Mental Health & Neurodiversity
I Was Masking So Long, I Lost Myself
Or maybe I never really figured out who I was
“She doesn’t have her own personality, she just acts like whoever she’s with.”
An observant, but cruel bully said this about me, I think I was about 12 years old at the time. As mean as this classmate was to me, this statement was actually spot on, but it was people like her that contributed to my attempts at blending in that she was now criticizing.
Who wouldn’t want to blend in with the crowd in an attempt to escape relentless bullying and try to fit in for a change?
Not to mention, having undiagnosed ADHD and being not-yet-identified as twice exceptional (2e) meant that I really did have an unstable sense of self. I knew I was different, and was being told every single day the ways in which being different made me less than my peers. Adults stood idly by and allowed this to continue, so I didn’t have a refuge with them either.
Little by little, I learned to adapt and change myself in order to avoid the…
