If you discovered you're autistic later in life,
chances are you've been unconsciously masking for decades.
And if that's you, it may not be immediately
obvious why unmasking is important
especially if you've done very well masking.
You have this fantastic facade, it's successful
it's socially competent.
It works really, really well
in a lot of different situations. You've lent
on this mask and it's served you really well.
That was definitely the case for me and my dreadlocks.
My mask was extremely sophisticated and very successful
but it still had to go.
There is a cost to masking, and maybe you've got an inkling
of this already, but the true cost is a lot more
than you think for reasons that are not immediately obvious.
But after this video, hopefully it will all make sense.
Hi everyone.
Paul Micallef here from Autism
From The Inside.
I make weekly videos sharing the human side of autism,
so make sure you hit subscribe to get the latest content.
So someone asked me a very good question the other day
on one of my webinars.
"Do you mask during your YouTube videos?"
Very good question.
What do you think?
I mean, in one sense, the answer's obvious.
Yes, of course we all do.
You're clearly seeing one side of me through these videos
or at the very least
a very limited view of who I am as a person.
I don't record videos when I'm crying or overwhelmed
or just plain not coping, not least because I'm
not a particularly good communicator in those situations.
So what does masking even mean?
Well, the most helpful question I found to ask myself is
am I being authentic?
I can still be an authentic version
of myself without showing my whole self.
In fact, it's literally impossible to show my whole self.
I am an immensely complex human being
with dense thoughts and feelings and emotions and desires
and motivations and experiences and past personal history
and my own view of myself and psychology
and all of these other immensely complicated things that go
into the whole of a human being.
Is it even possible for me to be aware
of everything that I am
in my whole self while probably not.
Even though I spend all
of my time with myself for my entire life
I still don't know everything about myself.
So how could I possibly share myself completely
with someone else, let alone on a YouTube video?
So that's why we have personas, right?
I have a simplified version
of myself that I share with the world.
So are you seeing a mask or are you seeing the real me?
The truth is you're seeing a glimpse
of the real me, not the whole thing.
I call that being authentic
and I think it's healthy to have a socially
appropriate filter where I get to choose which parts
of me I share at any given.
Masking is something quite different.
Masking isn't just a socially appropriate filter.
It's putting up a barrier
between my true self and the outside world.
It's deliberately appearing to be different
than I naturally am.
For example, I might be deliberately talkative
and outgoing even though I don't feel like it.
The mask takes energy to create, and it feels
like a relief when I can finally put it down
finally drop it finally be myself again.
A mask can also be a denial of who I am.
If there's a part of me that I feel is unacceptable
it's tempting to try and hide it
to keep it in the closet and put it
with all my other skeletons that no one's allowed to see
like a secret that's not allowed to exist.
There's a big difference between a side
of me that I sometimes let you see and don't always show
and a part of me that I keep permanently hidden.
Having different sides is normal and healthy.
There are lots of sides to me
that most people on YouTube aren't ever gonna see.
There are some sides of me
that only my wife sees, or only my family
or only my friends or only certain friends, potentially.
Ideally, there would be a time and a place
for me to express and to be everything that I am.
All of the sides that make
up this in immensely complex human being,
they all need some form of expression
at one time or another, with one person or another.
I'm not happy all the time.
I'm happy sometimes I'm not excited all the time.
I'm excited
sometimes. I'm not silly all the time.
I'm silly sometimes.
I'm not asking deep philosophical existential
questions all the time, but I do that sometimes. Right?
With the right people. As long as there is at least one place
in my life where I can be each
of these things that's natural and healthy, in my opinion.
Anyway. In contrast, if part
of me is locked away forever, I never let it out.
I never acknowledge it.
It becomes a secret so shameful
that I can't even acknowledge that it exists.
That's the effect
of long term masking, even unconscious, long term masking.
It's pretending to be social all your life.
It's pretending to be straight all your life.
It's pretending to be normal all your life.
Whatever that means.
Whatever is expected, whatever facade you are putting
on or part of yourself, you're hiding away forever
because you feel like it's inappropriate.
If you're doing that on a long term basis, the message is
there is something wrong with me
that I cannot let people see.
And if you've been masking for a long time, decades
for example, then the question becomes, well
who am I without the mask?
This is me.
Is it not?
This is the me that I have been for decades.
Who am I without the mask? This mask that I've created?
This personality that I've created?
Who would I be without it?
So am I masking in these videos?
Well, no, not consciously.
At least.
Maybe there is part of me that I haven't fully accepted yet.
And at the same time,
the image that I choose to project is heavily filtered,
heavily based on what I think other people will think
and what I think will be acceptable.
I mean
I have a video background that I think is acceptable.
I use lights and I have a microphone and I have a camera
and I try and even look at the camera sometimes
if I'm feeling good because these other types
of things that I think will help me communicate.
I mean
there are so many things that I do every day that are based
on how other people around me are likely to react to me.
So is that masking or is that just part
and parcel of social communication existing
in a world with other human beings?
How could I communicate at all if I
didn't consider how the other person is likely to respond
likely to hear or not hear
or understand or misunderstand my message?
So like I said, masking is not filtering yourself
so that you can conform or fit in.
It's pretending to be an inauthentic version of yourself
either by actively pretending
or passively concealing something very important.
Both of these forms
of masking send exactly the same message.
I am not okay as I am.
I'm not acceptable.
I'm not lovable.
I'm not worthy of connection or belonging as I am.
And ironically, when we wear the mask
any acceptance or love or belonging cannot be
truly received because it's attributed to the mask.
Instead, the mask is acceptable.
But if they saw the real me, I would be rejected
in an instant.
And that's why unmasking is so important.
It's about self-acceptance.
It's about showing up in the world as an authentic version
of your true self.
Yes, it's vulnerable.
Yes, it opens us up to the possibility of rejection
but it also opens us up to the possibility of acceptance -
True acceptance of your true self.
And that's why unmasking and self-acceptance is
so important, especially for autistic people when equated
to self-acceptance.
Hopefully, you can see that unmasking is not an easy process
or a simple process or a quick process, but it is important
and a supportive community can often help.
So if you don't know any other autistic people in your life
I would strongly recommend reaching out to find some
maybe joining our online social group or checking out one
of my other videos on the process of unmasking.
So thanks for watching.
I hope you found this
valuable.
I wish you all the best
in your journey of unmasking and self-acceptance.
If you have any tips you'd like to share
on what has helped you to unmask
and develop more self-acceptance,
please leave them in the comments.
Otherwise, thanks again for watching
and I'll see you next week.
Bye.