Mind Your Autistic Brain with Social Autie

  To feel like the REAL you, does it only require removing a mask?  Burnouts are most often caused due to all the energy that you expend keeping the right mask on for the right situation.  It is exhausting and often leads to feelings of disconnect, isolation and not feeling like anyone really knows you or understands you.   You may be on a mission to unmask right now and you are slowly lowering your guard and experimenting with showing up in the world as the real you.  It feels freeing and exciting to stim or to not make eye contact every second of a conversation with someone.  In those small moments where you are letting your mask down you feel that sense of reclaiming yourself and your place in the world. But you are only uncovering what is a big, glaring difference in your current awareness that is in contrast to the mask you have been wearing. Unmasking, as a late identified autistic, is only one component in aligning your external and internal wor...

  Chances are your answer is no, just like mine was. In the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, the main character, Dorian, lives two very different lives in physical reflection.  One life is his outer body which remains young and attractive, and the other is his portrait which ages and reflects all the external happenings instead of his actual outward appearance.  Dorian remains young and handsome on the outside, while his portrait does not. I don't compare this in the strictest sense, but rather as a way to convey how I perceive autistic masking and how it manifests in both the physical exterior and the internal worlds of an individual. I didn't even know what Autistic Masking was even after the first few years of knowing I was autistic.  It is a term that you learn and become familiar with after you get into the autistic community. The definition of "Social Masking" as it is discussed in the psychology and Autism world is: Masking  is a proces...