"True self" aspie style

[qwerty]

i was told during my diagnosis that mimicking the mannerisms of people that we identity as socially capable was a very, very common trait of asperger's. Thanks for your posts Sass you summed up what i was wanting to say.

 

[Astroganga]

For me, I am conflicted as my true self lives in a state of emotional anguish that is unsustainable, so maybe my NT mask is to protect myself from the true me-not others from me....

 

[clg114]

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.

This is a very good point. While I had a hard time as a teen and young adult, I had a very good home life. The emphasis was on family and once I was married this carried on for me too. You are right, it is disturbing to read a lot of the posts here. My heart breaks when I read some of them and it makes me realize how lucky I really am.

 

[Nitro]

i was told during my diagnosis that mimicking the mannerisms of people that we identity as socially capable was a very, very common trait of asperger's. Thanks for your posts Sass you summed up what i was wanting to say.

A lot of this rings true for me. I was a very introverted person who adopted the ways of successful individuals in order to do business with the world. The end result was me becoming what I describe as an introverted extrovert.

 

[Judge]

i was told during my diagnosis that mimicking the mannerisms of people that we identity as socially capable was a very, very common trait of asperger's. Thanks for your posts Sass you summed up what i was wanting to say.

Absolutely. Yet in my own case it has always made me feel like a fraud at heart.

I didn't fit in. I just made myself appear as such....so only a certain degree. Enough not to stand out when possible.

But I'm still me. The guy who never quite fit in anywhere.

 

[tree]

To me the ideas of 'masks' & 'facades' are loathsome.
Fakeness.

I have no objection to not displaying the entirety of
one's personality, depending on the situation, but at
no time do I prefer to call that 'wearing a mask.'

Maybe it is like using ingredients in a recipe.
You don't have to use all the lemon juice or sugar
in the cupboard each time you open the door.
It depends on what you are making
how much you dispense.

 

[Judge]

Maybe it is like using ingredients in a recipe. You don't have to use all the lemon juice or sugar in the cupboard each time you open the door. It depends on what you are making how much you dispense.

I suspect for most of us "the recipe" simply calls for as much as it takes to avoid getting our ass kicked. It was never a choice for me. Mostly a tool for social survival - not subterfuge. Even then, there was never any guarantee of success.

 

[qwerty]

To me the ideas of 'masks' & 'facades' are loathsome.
Fakeness.

I have no objection to not displaying the entirety of
one's personality, depending on the situation, but at
no time do I prefer to call that 'wearing a mask.'

Maybe it is like using ingredients in a recipe.
You don't have to use all the lemon juice or sugar
in the cupboard each time you open the door.
It depends on what you are making
how much you dispense.

i have been thinking about this and wonder, just how much of a person is not a mask,
socially speaking? i mean so much of our time is spent socially on projection, counter
projection,transference counter transference, cotransference and all these subconscious
transactions that may very well trick us into believing that we have a personality when in
fact we are just the flickering manifestation of all those little subconscious processes ping
ponging away in the background. i have been searching for an authentic self for over a
decade, pulling away layer after layer of identity trying to find the core me and am still
searchin.
Why do you find something so fundamentally human as masks and facades so loathsome
if you don't mind asking?

 

[qwerty]

I suspect for most of us "the recipe" simply calls for as much as it takes to avoid getting our ass kicked. It was never a choice for me. Mostly a tool for social survival - not subterfuge. Even then, there was never any guarantee of success.

OMG
That is so true, the beatings i got and obviously you too, aint no surprise really lol

 

[tree]

i have been thinking about this and wonder, just how much of a person is not a mask
socially speaking? i mean so much of our time is spent socially on projection, counter
projection,transference counter transference, cotransference and all these subconscious
transactions that may very well trick us into believing that we have a personality when in
fact we are just the flickering manifestation of all those little subconscious processes ping
ponging away in the background. i have been searching for an authentic self for over a
decade, pulling away layer after layer of identity trying to find the core me and am still
searchin.
Why do you find something so fundamentally human as masks and facades so loathsome
if you don't mind asking?

Why do you not capitalize the first person pronoun?

I don't like 'masks' and 'facades' because they aren't
real. I think I dislike the concept for the same reason
some people prefer it. Hiding. Fakeness. I don't like
those things.

When I was a child, I used to dream that there
were groups of people/toys/animals and they were
all identical looking. But only one of them was the
real one.

 

[qwerty]

Why do you not capitalize the first person pronoun?

I don't like 'masks' and 'facades' because they aren't
real. I think I dislike the concept for the same reason
some people prefer it. Hiding. Fakeness. I don't like
those things.

When I was a child, I used to dream that there
were groups of people/toys/animals and they were
all identical looking. But only one of them was the
real one.

i don't capitalize i because i am using an onscreen keyboard as my keyboard is out of batteries and i am lazy.
i don't see masks as a way of hiding but of exaggerating or giving expression to different aspects of self.

 

[tree]

To call self-expression a 'mask' tinges
it with a flavor I can't enjoy. Makes it
seem like an excrescence, rather than
a behavior.

 

[watersprite]

I suspect for most of us "the recipe" simply calls for as much as it takes to avoid getting our ass kicked. It was never a choice for me. Mostly a tool for social survival - not subterfuge. Even then, there was never any guarantee of success.

I chose to retreat and retreat some more. Every one of my drawings and paintings is IMO a mask which says [to certain people] catch me if you can.

 

[qwerty]

To call self-expression a 'mask' tinges
it with a flavor I can't enjoy. Makes it
seem like an excrescence, rather than
a behavior.

seem like an excrescence lol this made me laugh while learning a new word

what about the masks we place upon others?

i believe that all the best characters from fairytales, books etc are masks pulled from the theatre dressing room of the subconscious mind, as old as humanity, the self that is ultimately the true us, maybe even our soul? whose language is dreamlike distortions of physical reality and archetypal abstractions.

when you hear about the great works of art being inspired by the muses or not coming from the artist it is because they come from that place of dream where language and reason are not tolerated, the artist takes the dreamstuff from the subconscious and weave it through the clay or ink and as it starts to take form it reaches a point where it has enough dreamshape to be recognised by the concious mind and takes on a life of it's own, it becomes an aspect of the makers self, a hidden character, a mask.

All art, especially Poetry is all about this process, hanging masks on nature, their lovers, their mortality you can always recognise one of these masks you feel a certain longing when you come across a character, painting and quite frequently doodles etc.

 

[DogwoodTree]

To me the ideas of 'masks' & 'facades' are loathsome.
Fakeness.

Before I learned about AS, I thought everyone was hiding behind masks all the time. I thought that was what you did to show someone you cared--you put on the right behavior for the situation to communicate the right message. I wasn't purposely deceiving people. I just thought everyone played these games in order to be interactive.

Then I decided to try to be more authentic. I truly thought people would be pleased on some level--I thought they would be glad to learn that they didn't have to pretend with me anymore, and that I wouldn't pretend with them. I would simply try to be myself, and they could each be themselves, and no more games.

But that's not how it went.

Instead, people started getting their feelings hurt. People--even healthy people--pulled away and ignored me and even seemed to avoid me. Even though I wasn't being mean, I just wasn't playing the games as much. I was slowly trying to learn how to be authentically me. And I was very confused about the reactions I was getting.

So then I discovered AS. And that kinda explained it. Those other people--they're not pretending. They're not hiding behind masks, at least, apparently not of the same sort that I was using. I'm having a really hard time believing it, but apparently, other people genuinely feel the things they express, even if it seems to me to be unreasonable. Their emotional expressions tend to be genuine.

Also, turns out that a lot of the masks I created were built on dysfunctional models. I grew up in a terribly dysfunctional family. So this masking I've done was necessary for survival, not just for acceptance into a social group (which never really happened anyway--I wasn't that good at masking), but simply to survive in an abusive home.

I truly had no idea other people weren't masking so extensively. I thought you were supposed to do this. You pretend to want to go to the party, because that's how you show people you want to be around them. You pretend to like their new haircut, because that's how they can feel good about themselves. You pretend to look forward to the "surprise gift" they've picked out for you, because that's their expression of love, no matter how off-base the gift is from something you might actually want. And if you don't pretend these things, then you're communicating that you don't want to be with them or that you don't like them or that their thoughts about you don't matter.

I think if I were to be in my completely authentic, natural state, I would be essentially non-interactive. And you can't communicate love for someone by shutting down all the time and never interacting with them. So every conversation requires at least some level of pretending and masking. I don't know how to get around this. My husband and my children have emotional needs. And I have to try to meet those needs as best I can, even if it doesn't feel authentic, because I do genuinely love them. It's just that the way I might "feel" that love wouldn't connect with their perceptive abilities.

 

[FreeDiver]

Before I learned about AS, I thought everyone was hiding behind masks all the time. I thought that was what you did to show someone you cared--you put on the right behavior for the situation to communicate the right message. I wasn't purposely deceiving people. I just thought everyone played these games in order to be interactive.

Then I decided to try to be more authentic. I truly thought people would be pleased on some level--I thought they would be glad to learn that they didn't have to pretend with me anymore, and that I wouldn't pretend with them. I would simply try to be myself, and they could each be themselves, and no more games.

For me, I had a different take on it. Before I learned anything about AS. I saw NT behavior as more about etiquette, manors and protocol, then about theatrics. I always blamed my social shortcomings on not learning proper etiquette, rather then bad(or lacking) acting skills. Once I learned about AS and realized, that this was about theater, and not etiquette. Then all these social shortcomings started making sense.

 

[Bellatrix]

Do we, as a people, have the ability to stand up for are selves?

Yes, we do. The belief that we don't is what gives rise to groups who think they can take it upon themselves to speak for us, like everyone's favourite charity (sarcasm) Autism Speaks.

 

[LiquoriceLemonade]

I have no idea who I would've been without hiding behind an "empty mask." I have not been myself for a long time that I take upon too many identities that without them would leave me "zombie-like." It is a shame that past events had to leave me like this. All I can remember is what I used to be like before I was a diagnosed autistic, but back then I used to be rather upset. A happy, goofy and kind youngster I would've been if it were not for people's intolerance. I could still be somewhat like that, but it is best to remain shameless by not bringing up memories.

 

[royinpink]

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?

Intense. Raw, unfiltered thoughts and emotions. Delighted by little sights, smells, sounds, tastes. Driven to laughing fits and jumping and dancing and running. Disappointed easily by the slightest change. Hurt and wounded easily, too.

Intuitive. Making jumps and connections in thought which can be humorous or intellectually exciting. Creative.

Obsessive. The opposing tendency to the previous characteristic. Fixating on an idea or a person or a problem and going over and over it, seeking completion, perfection, never at ease.

Sincere. I can only really put my heart into the things I am interested in. I have no patience for anything else. I literally cannot sit still for it or focus on it.

Empathetic. The same effort I put into understanding ideas, I put into understanding people. The same goes for the intensity of emotion. Sometimes it is overwhelming.

Who are you, really?

I feel I am what I do. When I 'pretend', I become someone focused on pretending. When I withhold or restrain, which is more frequent, I become less, diminished.

And are there any situations where you're able to bring that authentic self to the surface for others to see?

Rarely. Sometimes when I get excited about something. A concept, a sunset, a good experience. More often in high school than now. I am always honest and open with true friends, more so with partners. The latter are the only ones who have seen me at my worst. No friends or family have witnessed that.

I am quiet a lot. I'm not good at maintaining a facade, although I can sort of rephrase, if that makes sense--translate the bluntness into something more palatable, but still honest. Use a few stock phrases and a voice. My processing, both social and emotional, isn't good enough to successfully keep up a facade, and things go south rather quickly if I expose my unfiltered self among people I haven't 'chosen' as a friend/partner. I can't handle the tension that follows.

 

[PrincessRuto]

The problem is I don't really know who I am.

As for letting my true side out, I do like saying puntastic jokes, and is part of the real me, but even this is a facade to hide the inner despair and turmoil that no one would want to see.

This is me too. I have spent all of my life trying to fit myself into the NT box that I never let myself figure out who I am. Now I'm almost 30 and trying to. It's a slow process and it sort of feels like dating myself. I will definitely be urging my kids to take the time to be themselves through all of their imperfections, instead of what they think others want them to be.