t we just demonstrate we can’t do the job instead of doing the NT song and dance?
This is why I have stayed at my job for the last 4 years. I’m tired of masking and doing job interviews. I don’t like change, so I stay put.
THIS! omg i did an job interview in high school to work at mcdonalds and the woman asked me 'what i would bring to the company' and looked at me like i was crazy when i replied well i'll come in everyday and smile and be generally positive and do a good job. somehow she kept asking roughly the same question but with different words and i think what she was trying to get out of me was what i could bring to change the company for the better, like some radical new idea or something. like bitch i was sixteen and going to work at mcdonalds what do you want?
and what are you supposed to say when they ask 'why do you want to work here?'
in another interview i did to stock shelves of books at the library and saying i like books and organizing things and maybe someday i'd like to be a librarian. the woman spent the rest of the interview telling me you had to go to school to be a librarian even after i acknowledged that fact and had just been trying to say the right thing but apparently insinuating that working in a library might be a nice way to find out if you want to go to school to be a librarian was the wrong thing to say.
... well i guess we can see how weirdly tramuatizing this was for me given i still think about it 13 years later :/
Your Renee story is fascinating because I had that exact same experience with my first girlfriend. When she broke up with me, one of the things she said to me was that when she first met me, I was fascinating and interesting and she wanted to get to know me more and that’s why she pursued me. And she said that what she noticed when we were together was that she could only get so close and then it was like there was nothing there or nobody there or something like that - I can’t remember her exact wording. But it was that exact thing, and I had never considered that it was because when she first met me I was masking and I had no idea at the time what autism even was. The only thing I knew was that I was “weird” and that I felt like I was some kind of alien that wasn’t supposed to be on this planet. But other than that, I had no idea who I was or what I was about or what I was interested in or what I wanted to be or anything else about myself. I was just whatever bits and pieces I had adopted from watching what other people did around me and trying to mimic it well enough that I wouldn’t seem weird to other people.
That’s quite an interesting revelation. I don’t think I would have ever put that together if you hadn’t shared that story about you and your friend Renee.
“But I’m that glad you’re 27 and for the first time you’re talking about more things than the weather so…” so relatable
watching your videos are a big part of how I thought my son might be autistic. He finally got diagnosed a few weeks ago. Your videos are a big help. Thank you!
She may be punished for it in the future, though.
Thank you my son is autistic and this helped explain what he goes through and his thought process behind masking.
I relate hard to this. Thanks for making this video.
I gotta add, on the subject of facial expressions - in my late teens, I consciously chose to adopt to speak & listen with very animated, responsive facial expressions - I thought it was because I was learning how to "be extroverted" BUT I think a lot of it was that when I tried it out, it felt comfortable-ish (or I couldn't have continued to do it) and it felt comfortable-ish BECAUSE IT GAVE ME SOCIAL LICENSE to take breaks from navigating "acceptable" levels of casual eye contact.
Put differently, adopting animated facial expressions LOWERED how much eye contact other people expected from me, and gave me acceptable reasons for taking breaks from eye contact/looking away from the person's face.
I of course had zero clue about that part - I didn't even know I had been avoiding eye contact until I started watching videos on TH-cam about autism and learned that the diagnosis is "has difficulty with eye contact," not "cannot make eye contact." I thought of myself as an eye contact EXPERT until about 2 weeks ago (and I'm 50).
But a lot of the time, this "eye contact expert" is not actually looking people in the eye; I'm watching their mouth or their forehead, while my brain gives me the feedback that I'm looking at their eyes the entire time because I can see their eyes peripherally/I'm mostly always looking at their face and listening to them.
And crafting an "extrovert mask" was extremely harmful to me - I traded the stress from "I still have remnants of myself (introvert, hate trivial conversations) but I exhaust myself by being able to do an acceptable job of eye contact even if it's only an approximation of eye contact" to the stress of "I no longer have a shred of my own self left and these increased interactions are exhausting on a new level."
But it was so exciting to have people like me/accept me... besides, like I said, I had zero clue that any of that was going on under the surface. I just went "this is just what awkward people learn to do as they grow up to be less awkward, omg, I'm finally able to have normal interactions with people who are popular and cool, even if I'm terrified at every moment that I'm gonna do something weird and they'll realize I'm actually an awkward weirdo they don't want to be around."
AND I had enough "energy" to do that through my life as an older teen/young adult, with what life was like for me/what the demands were on me in that stage of life. I was successfully "normal." even though I was always terrified people were going to decide I wasn't actually normal at all. But when my daughter was born, I couldn't cope any more.
I guess I'd also like to mention that even if I hadn't had a child, I don't think I would have been able to continue coping. I was accumulating so much inner damage I was on my way to deeper burnout anyway (I'd already had all kinds of burnouts, from long before I "became" an extrovert, but the Big One that began a decades-long cascade of shutdowns/meltdowns/burnouts was when I became a mother). My number one huge regret from never having understood myself for 50 years is that it resulted in me being a parent in constant crisis and dysfunction, when I would have given anything to be a better parent for my daughter. I know I did everything I could to be as good a mother as I could for her with the tools I had (and when she was 4 I was finally recognized as needing therapy, though it didn't start until my hospitalizations were inevitable, and my daughter went to live with my parents for a year while I "stabilized"). But when I think of the layers of trauma that could have been avoided had I had any clue at all about what I was doing to myself by the intense masking/complete lack of awareness of the mask, man. Life would have been very different for both of us.
Oh wow the whole not feeling like a person and absorbing other people’s interests & whatnot as part of a masking script is really helping me make sense of what I used to hate about how I interacted with other people. Have been essentially doing unmasking for years before knowing that’s what I was doing, and have actually been able to find what all I’m interested in.
just here to appreciate the funny text at the bottom of the video.
(also it's cool that you got through all that and are now becoming your own person)
I love Paige's energy and personality, which is the same in every video and I hope that doesn't change. Also I like how when she's talking about things to be confident about the word "penis" flies across the screen which I did not expect.
I'm sorry can you please explain what she did there? Was that a joke? I don't understand the meaning behind that action.
@@bmx6930 I don't actually know.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for teaching younger people including me on information like this it helps me alot including with my autism I try not to do things like that and I act like myself but the only time I mask is if I’m protecting myself which it is exhausting because I really hate having to be a rude person.
Thanks for this video. Masking made me take on board other people's interests, talk about things I wasn't really interested in, fake smile and people please and it made me bottle up a lot of feelings. I'm still affected by it but I also feel much more like an individual and human being today.
Great video!!!!
so unrelated but your tattoos look so amazing!
My masking became moving to different countries (I’ve been traveling for years) and speaking different languages because that way people think your “ways” are due to coming from a different culture/background and having an accent, but that only lasts a while because when they’re getting to know you better they realize you just don’t adapt even after a while. At 30yo I’m starting to unmask and it is weird, you realize you have to stop being around people who make you feel uncomfortable even though you thought you should just try harder to eventually feel comfortable around them
Your tattoo! I love it!!! 😍😍 And all of your video is soooo true...!
I was waiting to learn more about masking, thank you for educating Paige! 🤍✨
Me to! 💜