Unmasking Autism Diary #1: This Will Be Interesting...I'm Making My Diary Public

Read now (4 mins) | Authenticity: from inside Angela's Autistic mind.

January 2, 2023

Dear Diary,

Day 1 of the Unmasking project.

Not just in the autistic way but in general. To be more of myself. To drop any pretense.

But unmasking is harder than it seems. Most people will tell you that I hold nothing back, but it’s not true. Holding things back is a well-learned trauma response. 

Growing up when my mom would buy me new clothes as a treat she would often tell me not to wear them right away. She didn’t want my dad to notice that she’d spent the money. I’d clip the tags and hide them in the bottom of the trash and wait until I could sneak an item into an existing outfit. 

My mom always said I tell half-truths. But this was a half-truth too wasn’t it?

The full truth was I wanted to wear my new clothes right away, and this dance filled me with shame and anger and sadness. Sometimes, it seemed, telling half-truths was good (hide your new clothes to keep dad from getting mad), and sometimes it was bad. I never quite followed the logic. Which, you know, makes sense since I’m autistic. 

Unmasking is dangerous for autistics because we get so much wrong in this area. 

Does, “Just be yourself” actually mean just be yourself? Or does it mean, “Be yourself with tricky exceptions that you are supposed to innately understand because everyone else does”? 

I always guess wrong. 

One of the rules seems to be that you can’t share other people’s stories. It’s not “yours to tell.” But how do I know what’s mine? 

The clothes shopping story…Was that mine or my mother’s? That feels safe to share because it’s forty years old and my parents are long divorced. Right?

But that pattern runs deep. What do I have to hide to be accepted?

What part of hiding who I am is a trauma response and what part is being socially appropriate, following social cues, and being respectful of others' privacy? Where is that line?

I want to write about my journey but others are on this journey with me. It’s a half truth to say the holidays were great but that’s the “right” answer…I think. 

Everything feels so layered in complexity.

Did I have a good Christmas? Well, sure. My husband and I had a two-day get away alone and we laughed and shopped and ate great food. Did I feel rejected when my kid said he didn’t want to spend the holiday with me and chose to be somewhere I wasn’t invited? Yes, that too. Crushingly so. I guess I’ll talk about it in forty years. 

Is making lemons out of lemonade just another form of masking? Smiling and not only saying you are okay with plan B can seem like a betrayal of what I really wanted all along. But not smiling and arguing with reality does not have a lot of upside. 

My word of the year is unmask, but I don’t actually know what that means. Does unmasking mean never pretending you are okay with something you aren’t okay with? 

I follow someone on Facebook whose child came out as queer and non-binary this year. In the Christmas pictures I saw, they were celebrated and gifted with pride flag merchandise. I cried with…joy…sadness….jealousy…all the feels. Blame my alexithymia for my inability to name it. 

They are so much braver than me, I thought. So much more unmasked.

I knew I was Queer at that age, but I understood the rule was that acceptance comes from not making others confront this. I wore an, “I’m straight but not narrow,” pin and became a gay rights activist. My activism was praised. But what would happen if I LIVED my truth as a queer person? Would I have been rejected?

I was too afraid to find out.

That was a good half-truth, right? But only if I pretended it wasn’t a half-truth. Other half-truths were bad. But how to know which was which?

‘I choose to go now where I am celebrated, not where I’m tolerated.’
That’s a meme that sounds fun until your nearest and dearest opt out of the celebration.

Or even beyond your nearest and dearest, it’s still more complicated than the meme makes it seem. 

My first acts of unmasking were easier: letting myself stim publicly, sharing my diagnosis more freely, asking for accommodations from friends, clients, and staff, admitting my special interest was a way to manage my anxiety instead of saving it up as a reward for being good…

But this part of unmasking is more nuanced for me: knowing when to be fully myself and when to lie a little to protect others or the peace. When is it right to hide your new clothes in the closet so dad doesn’t find out you went shopping and get mad?

That’s what I hope this journaling practice will help me discover this year. Making my diary a public project is the greatest unmasking of all. 

Here’s a question: can a diary be public? My challenge is to write it WITHOUT considering your gaze. A true diary is written in secret with the belief no one would ever see it. But the challenge here is to be unmasked in public. To write it NOT to be seen…but show it anyway.

The fall out of making this public—if there is any—will be part of this year of unmasking. Can’t wait to see what I learn. May no one be hurt in the process.

***

The Dear Diary Project is a public journaling project where I’m publicly sharing my diary entries as part of my annual goals. No harm is intended by these posts. My goal is to gain clarity for myself and hopefully help others, especially autistic adults, who are trying to make sense of the communication challenges we face.

“Masking is a common coping mechanism in which Autistic people hide their identifiably Autistic traits in order to fit in with societal norms, adopting a superficial personality at the expense of their mental health. This can include suppressing harmless stims, papering over communication challenges by presenting as unassuming and mild-mannered, and forcing themselves into situations that cause severe anxiety, all so they aren’t seen as needy or ‘odd.’”
—Unmasking Autism, Dr. Devon Price

*Background note: Most people only have a vague (often, highly stereotyped) version of autism in their minds and believe that autistic children need (traumatic) ABA therapy to "overcome" their disability and appear "normal."  After receiving an autism diagnosis in her thirties, Dr. Angela Lauria realized that she too had been mostly unaware of what it means to be Autistic.  Like so many people, she started her journey by first gathering information and resources from the omnipresent (and problematic) Autism Speaks, but eventually moved away from the 'autism community' in favor of the 'Autistic community,' where she found kinship with other Autistic individuals and learned to let go of pathologizing language like 'autism spectrum disorder' and 'Asperger's Syndrome.'  This autism blog (and her autism podcast, "The Autistic Culture Podcast") is meant to share her lived-experience insights to support others on a similar journey of diagnosis, understanding, and community. Embrace Autism--differences are not deficits.