The Master Masker: Burning Out Instead of Burning Bright
“Oh. You don’t look autistic,” she said. At least, I think that’s what she said. I’m burned out and her words are processing like jumbled sounds. Like she’s a grownup in a Peanuts special.
But my excellent pattern recognition skills are picking up the usual signs that she’s both confused and impressed by my heavy masking — my ability to “seem normal” even though I’m an “other”. Her head is cocked…just ever so….lips pursed slightly to one side, mimicking head…brows furrowed.
I can tell she’s scanning her memory for interactions with me that might hint at some stereotypically autistic trait, like arm flapping or rocking or…Rain Man.
She probably won’t find the hints she’s looking for. I am, after all, a Master Masker.
Even on burnout days like today when my verbal processing is shit and I just want to sleep for a week because sensory input is physically painful, I can mask. My pattern recognition teams up with my deep empathy skills to clue me in on what reaction I should pull from my mental Rolodex. I base this on someone’s intonation, speech pattern, and volume.
My “Ferrari brain” with its ridiculous processing speed allows me to put all these pieces together in rapid succession, so I rarely miss a beat. “Oh, WOW!” I reply, “I can’t believe that happened to him.” …I think she’s talking about her nonverbal autistic nephew now. My reaction seems to have appeased enough that she thinks I’m still engaged in this “conversation.” Whew!
My head hurts. Why do these lights feel so bright today? Why do all my clothes itch? I want to crawl out of my skin. Ugh, I’ve got a Zoom meeting in an hour…there’s no way I can put my camera on today. I can’t sit still or I will literally scream. I can feel people’s judgment stares when I get too wiggly or don’t just stare right into my camera for long enough to make them feel like I’m listening. Spoiler alert: I’m not. I can’t. Not today. Not most days, honestly.
I’m burned out. Phone calls, emails, Zoom meetings, Teams meetings, memorizing new information only to have to memorize more. Talking. So much talking. And even more listening. It’s physically painful, verbal communication. It’s no wonder so many autistics have nonverbal periods. “But you can push through,” I hear my therapist coaching me in my head, “It’s only a few more hours before you can unplug.” She knows it’s maladaptive as fuck, too.
But, she also knows I need to pay the bills and keep my insurance if we are to keep working together. “This is the price of genius in modern times,” she likes to remind me. The ego stroke always helps me push through. A lot of good it does me when I can barely remember to shower even twice a week, though. High-functioning, my ass. Sometimes I want to trade this Ferrari brain in for a Ford.
I should have been a zookeeper or a park ranger or something. I like talking to animals so much better. No words, just energy. Other people don’t believe it when I say it, so I’ve stopped talking about it…but they still think it’s creepy that I often know what they’re thinking and feeling. Animals don’t communicate with language, but they communicate in every other way. Language is limiting.
Unfortunately, sometimes it’s the only tool I’ve got that these humans can seem to understand. And it quite literally sucks the life out of me. “Really? See, I never perceived you as being awkward,” she says. Scheisse! Here we go with this again.
Why did I bring that up?! Now I’ve got to explain what I mean?! How I’m so fucking good at hiding it and bottling it all up inside for the benefit of others? How it’s easier to pretend to be what they expect than to be myself, constantly having to explain what I mean and why I do things a certain way to the point that I just completely meltdown when no one else is around? How there’s just “something wrong” with me if I don’t do it the “normal” way, so I pretend like I’m normal because it’s easier for everyone?
Until, of course, it isn’t. Masking is often maladaptive.
I’m so burned out. I’m not sure how much more I can push through this. This conversation. This existence. I need a creative outlet. I need to move constantly. I need to have deeply intellectual conversations around the theories that rule humanity. I need to be in nature, away from the energy of humans. I wish I’d get beamed back to my home planet, already.
“So yeah, I know how hard it is to be autistic because my sister deals with my nephew all day,” she says. “Yeah…” I reply.
I’m so burned out.
