Masking And Job Struggles
Once I took the AQ, familiarized myself with autistic atypical traits in adults on the spectrum, and came to the realization that ASD could be my reality I went through a range of emotions. I tried to process how I could have been masking. I saw myself always playing a role of the girl and woman that I thought those around me and what I thought society wanted me to be.
I realize now, masking lead me to make most of the biggest life-decisions I regret.
I pondered the mask I wore for a long time. I couldn’t remember ever “putting the mask on”. It was just always there. It was never a conscious choice to hide who I really was. It was just a reaction to being smart enough to know what’s expected of me and knowing that I couldn’t produce it the way everyone around me wanted it. I can’t explain to you what it feels like to take off a mask you never knew you were wearing in your thirties. I can’t fully explain what it feels like to realize that you never let yourself just be you out of fear. I definitely can’t explain in an effective way how sad it makes me feel to think I made so much late progress and realize that I didn’t. But what I can share is that I masked out of fear. I feared never being good enough. I knew I was different but I feared the idea that I couldn’t be like everyone else, even if I wanted to be. I feared being destined for failure. I knew I could never be successful as defined by those around me.
For me, taking the mask off was coming to terms with my fears.
I had suppressed my true identity so much all of these years that I didn’t even know I was hiding in this body all along. Even though my true self came out at the most inopportune times, I had no clue this is who I was. But that’s the craziest part. I realize now I felt a pressure since birth to be the “neurotypical” child that my brother and sister were or that society in general is looking for. In a family like mine, where appearances were everything and avoiding the truth was perfectly acceptable (you can imagine how well that upbringing turned out for me), masking seemed par for the course. But, there still was never a time I remember thinking, “I’m going to be normal today.” I was jsut constantly reminded I was annoying, different, an inconvenience, rude, careless, and whatever else was thrust upon me daily as a child into adulthood. Even more recently, I decided to go back to treating my ADHD with medication, the sam medication that I got as a young teenager and I thought I was doing so well…
A few years ago I started my own business. For the first time in my life, I was making money on a consistent basis and on my own terms. It felt good to feel accomplished and I was content with how I was making money. For the first time, I was self-sufficient. I was meeting and even exceeding my personal and professional goals. My family seemed proud of me for the first time in my adult life. People were telling me what a great job I was doing and recognizing my accomplishments. Yes, people were even acting shocked at what I had accomplished but I could get over that for the other personal benefits. What most of the people around me didn’t know is that I had to start my own business. That was the only way I could make money. Before I was forced to work for myself, I had never held a job before. In fact, my own business is the longest I’ve ever held the same position (3-4 years)…
Before my official ASD diagnosis, I could never pinpoint exactly why I couldn’t keep a job. I had no problem getting them and I even was hired for jobs that I probably shouldn’t have gotten. The one consistency in all of the jobs I was hired for was a deep disconnect with everyone I worked with and for. The various companies I had worked for seemed to be run inefficiently and it was hard for me to be in an environment where I was constantly bombarded with (what I saw as) inefficiencies with the expectation to quietly comply. I learned quickly that people don’t like inefficiencies to be pointed out. (who knew?) This lead to me feeling like my managers and/or coworkers were against me, even if in reality they weren’t.
I felt like a victim at every job, even the times that I wasn’t.
I was always a hard worker in every position I had (at least at first), but in a neurotypical world job, performance doesn’t always matter, especially if the performance wasn’t what was expected of you. Sometimes it is how you do the work that gets you noticed, gets you the promotion, or gets you a raise. Sometimes it’s not about what you do at all. Sometimes it’s about saying the right things at the right time to the right people. Being politically savvy and supportive of whatever you need to do or say to get ahead are skills that you need to maneuver in this cruel world and to me, that is a toxic environment. That environment leads to uncontrollable meltdowns and even panic attacks. In my easy, black and white world I felt like it was dishonest if I was complying if I didn’t believe in the mission. The meltdowns and panic attacks (or sometimes when I felt them coming) my flight response would kick in and I would either walk out and quit during a meltdown or I would just ghost the job altogether, they would just never hear from me again. I couldn’t face it.
There were 100 or so past jobs. The truth is that I have no clue how many there actually were but I am probably not exaggerating. Many of them were held for just a day or two in my late teens and 20s. I would go and meet everyone and see the environment and I just knew I couldn’t cope. That was all I needed to see. Due to my super masking and prominent mimicking skills, I eventually mastered the art of knowing what people want to hear and giving it to them. Since that is pretty much exactly what an interview is (minus the need for being genuine), I got a lot of jobs. But where exactly did it normally go wrong for me with jobs?
I now realize that I didn’t understand the social queues from my bosses and co-workers or how to understand what was actually expected of me.
The turmoil I felt was the lack of control and anxiety that comes with misreading everything around you and feeling “out of the loop”. The problem was that I didn’t even know that’s what was going on. Since it’s common for ADHDers to experience some of this type of scenarios (rarely, but it happens) I chalked it up to my ADHD diagnosis but I knew that it just didn’t make sense. I saw myself as a superior communicator, I just didn’t realize that communication goes 2 ways. Receiving information is just as important as giving it. I was fully “capable” of relating my own information, or at least what I knew, but I was never, and still struggle with receiving the information correctly. This is a recipe for disaster in a job setting, where you are what you produce. If you don’t understand what you’re meant to produce, it’s confusing and scary. Me creating my own business was the answer to all of this. I could easily understand what I wanted. I was in control and I set the tone for my company. There was no one looking over me and no expectations beyond what I put on myself. Unsurprisingly, I built a business model around being as productive and efficient as possible. This was possibly to satisfy my years of torture in inefficient environments but either way, all I know is that it felt good.
