Unmasking looks like … scheduling in not talking

People talk and write about Unmasking as if it was an easy thing. Unmasking is the shedding of learnt behaviours and ways of being to appear “normal”. Unmasking is a process of becoming more yourself.

Which sounds awesome. I mean, IS awesome. Except that I have found it really hard. Which sounds peculiar and a bit sad to say out loud. But if I have thought I am being me for 43 years and then realise that I have been working hard to keep up with neuro-normative standards which are hard / challenging / impossible for me to meet, how do I stop that?

I’m writing a thread of this blog of examples of this. Like …

The other day a friend was coming over to play with one of my kids. Their Mum (a friend of mine) was coming over too. We knew it would be a long play - probably 4 or 5 hours long. I knew that we could sit and talk incessantly the whole time because we are both Autistic and “get” each other. I knew that I would then be exhausted. So - in what felt like a hugely awkward move - I said to my friend via text, lets chat and have lunch and then have some quite time so that we don’t spend all our spoons. She agreed that was a good idea. On the day, we launched into deep and delicious conversation which could have gone on for hours and hours. However after we had eaten lunch I said to her, “I would love to keep talking but I also really need some quiet - are you still ok with that?” She was. I went and lay on my bed for an hour and read and scrolled in quiet. She lay on the couch and … I’m not sure what she did. I set a timer and we came back together for a cuppa before she headed off.

We were both kind of delighted at our audaciousness at co-current resting in the middle of a hang out. It felt kind of weird (I love weird, I am always reclaiming the word), mostly wonderfully rewilding and unmasking and tending to our needs.

So, there you have it. My first way of unmasking.