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"True self" aspie style

I am and always have been just me. No masks, no façade, no pretending to be something I am not. I think that is because I never even heard of Asperger's until I was 60 and was not diagnosed until I was 62. Who I am and my life style was set by then. I have always known that I was different than everybody else, but I was comfortable with who I was, so being different never has bothered me. However I have had plenty of human contact. As fate would have it, I met my wife and got married at a fairly young age. Now we have a very large family and most of them see me as "eccentric". Other people who know who I am see me as that "weird, old, smart guy" and that is OK with me.
 
clg114 said:
I am and always have been just me. No masks, no façade, no pretending to be something I am not. I think that is because I never even heard of Asperger's until I was 60 and was not diagnosed until I was 62. Who I am and my life style was set by then. I have always known that I was different than everybody else, but I was comfortable with who I was, so being different never has bothered me. However I have had plenty of human contact. As fate would have it, I met my wife and got married at a fairly young age. Now we have a very large family and most of them see me as "eccentric". Other people who know who I am see me as that "weird, old, smart guy" and that is OK with me.
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I couldn't agree with you more :)
 
I took some time to know who I really am. I became more aware in therapy sessions. I never thought of it as facades, but I'm very carefully with showing people personal parts of myself and mostly only to people I feel safe around. Unfortunately, I can't always trust my knowledge of human nature. I do expect people to be honest and fair and react strong when realizing it's not the case. Generally I try to be more authentic than what people expect me to be. Being brutally honest in conflict situations is exhausting though depending on the person you deal with, but I have problems to lie.
 
The real me is very playful and silly, but very thoughtful and kind I would say. I love to serve other people and see them happy.

I am very intelligent and well versed in politics and Christianity.

My wife and daughter know the real me as well as a few close friends.

As I have gotten older I have discovered the real me and am slowly learning to be myself and loosing the mask.
 
My true self if I am basing it on my younger self before I learned to mask everything, is quite an anguished person, who worries and over analyses everything, and who goes over everything she says later, in her head thinking what she could have done differently. My true self let obsessive interests completely take over her life. My true self did have some plus points though, I was far more prolific with my art back then, and I could memorise and learn a lot more. I could also write songs and poems something I have lost the ability to do.
 
What façades, masks and performances? Who I am is what people see. If they don't like what they see, I really don't give a damn.
 
DogwoodTree said:
Underneath all of the facades and masks and performances we do for the sake of getting along in an NT world, what is your true, inner self like? Who are you, really? And are there any situations where you're able to bring that authentic self to the surface for others to see?
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I've been asking myself this question for years.

I don't know yet, I'm still shaking off all the posturing I used to get by...
 
This discussion is, I have to say, really disturbing. Why do so many here feel the need to pretend, to cover up who they really are? You don't see this happening with other 'minority groups', for example those based upon ethnicity or physical disability. The path to acceptance (not 'tolerance' - we don't want that) begins with being unafraid to be who we are in public. If we continue to try to hide, we will will accomplish nothing. We have nothing to be ashamed of, so why act as though we do?
 
Bellatrix said:
This discussion is, I have to say, really disturbing. Why do so many here feel the need to pretend, to cover up who they really are? You don't see this happening with other 'minority groups', for example those based upon ethnicity or physical disability. The path to acceptance (not 'tolerance' - we don't want that) begins with being unafraid to be who we are in public. If we continue to try to hide, we will will accomplish nothing. We have nothing to be ashamed of, so why act as though we do?
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Do we, as a people, have the ability to stand up for are selves? I fear that autism, in and of itself, maybe making it impossible for us to do anything. People of ethnicity or physical disability still have a sound mind and are able to voice their opinion. Something that those of us on the spectrum are lacking. Temple Grandin is in a good position for helping out with autism rights. But I think she sold us out, and prefers to teach people how to suppress it more then anything.

Another tough challenge that we face is the fact that NT's think that we are making this up and that we want a license for bad behavior. Fact is, NT's just can't comprehend the fact that are condition is real.
 
Bellatrix said:
This discussion is, I have to say, really disturbing. Why do so many here feel the need to pretend, to cover up who they really are?
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I think everyone (including NTs) does this to accommodate society, at large. Wearing a Speedo or a bikini may be legally acceptable, but it's only appropriate in certain settings. What the OP calls a mask may, in fact, be various states of behavioral dress or undress, a.k.a. decorum. As long as one has a place where they can let their hair down, recognizing a degree of etiquette shouldn't be a problem.
 
Bellatrix said:
This discussion is, I have to say, really disturbing. Why do so many here feel the need to pretend, to cover up who they really are? You don't see this happening with other 'minority groups', for example those based upon ethnicity or physical disability. The path to acceptance (not 'tolerance' - we don't want that) begins with being unafraid to be who we are in public. If we continue to try to hide, we will will accomplish nothing. We have nothing to be ashamed of, so why act as though we do?
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I think it's because many of us were treated so badly, and didn't understand why, so in order to have a less stressed out life, we adapted.

I'm glad you feel confident enough to be yourself, but there are those of us in less sympathetic situations that have had to do the opposite. I know that if that kind of confidence had come to me, I wouldn't have suffered such anxiety, both as a child and to a lesser extent now.

It is disturbing, both to read and to live through.
 
And it's not about 'feeling the need', it's more a survival thing, and that's not so much a feeling as a necessary evil, sadly. Well, for some of us at least. There are so many variables in our lives, some of us are in supportive environments and some of us aren't.

The mask thing, well it's very common.
 
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