May 11th, 2026: 12:52 PM
Lately, the topic of unmasking has been on my mind. I’ve seen countless tik toks, instagram reels, and posts all over socials of fellow autistic humans talking about their unmasking experiences. As always, everyone has different circumstances and experiences surrounding their Neurodivergence, including me.
It’s been quite a bit since I received my diagnosis and it hasn’t been until recently where I started noticing how much I’ve changed but haven’t changed at the same time. Now that I think about it, before I even got evaluated, I had started to unmask to my best friend group. This was almost two years ago.
I began figuring out who I was again.
Reintroducing many parts of myself I hadn’t seen since I was a child. Aspects of my personality I tucked away from the world because I thought they were too “childish” or simply too much for people. Over the last couple years, especially with the support of my best friends, I learned this wasn’t true. I was never too much.
If I was, I was surrounded by the wrong people who weren’t meant to stay in my life forever.
After accepting this fact, it relieved me of a big weight on my chest. You know the kind where you carry it around you constantly, occasional twinges of pain when you least expect it in the worst possible time you could have them. With this weight, I would ask myself all the time why I couldn’t let go of certain things of the past.
Until I figured out the only one who could get closure over the past, is myself.
Why? Because there is no way, you can get it from every single experience in life. Perhaps this is why we may struggle with letting go. But just because we let something go, doesn’t mean we have to forgive whoever hurts us or forgive what we went through.
I honestly think it’s okay to feel that anger for yourself. In a way, it’s you standing up for yourself by acknowledging you didn’t deserve those things you endured.
Read that sentence again, okay?
You didn’t deserve to suffer.
I’ve learned I am the one who can provide comfort to myself at the end of the day. Yes, we can receive validation of our feelings from others but I believe what’s most important is receiving it from yourself.
However, even though I’ve learned this, I still struggle with it during trying times. We live in a world where being shallow, nonchalant is more encouraged than being vulnerable and authentic. Sure, we’re working on changing that but it’s going to be a constant uphill battle. Yet, I know it’s something those who are working on changing will continue to impact for many years to come.
