Putting on a mask

[Maria Ventresca]

Does anybody here feel like they put on a mask when socializing? I've felt that way almost my entire life, I have to consciously make an effort to appear at least halfway normal. It's almost always:

"Okay, now make the proper facial expression. Now look over there, you've been staring too long. Stop blinking so much, you'll let your nervousness show. Now focus your fidgeting on your fingers. Now think of a good sentence to say so you don't stammer. Now talk about something they'd be interested in. You've been talking about your interests too long, stop that, they don't care and it's weird. Now lower your voice, you've let it go too high cause you're nervous and you sound like a child."

In my mind when socializing, even with close family. It's why I've always found lying so easy and take less moral issue with it than most, despite extreme truthfulness being an aspect of Asperger's, wearing the mask of a lie is easy since all of socialization is a mask of a different lie on my end.

 

[Progster]

Yes, I can relate to this. I feel like I'm acting on stage when I'm talking to people. I have a job with involves a lot of interaction, and I've developed a kind of separate personality to deal with it. I also think about it a lot afterwards, playing the conversation back in my mind and analysing it, finding fault with it. In retrospect I can often think of good things to say, but when put on the spot, it's so hard.

 

[Kirsty]

Yeah quite a lot of the time. I act like someone I'd like to be sometimes to feel and carry myself better. When my confidence is really low, I don't speak much and disappear into the background.

 

[Suzanne]

Oh wow, all the time, that mask is worn and it tires me out so much, but just cannot afford to take the mask off.

 

[pax]

Some people I find a lot easier to socialise with than others - the conversation flows better, I can laugh, and smile, and make eye contact (more than usual anyway) . With other people it's just hard work - usually because they are a bristly or difficult personality. Sometimes I put on the mask and sometimes I figure it isn't worth the dffort with that person because it failed several times before - or I simply don't have the energy at the time.. Possibly they figure I'm weird or retarded but I am getting older, and I don't think I have the energy and reserves I used to.

 

[pax]

Yeah quite a lot of the time. I act like someone I'd like to be sometimes to feel and carry myself better. When my confidence is really low, I don't speak much and disappear into the background.

I think this is part of it. With a difficult personality, I'm automatically on the back foot and wondering what I'M doing wrong to make them act this way, constantly self-monitoring etc, when in reality it may have nothing to do with me, and my nervousness just makes everything worse. Maybe if everyone was nice I wouldn't act autistic.

 

[Kirsty]

Some people I find a lot easier to socialise with than others - the conversation flows better, I can laugh, and smile, and make eye contact (more than usual anyway) . With other people it's just hard work - usually because they are a bristly or difficult personality. Sometimes I put on the mask and sometimes I figure it isn't worth the dffort with that person because it failed several times before - or I simply don't have the energy at the time.. Possibly they figure I'm weird or retarded but I am getting older, and I don't think I have the energy and reserves I used to.

These people with difficult personalities are not worth anyone's time. You're not weird. Nobody likes toxic people. Don't let the world change who you are.

 

[Kirsty]

I think this is part of it. With a difficult personality, I'm automatically on the back foot and wondering what I'M doing wrong to make them act this way, constantly self-monitoring etc, when in reality it may have nothing to do with me, and my nervousness just makes everything worse. Maybe if everyone was nice I wouldn't act autistic.

Omg i'm the same. I think being quiet makes me an easy target because I won't stand up for myself or stay silent if I feel threatened by their words like at work. I'll be raging inside and think how worthless I am, ending up going mute. I try to remind myself of my strengths and qualities when I like say, do my art.

 

[The Penguin]

Yes and it took me a long time to get good at it. Having my learning disability, made it hard to understand how to socialize with people. As I get older, I understood better how to do it. The thing is, despite I'm doing well with it and connecting with people at networking events, I feel it's very fake. Why? Well, cause I don't connect with the norm, I feel the need to so people are willing to talk to me. I feel I can't have a conversation with people about Lego since this is outside the norm. Using that word norm, I hate that word. This is the penguin definition of the norm.

Norm: A person that's not original and need to follow what everyone else is doing.

Maybe I could have word it better but I hope some of you may get the point I'm trying to say?

 

[DogwoodTree]

I'm always wearing a mask, oftentimes even with myself. I only learned about AS in the past several months, but all my life I've studied people in order to emulate their social behaviors. I can do pretty well with it, too, if I'm in the mood for it and have the energy. But it's just a mask. It's not who I really am. For years I've pictured my real self as existing on the other side of a huge, deep abyss from everyone else. Everyone interacts with the mask and thinks they're interacting with me. But I'm far away, watching everything from the other side of the abyss, feeling lonely and isolated. I can act the part, but I don't feel connected.

 

[Licorice]

One form of a mask for me communicates what I really want to communicate. A true lie communicates something I don't believe or intend to do, often for malicious purposes.

 

[AsheSkyler]

A mask is merely a tool. It gets me through work and various encounters. If I didn't have stagefright, I'd have a genuine passion in theatre.

 

[Cyrano]

Having grown up in an era when Aspergers was unknown in the mainstream, the mask I adopted was that of Mister Spock. The calm, flat affect of everyone's favorite Vulcan enabled me to survive the hell of junior high and high school, and got me through my college years successfully. I had no social life, but on the other hand I was neither being tormented nor mocked by my so-called peers.

I joined a medievalist re-creation group, and one of the local chapter's members was a medical researcher. We got to be friends, and somewhere along the way she came across what research was in the literature -- not a lot at that time -- had been done about Aspergers. She handed me the research, had me read it, and asked if I was happy as I was. Happiness was not an emotion I was very familiar with. She said that much of my problem with dealing with the world had to do with my flat affect. She recruited another friend to help, and over the course of three years of patient teaching and frequent kicks in the ass and explanations of what facial expressions mean, how women stood when they were interested, bored, on the prowl, etc etc etc, until I was eventually able to counterfeit the behavior of normal humans.

It made my life easier, but at the cost of having a constant if-then flowchart of personal interactions running in the foreground of my mind when other people are around. On the other hand, I developed the ability to make wicked puns, which some people find enjoyable, and to have at least some understanding of why people are acting in various ways. This was very important in the days before the Internet, when all social interaction involved face to face meetings. It still is, unless you are willing to resign yourself to a life of loneliness.

 

[Warmheart]

The mask keeps me safe from what sets off my meltdowns & sudden speech loss: People getting right into my space and demanding to know What's Wrong, peppering me with questions, the stress to answer mounting, each question much too quickly following the last, my confusion and frustration at trying to speak hits a detonation point. I struggle more with verbal communication than it may seem.
It's safer to avoid people when I am unable to maintain the mask which mollifies.

 

[zurb]

When I was in my late teens/early twenties I went to a church youth camp and they talked about not wearing masks (NTs do it too).
I felt I was very much wearing a mask, but couldn't identify it.
Now I identify it as my NT mask, or pretending to be normal.
But I still struggle to identify what is me, mask, and my attempts at self improvement. The borders are quite fuzzy to me. Can anyone lend me their glasses

 

[Maria Ventresca]

Having grown up in an era when Aspergers was unknown in the mainstream, the mask I adopted was that of Mister Spock. The calm, flat affect of everyone's favorite Vulcan enabled me to survive the hell of junior high and high school, and got me through my college years successfully. I had no social life, but on the other hand I was neither being tormented nor mocked by my so-called peers.

Ah, yes, I had a similar mask for most of grade and high school, the calm, aloof, "smarter than everyone" emotionless character, cause I liked characters like that and thought I could pull it off. I sorta could, but it did alienate me, but I figured that being alienated for seeming smart was better than being alienated for being awkward. I dropped it for my college attempt when I realized that almost everyone there was smarter than me at almost everything, so I took on the mask of a perky ditz. I've recently been trying to keep the mask off for my family and for counseling, so that the counselor can help me build a more natural, less tiring, more normal mask.

 

[AsheSkyler]

When I was in my late teens/early twenties I went to a church youth camp and they talked about not wearing masks (NTs do it too).
I felt I was very much wearing a mask, but couldn't identify it.
Now I identify it as my NT mask, or pretending to be normal.
But I still struggle to identify what is me, mask, and my attempts at self improvement. The borders are quite fuzzy to me. Can anyone lend me their glasses

I've been through a few "stop pretending" lectures too. Promptly followed by being told to stop being so weird or whatever when I did stop pretending, or they straight up find my disturbing. Some people just can't make up their minds!
Which is the nicer of my two theories. The other is that they have severe control issues and want to mold everybody into what they want them to be and not do any changing on their part.

 

[Harrison]

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts..." ~ William Shakespeare

I have many masks, each tailored to my needs at the time, and, I have no issue with using them as they 'grease' the wheels of my journey.

Quoted old Bill because those four lines saved my life way back when.

 

[DogwoodTree]

I have many masks, each tailored to my needs at the time, and, I have no issue with using them as they 'grease' the wheels of my journey.

So do you see your masks as expressions of parts of you?

I'm reading a book my therapist recommended, The Gift of Being Yourself, by David Benner. Here's a quote:

The true self is who, in reality, you are and who you are becoming. It is not something you need to construct through a process of self-improvement or deconstruct by means of psychological analysis. It is not an object to be grasped. Nor is it an archetype to be actualized. It is not even some inner, hidden part of you. Rather, it is your total self...

I'm wondering if part of what that is saying, and what you were saying, is that the masks are just as much a part of us as the inner core, or the emotions, or the thoughts, or any of it. In whatever ways we manifest ourselves...that is us.

My masks are a manifestation of something in me that is, truly, me. Even though it might not be the core of me...it does exist because of something that I value and a process in which I've engaged.

For example, there's a lady at church I don't particularly like. Nothing wrong with her--she's not evil. I just don't like her. So I've struggled...to be authentic, should I avoid her and not encourage interaction at all? But I'm a nice person--I AM a nice person--and to give someone the cold shoulder is no better an expression of my true self than pretending I like her when I don't. So it seems like the manifestation of me that is nice to her without being overly friendly (even though she's the kind of person who, if you give an inch she'll take a mile, so her reaction is either fully on or fully off) is not really an act at all, even though I don't like her much, because I am a nice, respectful, friendly person...to everyone...not just to people that I like.

 

[Maelstrom]

Does anybody here feel like they put on a mask when socializing? I've felt that way almost my entire life, I have to consciously make an effort to appear at least halfway normal.

Hi Maria Ventresca yes I have traveled that road, it is nice to read these posts and see you are not alone in the world, but it is a little bit sad in a way because you remember how hard it was. And it makes me feel bad that some one is out there at this very moment suffering through the same hardships that I struggled so hard to survive. I see that many here resent having to pretend to please others and I understand the sentiment, once in awhile you find a good soul who will learn to meet you on your ground. But I have resigned my self to the fact that it is like trying to bail out the ocean with a tea cup there are just too many people out there to train them all to understand us. So I tell my self it is a charitable kindness to try to make others feel comfortable, rather than being two faced, in the end we really have no choice it is a matter of survival. I agree with Harrison54 the world is a stage and even NTs are required to paste the smile on to survive once in awhile. But it is truly pleasent when you find a friend you can let your guard down with for a little bit and just be your self.