December 20, 2024 • 44 mins
In this episode of Divergent Paths, Dr. Regina McMenomy and her longtime friend, Russ Catanach, explore the complex world of masking for individuals with ADHD and autism. Masking involves suppressing authentic behaviors to conform to societal norms, often at great personal cost.
Regina shares her insights as a late-diagnosed neurodivergent individual, revealing the emotional toll of masking and the liberating process of unmasking. Discover how masking impacts mental health, relationships, and identity, and learn practical steps for navigating life authentically.
Whether you're neurodivergent or supporting someone who is, this episode offers a powerful perspective on the journey to self-acceptance.
🎙️ Topics Discussed:
- What masking is and why neurodivergent people do it
- The emotional challenges of unmasking
- How unmasking can transform relationships and personal growth
- Tips for creating safe spaces to unmask
Tune in for an honest and heartfelt conversation about embracing who you truly are.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
For me, one of the biggest things wrapped up with masking is a tendency to people please,
(00:08):
to where I will not express my wants and needs because I want the other person to be happy.
And that is very much, that very much comes out of the need to mask and the need to protect
myself.
So I didn't think I was masking at all.
(00:40):
Hello and welcome to Divergent Paths.
I'm your host, Dr. Regina McMenomy.
I am a doctor, but not that kind of doctor.
And this is a podcast, not medical advice.
Have you always felt a little bit different, but didn't know why?
Have you struggled with tasks that some people seem to handle with ease?
Are you mystified by social norms and interactions?
(01:01):
Divergent Paths is a podcast for late diagnosed neurodivergent people to discuss their journeys,
discovering the joys and frustrations of having a spicy brain.
Our Everything You Need to Know About series will take a deep dive into some of the common
characteristics neuro-spicy individuals experience.
Joining me for this series is my longtime friend and host of the business DIY podcast,
(01:24):
Russ Catanach.
Masking is a common phenomenon for people with spicy brains.
Almost every person we've interviewed mentioned something about the stress they experience
masking and hiding their authentic selves.
In this episode, we will discuss what masking means and the complicated but rewarding process
of unmasking.
So stay tuned and thanks for listening to Divergent Paths.
(01:51):
The interesting thing and what I see in a lot of the episodes and talking with you is
that the behaviors that we're discussing are, I feel like are prevalent in just a lot of
people.
Right.
A lot of people, like especially masking, I feel a lot of people.
You feel like a lot of people mask even if they're not neurodivergent?
(02:13):
Yeah.
Okay.
I feel like it's just, it's a thing that people do.
Now maybe it's when they're neurodivergent, it's more, you know, it's more to the extreme.
But I feel like everybody does because, you know, when they go to work, are they truly
themselves?
When they're sitting down to dinner, are they truly themselves?
(02:36):
Even you know, dinner with their parents or something, right?
Or dinner with somebody coming over for dinner that you don't really know.
But you have like different levels of comfort maybe, right?
Or a different persona even maybe that you take on, like, you know, a work persona or
a family persona.
(03:00):
I mean like, yeah, it's not exactly, that's not exactly, I think what masking is.
Okay.
So then tell me, Regina, what is masking?
So masking is a conscious or unconscious urge to suppress certain parts of who you are because
(03:23):
they make people uncomfortable.
Okay.
So because it's trying to fit into like, we have neurotypical standards, right?
Like that's kind of like how we have perceived the world to work by standards of people who
have brains that create a regular amount of dopamine, who, you know, who like regular
(03:48):
activity is one of the big things in terms of like dopamine is for people who are neurotypical,
they will get a charge from completing something.
No matter how mundane it is, like it could like it just be taking out the garbage and
they could feel a sense of satisfaction doing that.
A lot of neurodiverse people don't get that.
(04:12):
Like I don't get a charge necessarily checking mundane things off my to-do list because my
nervous system is interest-based.
So I want to be excited about what I'm doing.
I don't care what it is that I'm doing sometimes.
I just want to be excited about doing it.
And not just the lack of dopamine production, but for some people, the excitement that I
(04:35):
have over the, like my special interests can be off-putting sometimes because I want to
talk very much at depth about things that people aren't interested in.
I will hyper-focus and I will verbally stim.
I used to do it with, I used to do this with my ex-husband.
I would tell the same story three different ways because I was processing through it in
(04:58):
my externally.
So I needed the external, like I needed to talk through it a couple of times.
And he's like, if you tell the story again, I'm going to like get up and walk out of the
room.
Like I don't want to be around you when you're like this.
Are you telling the story three times in a row or is it three different instances?
No, like three times in a row, I would be still like, if I was stuck on something, like
(05:18):
if something in this particular instance that I'm thinking of, I had had a bad day, I had
had a bad teaching day, I had had a bad class, you know, things hadn't gone well.
And I was trying to process through what had happened in the course so that, or what happened
in class that day so that I could reframe or adjust or whatnot.
And so like sometimes I play the scenario through a few different times, like, and I'm
(05:40):
talking about it.
And if the person receiving that isn't in a place to be open to you communicating that
way, they can shut you down.
And I learned very quickly that those were behaviors that, you know, that was definitely
part of what I mask a lot.
I still struggle sometimes with being okay.
It's just like, I just need to talk sometimes.
(06:04):
So what happens when you get shut down?
What do you go through?
So you know, obviously, if you're telling the same story to somebody or, you know, like
in your example of the husband kind of wanting to just walk out of the room for that.
Yeah, exactly.
It was being, yeah.
When somebody's telling you, like kind of cutting you off with the, oh, right, you told
me that.
(06:25):
I know.
Oh, yes.
You said that.
Or things, you know, things in that general area, like how does that make you feel?
Oh, I get embarrassed.
I feel shame sometimes.
Like that is not the, you could see where you thought it was going.
(06:46):
No, no, I thought, you know, I used to, I don't know.
I feel less now because now I'm more comfortable being unmasked now, but those I wouldn't
have felt embarrassed or shame.
I would have felt shameful about it for sure.
Well, I was thinking you would go with, you know, frustration, anger, like, oh, I don't
(07:07):
get to do my story.
I don't get to say this.
I don't get to work this out verbally.
Right.
So I'm angry about that, but you're feeling embarrassed and shame for it.
That's yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it was not expected.
It was on.
Well, good.
Then this is, that's already like opening your experience or your understanding of this
(07:27):
up.
And I think, I think I am slow to anger just personally in general.
I mean, it might make other people feel angry.
Now I understand I might be more inclined now or might have more of an emotional reaction
now to feel angry if my, my, my reaction now would be more emotionally mature where I would
(07:50):
ask and say, if someone got upset with me or if he's like, I don't want to hear this.
I'm going to walk out of the room.
I would have been like, why didn't you tell me you didn't have the space for me to process
this right now?
Right.
But this is coming from a Regina who is significantly more healed than I was in my twenties when
I had absolutely no idea that I was neurodivergent or what was going on and was still trying
(08:14):
and still worried about losing relationships.
And if anything I have picked up on and anything that I have come to be comfortable with in
my journey of unmasking, it's that I'm going to lose people in my life because of it.
And I'm not, I don't feel shame anymore about that.
(08:34):
Like it's just, this is, this is the process.
Like unfortunately this is, I'm different.
Have you ever read the book, the subtle art of not giving a fuck?
I have not.
Yeah.
Read that book.
It's great.
I mean, it, it makes it where it is okay to lose people to say things because you don't,
(08:57):
the people that, you know, the people who want to be in your life properly to your life
don't need to be there.
Exactly.
The people who want to be in my life will understand that I'm going through this process,
why I'm going through this process.
It's part of why we're talking about it.
Like we've had so many people that we've been in the interviews that we have been,
have been talking about masking.
(09:18):
This has been definitely one of the most prevalent or current themes that we've seen, right?
And then in the episodes that you've been editing the interviews when we've been listening
and it is definitely a prevalent, it is a survival tactic.
It is, it is what you do when you don't know what else to do.
(09:39):
You mimic what you're supposed to be doing.
You know, the metaphor, I think that, um, was in a tick tock video.
I think Rachel brought it up and I think I brought it up somewhere else too, where you're
a zebra in a herd of horses, right?
So you look different and you probably smell a little different and you don't behave the
same way and you're really not the same species, but you gotta put a, like, you know, coat
(10:00):
on and make yourself look like a horse.
Right.
Right.
So, okay.
So when did you first recognize that you were masking?
When I first learned about masking, I didn't think I masked at all.
I didn't believe it for one second.
This is who I am.
(10:21):
I've never been doing this.
And then I started to slowly understand, oh, I'm not doing this because I want to do this.
I'm not looking this way because I, you know, I'm not, I'm not, not looking that like my
physical appearance necessarily, but, um, I'm, I am communicating this.
(10:42):
I am talking in a way I am accommodating the other people like that.
For me, the one of the biggest things wrapped up with masking is a tendency to people, please
to where I will not express my wants and needs because I want the other person to be happy.
(11:02):
And that is very much, that very much comes out of the need to mask and the need to protect
myself.
So I didn't, I didn't, I didn't think I was masking at all.
Right.
Right.
So when you discovered it, was it a, you know, like a, like a Batman moment of taking off
(11:26):
the mask and all of a sudden I'm Bruce Wayne, or was it a slow gradual?
It was definitely a slow and gradual process for me.
It was like stripping away layers that I had, um, you know, kind of plastered on myself,
almost, almost a mummification where I had wrapped like this, like secure little, you
(11:47):
know, young Regina who was taught that her behaviors were not necessarily appropriate.
Um, I, you know, I had, I had layers upon layers of masking.
And so for me, it was really a stripping away of, of the layers of performance.
And what was interesting, one of the biggest things that has come out of this is I, I would
(12:10):
have always said that I was more introverted than extroverted.
Like everybody is both introverted and extroverted, right?
But I would have always said that I was more introverted.
Unmasking has made me realize I am more extroverted, which is a really kind of the opposite process.
I think that happens for a lot of people.
(12:30):
But I think because I was masking and masking is a very draining process, I felt like I
needed more time to recharge.
Now that I go into social situations and I, I'm practicing the subtle art of not giving
a fuck.
Even if I don't know the books, you know, description of it, I come out of, you know,
(12:50):
social interactions.
I spent a lot of time this week, um, interacting with people and feeling very charged by it,
not, not drained.
Like I came home tired, but tired in that, like, I got really good sleep last night.
I got a really good sleep last night because I had a lot of really positive social interactions
(13:11):
with as an unmasked person.
It's kind of like, it's, I guess it's harder because you're sort of playing a character.
You're playing this role and you've got to put all of this energy into being that role.
If you were just being yourself, all of a sudden, you don't have to put that energy
(13:33):
into it.
It's like, you know, I've seen a couple of memes that are like, you know, my, my be normal
dot exe program is running in the background all the time.
It's taking up like a low level section of my executive functioning was always spent
(13:54):
trying to look normal and trying to act in a way that was appropriate based on the situation.
And because of that, I became very good at, at, at, at picking up on who somebody else
was and in a lot of ways presenting them back to themselves.
That's like the fastest way to adapt for me was I became a little bit of who that person
(14:19):
was.
Mirroring.
These are things they, you know, they, they teach you when you're, when you're learning
how to do sales, right?
Like mirror the person.
Yeah.
How they stand and like, you know, things like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which even in doing that, like, I mean, I, I, when I was, you know, when I would go out
(14:41):
and do like these sales meetings for the company that I owned, there were often, oftentimes
I would give you a ring afterwards and be like, man, that was just so draining.
Yes.
I was just like done.
I, and what was interesting about it is, you know, it's draining in the presentation when
(15:02):
you're, when you're not being yourself.
And, and, and, you know, the thing is it's like that, that was like my, my younger sales
days now, I feel like that I've, that I've done that it's less about masking and mirroring
and doing all of those things.
And it's just about being myself and talking to somebody and getting to know them.
It's like, it took me a while to realize that I think, you know, but, um,
(15:24):
I would get on the phone afterwards to talk to somebody so that I could just be myself.
Right.
And it would make me feel kind of rejuvenated.
Yeah.
Um, in those, in those social situations though, uh, I'll ask you this, um, if you're in the
people pleasing thing and you're, you're going through that and you're having those conversations
(15:46):
and it's very draining and you come back and you're, you're, you're feeling drained, but
are you also at that point when you get home and you're by yourself or you're with somebody
that you trust or somebody, you know, that you're able to not wear the mask with is there,
like what are you doing there?
(16:06):
Is there like, are you just like, man, that was so tough.
That was, I didn't like that party or I didn't like, are you sharing feelings of like, you
know, regret almost or discomfort or disconnect or yeah.
Um, you know, I think about my, my twenties and when I was working in kind of a traditional
(16:27):
office setting, like before I started teaching, right.
When I worked at IBM and I was in New York and I think about how utterly drained I was
when I got home from work then, um, you know, I was working, you know, I think it was eight
30, eight 30 to five or whatever, you know, standard, you know, nine to five job.
I was driving 45 minutes to an hour, um, each way to get from, you know, where I lived to
(16:55):
where I worked.
So my days were like, you know, easily 10, 10, 11 hours from when I left the house to
when I got home.
And I was so tired all the time.
Like I had no, no energy for anything at home.
I would come home and scrape something together to eat and I would crash out on my couch and
(17:15):
I would watch TV and that would be my day.
And then I go to bed and I'd started again the next day.
And it wasn't until I, I, I, there was, there was no way I didn't know like how to accommodate
my, my ADHD then, because you know, this, this is like way before I, there was even
(17:36):
a suspicion for me that I was ADHD or that I had, you know, neurodivergence.
Um, but I left that job and started teaching and it was only when I started teaching and
I started having control over my environment in a way that I didn't have when I was working
in an office that I started to flourish really where I, and I didn't, I did really well.
(18:00):
Like I did, people loved me in my office job.
I was successful.
I, when I left my boss that gave one of my recommendations told the new Dean that I was
working for, that it was really necessary that I move on because I was too good for
the job that I was doing, which, you know, so my, so, so that's how effective that's
(18:25):
how effective the mask was when I was in my twenties because all of that was, was me performing
what I was supposed to be doing in that environment because I did not, there were a couple of
things that I did when I was there that were, you know, that I got a charge out of that,
you know, or that, like I said, you know, having an, a nervous system that needs that
(18:55):
like passion and engagement in order to get like the dopamine from, there were a lot of
things that we did.
We did some great events when I was in communications, we did some good stuff, but I was masking
so effectively and, you know, presenting so completely as neurotypical that, you know,
(19:16):
I left the job and they're like that, you know, she needs, she needs to do more than
this because she, that's how skilled you are.
And so that's why I was tired all the time though.
And at that time I was living with someone who I now understand I didn't feel safe with
ever in the entire relationship.
(19:39):
So I didn't have a place or a person to go home to, to unmask.
Like I don't, I don't really think I had friends that I, like I never masked with you.
Like we've known each other since we were 17, right?
And so like, I don't feel like we masked around each other.
I was always a genuine, at least a more genuine version of myself.
(20:04):
But we also skipped like huge chunks of each other's lives because I moved away and like,
you know, you know, it wasn't, yeah.
We went back and forth with different times of being more close and not.
And like, I think you missed a huge, like all of that era pretty much when I was in
New York in particular.
(20:24):
So I don't, I don't think, I think the pressures of certain circumstances and certain environments,
especially like having an office job, you know, was super draining because I was having
to perform so much.
You're saying, so here's, here's now, I guess what I'm, what I'm trying to figure out is
(20:50):
it how is, do you have like almost like a, a who am I moment?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just talk about that a little because how do you, how do you go through that?
Like how do you get past that?
How do you know who you are?
(21:11):
Oh God.
That has been the big challenge.
Like I would say the biggest thing that has been, that has come out of the diagnosis and,
and getting medicated is starting to look at, okay, so what are the things that are
who I am versus what I have been performing at?
(21:33):
And it's, it's kind of a continuation of that stripping away process.
Like I'm trying to think of a good, a good example of this.
Well, so we're recording this and it's around the holidays, right?
And this year I have had some challenges that have made it so I haven't been able to do
(21:54):
a lot of my traditional holiday stuff.
So like this year I didn't make or participate in like a big Thanksgiving dinner.
And I usually, I usually love the holidays.
I love having people around again.
That was indications of the, the extraversion that I have come to recognize.
I'm more extroverted than I thought I was.
(22:16):
And that I get more fulfillment out of that.
The holidays were always kind of like a gathering time, but I'm realizing that some of the,
some of the traditions and some of the things that I do, like making the big meal and this
and that are really draining experiences because they take a lot of executive functioning.
You have to start planning for them days ahead of time.
I did a good portion of my holiday shopping today, several days ahead of the holiday.
(22:40):
So I wouldn't have to deal with last minute, you know, people right before and trying to,
there's a lot of, there's a lot of thinking and a lot of planning that has to go into
those meals and stepping away from it.
I started to realize that it really isn't, it really isn't the meal that I want.
(23:06):
It's the people, the feels.
It is.
It's the feels.
It's the community.
It's the having people in my house.
It's like making that experience and how can I start making choices that support my nervous
system better so I don't overextend myself and end up feeling drained by the end of the
(23:28):
holiday season because I have done X, Y, Z and I have put myself out and I've done this
and I've done this and I've done this.
Like there are things that are very important to me.
I will make my mom's cookies on Christmas Eve because the smell of those cookies is
very, it's part of the holiday for me is that experience.
And so I will do those things that I know are the rejuvenating things, but I am severely
(23:50):
cutting back on the performative aspects of the holidays.
Like I, I can't do it all.
I decorated for Christmas this year, but I didn't decorate all out like I often do.
Like I got up to things that were important and I was sitting with like the bins of things
I hadn't quite finished putting up and it was already, you know, half way through the
(24:12):
season and I was like, you know what?
This is, this is what we got.
Like I don't need to kill myself to reach some standard that's going to drain me anymore.
And that is, that is also part of like getting away from, you know, the people pleasing or
the feeling like I need to do things, especially as a mom, you know, having a small child who's
(24:35):
like, Oh, I've got to make this Christmas magical.
You know what makes Christmas magical for her?
The fact that we're all together enjoying ourselves.
Totally.
It, you know, she put up, we did the decorations, you know, she helped with the decorations
and she petered out on the energy too.
And so I was like, okay, this is what we got.
Like, and it's, it's fine.
Like it doesn't have to be, we can stop here.
(24:55):
Yeah, we can stop here.
And that's, and that like, I think that's part of what masking did to me too is because
I didn't understand where I ended and where the mask began that I always pushed too hard
and too far to try to appear more and more neurotypical.
Right.
I pushed really hard on that and I pushed myself really hard and that leads to burnout,
(25:21):
which we'll do another episode on later.
But like that's one of the, you know, one of the bad outcomes of masking for a long
time is you just, you get burned out because you know, you're running this extra program
in the background to make sure you feel like you're performing and looking the way you're
supposed to look instead of just being like, here I am.
(25:43):
So getting back to the, the, the who am I thing?
How, how do you figure out like, and one of the things that I'm thinking is.
Part of is, is just the energy, right?
Like do I have energy when I do this?
(26:05):
Do I not have energy?
And that also translates to the enjoyment and the, you know, the, just the positive
signals that you're getting from your brain.
Is that how you're, you're figuring it out?
Yeah, that's definitely I'm, I'm more attuned now to my nervous system being in a state
(26:27):
of comfort that the world used to be a constantly irritating experience for me.
And not just like, you know, not sensory wise, just like.
Except for allergies.
Except for allergies.
Inside joke.
Yeah.
(26:47):
You know, the, the, there's so much that was just irritating when you're wearing, I
mean, think about it.
Think about what Halloween is like.
You've worn a mask at Halloween before, right?
Just as a gorilla at one time.
That was very uncomfortable.
Yes.
It's very, so it's very uncomfortable.
(27:07):
And so it may not be the physical experience of it, but it's very uncomfortable to constantly
be feeling like you need to put on a show instead of, or you need to, or even it might
not even be that you're putting on a show.
You want to hide.
Like for me, the mask was hiding.
The mask is protection.
It's still a representation of who I am.
(27:30):
Like, and, and one of the things that like, like the mask, isn't me lying.
Like it's not me being untruthful.
It's me being scared, right?
And it's something I'm hiding behind.
And that's, that's a different, that's a different thing, but feeling like I need to do that
in order to be comfortable, to be safe, et cetera, is like having that gorilla mask on
(27:57):
all the time.
Right.
It's very sweaty.
It's sweaty, stinky, itchy.
Yeah.
There's that.
So taking off the mask, becoming yourself, doing that, how do you start?
Oh boy.
You know, little, little baby steps, I think like the babyest of baby steps, like taking
(28:21):
as small steps as you can, finding the people who you start to recognize you feel safe with.
People who know you're on your journey to unmask that you can be transparent with and
say, you know, I am starting to recognize that XYZ are behaviors I do in order to protect
(28:43):
myself and are masking behaviors.
Can you help me recognize when I've, when I'm kind of heading into those.
One of the things that I learned is that if I am emotionally flooded and I feel unsafe,
I shut down.
(29:04):
I don't, you know, they talk about fight or flight, but there's also what's called a fawn
response or a freeze response.
Fawning is where you just kind of like make things comfortable for everybody else.
And freezing is where you just stop.
And I definitely oscillate between those two when I feel unsafe.
So if I am in an emotional conversation and I start feeling flooded, the people who are
(29:29):
closest to me know that if I start to get really quiet and I start to just agree with
things that something's wrong.
And the people who are safe will then advocate for me because at those times I can't advocate
for myself when I'm that flooded or I'm that upset.
(29:49):
I can't advocate for myself anymore.
I just, I'm incapable of it.
I shut, I shut down.
The mask comes completely on and I am behind a wall essentially.
How is it telling people about this and getting them to understand it?
Sort of the people that you're comfortable with and you want to let them know to help
(30:16):
you to recognize?
Yeah, it's not always great.
I wouldn't think so.
It has not been great.
In one instance in particular, I have pretty much lost a friendship over it because the
person that I brought it up to, I can't be around her because she's too much like I used
(30:40):
to be.
And I have realized that a lot of my masking is unconscious.
So it's not where I'm like, oh, I'm going to go into this situation and I'm going to
put my mask on.
Or even like you were talking at the top of the episode, you were like, you know, oh,
in work you have a certain persona and at home you have a different persona.
(31:01):
You know, like I can't, I can't, it's not, it's not conscious.
I don't say, okay, I'm going into this and I'm going to be this way.
It just snaps into place.
And when I'm with people who are reflective of how I used to be, I can't always control
it coming up.
It just, it just happens.
And then afterward I will realize how tired I am.
(31:27):
I will get headache.
Sometimes I start getting a headache during the time I'm with them.
I start getting flooded.
I start having all of the, all of this, like, I'll be more likely to have physiological
responses.
Like I will flush.
I will feel like heated.
(31:48):
I will like all of this.
I'll have heart palpitations.
Like, like these are the physiological responses that my, my nervous system now has to attempting
to mask.
So when you tell people your presence makes me feel like I'm wearing a gorilla mask and
(32:10):
it's itchy and I'm sweating, they don't respond very well.
Right.
I wouldn't think so, but what the other thing there.
Is, you know, I would, I would think, I mean, both the, probably the reality and the fear
is that once you tell somebody, well, I am not that person or I do not behave that way.
(32:36):
I do not do those things.
I do not enjoy the things that we've done in the past.
You're telling them those things and maybe that's the features that they liked about
you.
Like those, that would be the fear, right?
But then I guess the way of looking at that is, oh, okay.
Well, now you're getting away from that.
Right.
(32:56):
Okay.
Cool.
Yeah.
I mean, the, the people who, you know, benefited from my people pleasing are not people that
have stayed in my life.
You know, I broke up with a, you know, a four year long romantic relationship just about
a year ago because I knew I was, I was at this part of the journey where I started to
(33:16):
unmask and his response was like, you're mad at me all the time and I don't understand
why you're mad at me.
And you didn't, you know, like this and that.
And I'm like, I'm not mad at you.
I'm just not making things easy all the time.
And when you are the person who has made things easy for someone, for your entire relationship
(33:38):
and more comfortable and been very accommodating and you start to have things called boundaries
and they're hard and they're not smooth and easy to move around.
You didn't like me anymore.
And it's like, okay.
Right.
(33:58):
And then I would think this is one of those things where it's very hard to do initially
and you struggle through it.
But I would assume that now once you get on the other side of this and you're recognizing
you're now like, you're not putting the mask on when you're meeting people, you're not
being that person.
So it is a lot easier on the other side.
(34:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, it's definitely easier now.
It's, and it's, it's almost like, it's like any reflex, right?
Like you're like, I'm learning to strengthen it, which is why, like I had to put a pause
in a couple of my friendships because like, I'm hoping I get to the point where their
masking won't be as triggering for me, right?
(34:40):
Like they can mask and I won't care like, but it won't create this automatic process
where, where I start to compensate and I start to be careful and I start to change how I
am because they're in that state.
And so I am hoping that it gets to that, you know, maybe at some point, maybe at some point.
(35:02):
But the other thing is that, you know, like there's all those adages.
You can only meet someone as you know, from where they've healed to, like if somebody
hasn't healed as far as you have, you can't really, they're never going to meet you where
you're at.
You're further ahead on the road than they are, or you're on a different road because
they have chosen, you know, a different path or whatever it is.
(35:24):
And letting go of those friendships and letting go of those relationships has essentially
meant I'm rebuilding good portions of my life right now.
I am, you know, I am rebuilding an entirely new social circle because I can and starting
new new relationships and new friendships based on who I am now, which is different.
(35:50):
It's just, it's just fundamentally different.
And I mean, I think, you know, first of all, excited to be a part of the still, still the
old crew that's there, but I mean, I think the original crew there, the reason why you
still have some of those people is because you were able to be around them and not mask.
(36:12):
Yeah, no, I, the people who have persisted are people that I knew before, before my twenties.
I didn't really start masking.
I was able to not mask through most of college.
I think I started masking in the later part of college when things got more business like
and I'm asked through a good portion of my twenties.
(36:33):
When I look back at my friendships and my late twenties, I recognize now that they weren't
really my friends because they weren't very nice to me.
Right.
And this realization a couple of months ago, I'm like that because that's the, that's the
(36:53):
autism.
That's, that's where I think I'm, I'm autistic.
I didn't read the social signals.
I as what they were.
And now that I look back, I'm like, you know, I said this to a friend of mine when I was
going through and I was telling her a specific story and she's like, they weren't your friends.
And I'm like, I know.
(37:14):
And I didn't, I didn't know, I didn't know it then.
Like I didn't know it because I didn't know how to read that they weren't my friends.
I was just kind of like running on, oh, you know, this is how they treat everybody, but
it wasn't, it was how they treated me.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
I, um, I used to think too, like, you know, in going to parties and I'm thinking like
(37:38):
later parties, like thirties, even forties, going to parties and just dreading them certain
parties because it's going to be the same small talk.
It's going to be the same, you know, like whatever, and just be so annoying and just
so like unenjoyable.
And I, I, I imagine and taking those feelings and just putting them out there.
(38:02):
Like that's kind of, I guess what you could be just every day if you're, if you're doing
the masking.
So yeah, yeah.
It's like, it's that sensation of I'm uncomfortable here.
Right.
And I need to figure out a way to be comfortable.
And so I would turn myself into whomever was hosting the party, whatever, you know, I would
(38:27):
mirror, I would behave like them.
I would, I would say I liked, like that was, that was a big thing.
Like I, I have, I have been thinking about music a lot lately.
Um, and you and I have a story of, you know, on our first date.
Now everybody gets to know that we dated.
(38:47):
Yep.
Yep.
She played classical music.
I played classical music in the car and he was just completely thrown off by the fact
that I had classical music in the car.
And I, I didn't love classical music.
Um, also I was looking to very much date us, although my car that I was driving at the
(39:09):
time was older than I was.
That was very, very old car.
My car in high school did not have an FM radio.
And so I had like easy listening and classical music or like the two, like genres.
Right.
(39:31):
And so in order to impress Russ, went classical.
I went on the classical station and it forever kind of marked him as, okay, this is, this
is Regina.
And like, but that was performance.
Like that was like, I mean, you know, I didn't have a lot of choice and that there wasn't
(39:51):
a tape deck, tape deck.
There wasn't a tape deck.
There wasn't a CD player.
There weren't, there weren't other options.
And yeah, you're going to need to put definitions for all of these things for the younger listeners
of the show.
They're still looking up AM radio.
Anybody even listen to the radio anymore?
(40:14):
But yeah, like so that had that, that was, you know, that was, there were some masking
involved in that there.
There was, you know, there was, you know, okay, I was taking a choice of like, do I
put on, I don't even remember what, what would they call it?
Yacht rock.
Now I think they refer to some of that, like music that was played on like the AM, the
AM easy listening station.
(40:36):
But I, I would often just agree with other people about, especially about music.
And I'm not sure what it is about music that made me more insecure, but I, you know, would
just agree with whatever somebody didn't like something and say, oh yeah, I don't like that
too.
That kind of thing.
That was very heavily part of my masking.
(40:57):
And so then when I started to try to figure out who I was underneath it and who I really
was, it turns out that I really do love classical music.
Okay.
Well, as, as the editor, I'll try to get some classical in there.
Right.
Right.
Public domains.
So you should be fine.
(41:18):
And I, you know, and I love, I love dorky things and I have problems with romantic comedies,
but I love romantic comedies and I love pop music.
I think pop music is like my favorite genre, but like, I would always be embarrassed to
say that because it was like, oh, it's so mundane or, oh, you like pop, you don't like,
you know, rock and roll or whatever.
(41:38):
It's like, no, I, you know, I keep up with current music because like, I love me some
eighties, but like it gets a little old after a while.
Like, you know, I like, I like chapel Rowan.
I like Sabrina carpenter.
I like some, you know, I like new music and I like new pop music and you know, that doesn't
make it any less valuable.
I still like Coldplay.
(41:59):
Right.
Imagine dragons.
I'm trying to think of all the bands that are like, that people have a fringe when I
was like, oh, I love there.
And they're like, oh, you like that.
And it's like, I do because I can say that now.
I'm trying to think of the one band that everybody makes fun of.
I can't think of it right now, but okay.
(42:19):
There's, there's a train.
Maybe, I don't know.
I'd make fun of that.
Yeah.
Okay, so I would say what made like, so I, I mean, I, I mentioned to you, I kind of came
into this conversation.
I wasn't in the best of moods when I came into the conversation.
(42:40):
That's right.
You didn't say that, but like being real, being open and having conversations like this
makes you feel better.
It does.
It's really, it's really interesting.
That's really what we're doing this show for.
It's like ourselves.
Yeah, to be ourselves and to help people understand that they can be themselves.
And you know, unmasking is hard, but I can tell you coming from the other side, that
(43:03):
dropping it and you know, is really very fulfilling.
I know, I know the life I'm building now is very different from the life I built before.
But I also know that I'm being my authentic self.
So these, these relationships and these friendships and the ones that I'm lucky enough to have
persist like yours are going to be fabulous forever.
(43:26):
Exactly.
Well, well, thanks for sharing all this with me.
Yes.
Thank you.
(43:48):
Thank you so much for listening.
What's your experience like masking?
Have you started trying to drop your mask?
Wherever you are in your journey, we would love to hear from you.
Catch us on Instagram at Divergent Paths Consulting.
No spaces.
Make sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen, like and leave a review and share
with your spicy brain friends or perhaps someone that loves someone with a spicy brain.
(44:12):
And until next time, stay spicy.
For me, one of the biggest things wrapped up with masking is a tendency to people please,
(00:08):
to where I will not express my wants and needs because I want the other person to be happy.
And that is very much, that very much comes out of the need to mask and the need to protect
myself.
So I didn't think I was masking at all.
(00:40):
Hello and welcome to Divergent Paths.
I'm your host, Dr. Regina McMenomy.
I am a doctor, but not that kind of doctor.
And this is a podcast, not medical advice.
Have you always felt a little bit different, but didn't know why?
Have you struggled with tasks that some people seem to handle with ease?
Are you mystified by social norms and interactions?
(01:01):
Divergent Paths is a podcast for late diagnosed neurodivergent people to discuss their journeys,
discovering the joys and frustrations of having a spicy brain.
Our Everything You Need to Know About series will take a deep dive into some of the common
characteristics neuro-spicy individuals experience.
Joining me for this series is my longtime friend and host of the business DIY podcast,
(01:24):
Russ Catanach.
Masking is a common phenomenon for people with spicy brains.
Almost every person we've interviewed mentioned something about the stress they experience
masking and hiding their authentic selves.
In this episode, we will discuss what masking means and the complicated but rewarding process
of unmasking.
So stay tuned and thanks for listening to Divergent Paths.
(01:51):
The interesting thing and what I see in a lot of the episodes and talking with you is
that the behaviors that we're discussing are, I feel like are prevalent in just a lot of
people.
Right.
A lot of people, like especially masking, I feel a lot of people.
You feel like a lot of people mask even if they're not neurodivergent?
(02:13):
Yeah.
Okay.
I feel like it's just, it's a thing that people do.
Now maybe it's when they're neurodivergent, it's more, you know, it's more to the extreme.
But I feel like everybody does because, you know, when they go to work, are they truly
themselves?
When they're sitting down to dinner, are they truly themselves?
(02:36):
Even you know, dinner with their parents or something, right?
Or dinner with somebody coming over for dinner that you don't really know.
But you have like different levels of comfort maybe, right?
Or a different persona even maybe that you take on, like, you know, a work persona or
a family persona.
(03:00):
I mean like, yeah, it's not exactly, that's not exactly, I think what masking is.
Okay.
So then tell me, Regina, what is masking?
So masking is a conscious or unconscious urge to suppress certain parts of who you are because
(03:23):
they make people uncomfortable.
Okay.
So because it's trying to fit into like, we have neurotypical standards, right?
Like that's kind of like how we have perceived the world to work by standards of people who
have brains that create a regular amount of dopamine, who, you know, who like regular
(03:48):
activity is one of the big things in terms of like dopamine is for people who are neurotypical,
they will get a charge from completing something.
No matter how mundane it is, like it could like it just be taking out the garbage and
they could feel a sense of satisfaction doing that.
A lot of neurodiverse people don't get that.
(04:12):
Like I don't get a charge necessarily checking mundane things off my to-do list because my
nervous system is interest-based.
So I want to be excited about what I'm doing.
I don't care what it is that I'm doing sometimes.
I just want to be excited about doing it.
And not just the lack of dopamine production, but for some people, the excitement that I
(04:35):
have over the, like my special interests can be off-putting sometimes because I want to
talk very much at depth about things that people aren't interested in.
I will hyper-focus and I will verbally stim.
I used to do it with, I used to do this with my ex-husband.
I would tell the same story three different ways because I was processing through it in
(04:58):
my externally.
So I needed the external, like I needed to talk through it a couple of times.
And he's like, if you tell the story again, I'm going to like get up and walk out of the
room.
Like I don't want to be around you when you're like this.
Are you telling the story three times in a row or is it three different instances?
No, like three times in a row, I would be still like, if I was stuck on something, like
(05:18):
if something in this particular instance that I'm thinking of, I had had a bad day, I had
had a bad teaching day, I had had a bad class, you know, things hadn't gone well.
And I was trying to process through what had happened in the course so that, or what happened
in class that day so that I could reframe or adjust or whatnot.
And so like sometimes I play the scenario through a few different times, like, and I'm
(05:40):
talking about it.
And if the person receiving that isn't in a place to be open to you communicating that
way, they can shut you down.
And I learned very quickly that those were behaviors that, you know, that was definitely
part of what I mask a lot.
I still struggle sometimes with being okay.
It's just like, I just need to talk sometimes.
(06:04):
So what happens when you get shut down?
What do you go through?
So you know, obviously, if you're telling the same story to somebody or, you know, like
in your example of the husband kind of wanting to just walk out of the room for that.
Yeah, exactly.
It was being, yeah.
When somebody's telling you, like kind of cutting you off with the, oh, right, you told
me that.
(06:25):
I know.
Oh, yes.
You said that.
Or things, you know, things in that general area, like how does that make you feel?
Oh, I get embarrassed.
I feel shame sometimes.
Like that is not the, you could see where you thought it was going.
(06:46):
No, no, I thought, you know, I used to, I don't know.
I feel less now because now I'm more comfortable being unmasked now, but those I wouldn't
have felt embarrassed or shame.
I would have felt shameful about it for sure.
Well, I was thinking you would go with, you know, frustration, anger, like, oh, I don't
(07:07):
get to do my story.
I don't get to say this.
I don't get to work this out verbally.
Right.
So I'm angry about that, but you're feeling embarrassed and shame for it.
That's yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it was not expected.
It was on.
Well, good.
Then this is, that's already like opening your experience or your understanding of this
(07:27):
up.
And I think, I think I am slow to anger just personally in general.
I mean, it might make other people feel angry.
Now I understand I might be more inclined now or might have more of an emotional reaction
now to feel angry if my, my, my reaction now would be more emotionally mature where I would
(07:50):
ask and say, if someone got upset with me or if he's like, I don't want to hear this.
I'm going to walk out of the room.
I would have been like, why didn't you tell me you didn't have the space for me to process
this right now?
Right.
But this is coming from a Regina who is significantly more healed than I was in my twenties when
I had absolutely no idea that I was neurodivergent or what was going on and was still trying
(08:14):
and still worried about losing relationships.
And if anything I have picked up on and anything that I have come to be comfortable with in
my journey of unmasking, it's that I'm going to lose people in my life because of it.
And I'm not, I don't feel shame anymore about that.
(08:34):
Like it's just, this is, this is the process.
Like unfortunately this is, I'm different.
Have you ever read the book, the subtle art of not giving a fuck?
I have not.
Yeah.
Read that book.
It's great.
I mean, it, it makes it where it is okay to lose people to say things because you don't,
(08:57):
the people that, you know, the people who want to be in your life properly to your life
don't need to be there.
Exactly.
The people who want to be in my life will understand that I'm going through this process,
why I'm going through this process.
It's part of why we're talking about it.
Like we've had so many people that we've been in the interviews that we have been,
have been talking about masking.
(09:18):
This has been definitely one of the most prevalent or current themes that we've seen, right?
And then in the episodes that you've been editing the interviews when we've been listening
and it is definitely a prevalent, it is a survival tactic.
It is, it is what you do when you don't know what else to do.
(09:39):
You mimic what you're supposed to be doing.
You know, the metaphor, I think that, um, was in a tick tock video.
I think Rachel brought it up and I think I brought it up somewhere else too, where you're
a zebra in a herd of horses, right?
So you look different and you probably smell a little different and you don't behave the
same way and you're really not the same species, but you gotta put a, like, you know, coat
(10:00):
on and make yourself look like a horse.
Right.
Right.
So, okay.
So when did you first recognize that you were masking?
When I first learned about masking, I didn't think I masked at all.
I didn't believe it for one second.
This is who I am.
(10:21):
I've never been doing this.
And then I started to slowly understand, oh, I'm not doing this because I want to do this.
I'm not looking this way because I, you know, I'm not, I'm not, not looking that like my
physical appearance necessarily, but, um, I'm, I am communicating this.
(10:42):
I am talking in a way I am accommodating the other people like that.
For me, the one of the biggest things wrapped up with masking is a tendency to people, please
to where I will not express my wants and needs because I want the other person to be happy.
(11:02):
And that is very much, that very much comes out of the need to mask and the need to protect
myself.
So I didn't, I didn't, I didn't think I was masking at all.
Right.
Right.
So when you discovered it, was it a, you know, like a, like a Batman moment of taking off
(11:26):
the mask and all of a sudden I'm Bruce Wayne, or was it a slow gradual?
It was definitely a slow and gradual process for me.
It was like stripping away layers that I had, um, you know, kind of plastered on myself,
almost, almost a mummification where I had wrapped like this, like secure little, you
(11:47):
know, young Regina who was taught that her behaviors were not necessarily appropriate.
Um, I, you know, I had, I had layers upon layers of masking.
And so for me, it was really a stripping away of, of the layers of performance.
And what was interesting, one of the biggest things that has come out of this is I, I would
(12:10):
have always said that I was more introverted than extroverted.
Like everybody is both introverted and extroverted, right?
But I would have always said that I was more introverted.
Unmasking has made me realize I am more extroverted, which is a really kind of the opposite process.
I think that happens for a lot of people.
(12:30):
But I think because I was masking and masking is a very draining process, I felt like I
needed more time to recharge.
Now that I go into social situations and I, I'm practicing the subtle art of not giving
a fuck.
Even if I don't know the books, you know, description of it, I come out of, you know,
(12:50):
social interactions.
I spent a lot of time this week, um, interacting with people and feeling very charged by it,
not, not drained.
Like I came home tired, but tired in that, like, I got really good sleep last night.
I got a really good sleep last night because I had a lot of really positive social interactions
(13:11):
with as an unmasked person.
It's kind of like, it's, I guess it's harder because you're sort of playing a character.
You're playing this role and you've got to put all of this energy into being that role.
If you were just being yourself, all of a sudden, you don't have to put that energy
(13:33):
into it.
It's like, you know, I've seen a couple of memes that are like, you know, my, my be normal
dot exe program is running in the background all the time.
It's taking up like a low level section of my executive functioning was always spent
(13:54):
trying to look normal and trying to act in a way that was appropriate based on the situation.
And because of that, I became very good at, at, at, at picking up on who somebody else
was and in a lot of ways presenting them back to themselves.
That's like the fastest way to adapt for me was I became a little bit of who that person
(14:19):
was.
Mirroring.
These are things they, you know, they, they teach you when you're, when you're learning
how to do sales, right?
Like mirror the person.
Yeah.
How they stand and like, you know, things like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which even in doing that, like, I mean, I, I, when I was, you know, when I would go out
(14:41):
and do like these sales meetings for the company that I owned, there were often, oftentimes
I would give you a ring afterwards and be like, man, that was just so draining.
Yes.
I was just like done.
I, and what was interesting about it is, you know, it's draining in the presentation when
(15:02):
you're, when you're not being yourself.
And, and, and, you know, the thing is it's like that, that was like my, my younger sales
days now, I feel like that I've, that I've done that it's less about masking and mirroring
and doing all of those things.
And it's just about being myself and talking to somebody and getting to know them.
It's like, it took me a while to realize that I think, you know, but, um,
(15:24):
I would get on the phone afterwards to talk to somebody so that I could just be myself.
Right.
And it would make me feel kind of rejuvenated.
Yeah.
Um, in those, in those social situations though, uh, I'll ask you this, um, if you're in the
people pleasing thing and you're, you're going through that and you're having those conversations
(15:46):
and it's very draining and you come back and you're, you're, you're feeling drained, but
are you also at that point when you get home and you're by yourself or you're with somebody
that you trust or somebody, you know, that you're able to not wear the mask with is there,
like what are you doing there?
(16:06):
Is there like, are you just like, man, that was so tough.
That was, I didn't like that party or I didn't like, are you sharing feelings of like, you
know, regret almost or discomfort or disconnect or yeah.
Um, you know, I think about my, my twenties and when I was working in kind of a traditional
(16:27):
office setting, like before I started teaching, right.
When I worked at IBM and I was in New York and I think about how utterly drained I was
when I got home from work then, um, you know, I was working, you know, I think it was eight
30, eight 30 to five or whatever, you know, standard, you know, nine to five job.
I was driving 45 minutes to an hour, um, each way to get from, you know, where I lived to
(16:55):
where I worked.
So my days were like, you know, easily 10, 10, 11 hours from when I left the house to
when I got home.
And I was so tired all the time.
Like I had no, no energy for anything at home.
I would come home and scrape something together to eat and I would crash out on my couch and
(17:15):
I would watch TV and that would be my day.
And then I go to bed and I'd started again the next day.
And it wasn't until I, I, I, there was, there was no way I didn't know like how to accommodate
my, my ADHD then, because you know, this, this is like way before I, there was even
(17:36):
a suspicion for me that I was ADHD or that I had, you know, neurodivergence.
Um, but I left that job and started teaching and it was only when I started teaching and
I started having control over my environment in a way that I didn't have when I was working
in an office that I started to flourish really where I, and I didn't, I did really well.
(18:00):
Like I did, people loved me in my office job.
I was successful.
I, when I left my boss that gave one of my recommendations told the new Dean that I was
working for, that it was really necessary that I move on because I was too good for
the job that I was doing, which, you know, so my, so, so that's how effective that's
(18:25):
how effective the mask was when I was in my twenties because all of that was, was me performing
what I was supposed to be doing in that environment because I did not, there were a couple of
things that I did when I was there that were, you know, that I got a charge out of that,
you know, or that, like I said, you know, having an, a nervous system that needs that
(18:55):
like passion and engagement in order to get like the dopamine from, there were a lot of
things that we did.
We did some great events when I was in communications, we did some good stuff, but I was masking
so effectively and, you know, presenting so completely as neurotypical that, you know,
(19:16):
I left the job and they're like that, you know, she needs, she needs to do more than
this because she, that's how skilled you are.
And so that's why I was tired all the time though.
And at that time I was living with someone who I now understand I didn't feel safe with
ever in the entire relationship.
(19:39):
So I didn't have a place or a person to go home to, to unmask.
Like I don't, I don't really think I had friends that I, like I never masked with you.
Like we've known each other since we were 17, right?
And so like, I don't feel like we masked around each other.
I was always a genuine, at least a more genuine version of myself.
(20:04):
But we also skipped like huge chunks of each other's lives because I moved away and like,
you know, you know, it wasn't, yeah.
We went back and forth with different times of being more close and not.
And like, I think you missed a huge, like all of that era pretty much when I was in
New York in particular.
(20:24):
So I don't, I don't think, I think the pressures of certain circumstances and certain environments,
especially like having an office job, you know, was super draining because I was having
to perform so much.
You're saying, so here's, here's now, I guess what I'm, what I'm trying to figure out is
(20:50):
it how is, do you have like almost like a, a who am I moment?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just talk about that a little because how do you, how do you go through that?
Like how do you get past that?
How do you know who you are?
(21:11):
Oh God.
That has been the big challenge.
Like I would say the biggest thing that has been, that has come out of the diagnosis and,
and getting medicated is starting to look at, okay, so what are the things that are
who I am versus what I have been performing at?
(21:33):
And it's, it's kind of a continuation of that stripping away process.
Like I'm trying to think of a good, a good example of this.
Well, so we're recording this and it's around the holidays, right?
And this year I have had some challenges that have made it so I haven't been able to do
(21:54):
a lot of my traditional holiday stuff.
So like this year I didn't make or participate in like a big Thanksgiving dinner.
And I usually, I usually love the holidays.
I love having people around again.
That was indications of the, the extraversion that I have come to recognize.
I'm more extroverted than I thought I was.
(22:16):
And that I get more fulfillment out of that.
The holidays were always kind of like a gathering time, but I'm realizing that some of the,
some of the traditions and some of the things that I do, like making the big meal and this
and that are really draining experiences because they take a lot of executive functioning.
You have to start planning for them days ahead of time.
I did a good portion of my holiday shopping today, several days ahead of the holiday.
(22:40):
So I wouldn't have to deal with last minute, you know, people right before and trying to,
there's a lot of, there's a lot of thinking and a lot of planning that has to go into
those meals and stepping away from it.
I started to realize that it really isn't, it really isn't the meal that I want.
(23:06):
It's the people, the feels.
It is.
It's the feels.
It's the community.
It's the having people in my house.
It's like making that experience and how can I start making choices that support my nervous
system better so I don't overextend myself and end up feeling drained by the end of the
(23:28):
holiday season because I have done X, Y, Z and I have put myself out and I've done this
and I've done this and I've done this.
Like there are things that are very important to me.
I will make my mom's cookies on Christmas Eve because the smell of those cookies is
very, it's part of the holiday for me is that experience.
And so I will do those things that I know are the rejuvenating things, but I am severely
(23:50):
cutting back on the performative aspects of the holidays.
Like I, I can't do it all.
I decorated for Christmas this year, but I didn't decorate all out like I often do.
Like I got up to things that were important and I was sitting with like the bins of things
I hadn't quite finished putting up and it was already, you know, half way through the
(24:12):
season and I was like, you know what?
This is, this is what we got.
Like I don't need to kill myself to reach some standard that's going to drain me anymore.
And that is, that is also part of like getting away from, you know, the people pleasing or
the feeling like I need to do things, especially as a mom, you know, having a small child who's
(24:35):
like, Oh, I've got to make this Christmas magical.
You know what makes Christmas magical for her?
The fact that we're all together enjoying ourselves.
Totally.
It, you know, she put up, we did the decorations, you know, she helped with the decorations
and she petered out on the energy too.
And so I was like, okay, this is what we got.
Like, and it's, it's fine.
Like it doesn't have to be, we can stop here.
(24:55):
Yeah, we can stop here.
And that's, and that like, I think that's part of what masking did to me too is because
I didn't understand where I ended and where the mask began that I always pushed too hard
and too far to try to appear more and more neurotypical.
Right.
I pushed really hard on that and I pushed myself really hard and that leads to burnout,
(25:21):
which we'll do another episode on later.
But like that's one of the, you know, one of the bad outcomes of masking for a long
time is you just, you get burned out because you know, you're running this extra program
in the background to make sure you feel like you're performing and looking the way you're
supposed to look instead of just being like, here I am.
(25:43):
So getting back to the, the, the who am I thing?
How, how do you figure out like, and one of the things that I'm thinking is.
Part of is, is just the energy, right?
Like do I have energy when I do this?
(26:05):
Do I not have energy?
And that also translates to the enjoyment and the, you know, the, just the positive
signals that you're getting from your brain.
Is that how you're, you're figuring it out?
Yeah, that's definitely I'm, I'm more attuned now to my nervous system being in a state
(26:27):
of comfort that the world used to be a constantly irritating experience for me.
And not just like, you know, not sensory wise, just like.
Except for allergies.
Except for allergies.
Inside joke.
Yeah.
(26:47):
You know, the, the, there's so much that was just irritating when you're wearing, I
mean, think about it.
Think about what Halloween is like.
You've worn a mask at Halloween before, right?
Just as a gorilla at one time.
That was very uncomfortable.
Yes.
It's very, so it's very uncomfortable.
(27:07):
And so it may not be the physical experience of it, but it's very uncomfortable to constantly
be feeling like you need to put on a show instead of, or you need to, or even it might
not even be that you're putting on a show.
You want to hide.
Like for me, the mask was hiding.
The mask is protection.
It's still a representation of who I am.
(27:30):
Like, and, and one of the things that like, like the mask, isn't me lying.
Like it's not me being untruthful.
It's me being scared, right?
And it's something I'm hiding behind.
And that's, that's a different, that's a different thing, but feeling like I need to do that
in order to be comfortable, to be safe, et cetera, is like having that gorilla mask on
(27:57):
all the time.
Right.
It's very sweaty.
It's sweaty, stinky, itchy.
Yeah.
There's that.
So taking off the mask, becoming yourself, doing that, how do you start?
Oh boy.
You know, little, little baby steps, I think like the babyest of baby steps, like taking
(28:21):
as small steps as you can, finding the people who you start to recognize you feel safe with.
People who know you're on your journey to unmask that you can be transparent with and
say, you know, I am starting to recognize that XYZ are behaviors I do in order to protect
(28:43):
myself and are masking behaviors.
Can you help me recognize when I've, when I'm kind of heading into those.
One of the things that I learned is that if I am emotionally flooded and I feel unsafe,
I shut down.
(29:04):
I don't, you know, they talk about fight or flight, but there's also what's called a fawn
response or a freeze response.
Fawning is where you just kind of like make things comfortable for everybody else.
And freezing is where you just stop.
And I definitely oscillate between those two when I feel unsafe.
So if I am in an emotional conversation and I start feeling flooded, the people who are
(29:29):
closest to me know that if I start to get really quiet and I start to just agree with
things that something's wrong.
And the people who are safe will then advocate for me because at those times I can't advocate
for myself when I'm that flooded or I'm that upset.
(29:49):
I can't advocate for myself anymore.
I just, I'm incapable of it.
I shut, I shut down.
The mask comes completely on and I am behind a wall essentially.
How is it telling people about this and getting them to understand it?
Sort of the people that you're comfortable with and you want to let them know to help
(30:16):
you to recognize?
Yeah, it's not always great.
I wouldn't think so.
It has not been great.
In one instance in particular, I have pretty much lost a friendship over it because the
person that I brought it up to, I can't be around her because she's too much like I used
(30:40):
to be.
And I have realized that a lot of my masking is unconscious.
So it's not where I'm like, oh, I'm going to go into this situation and I'm going to
put my mask on.
Or even like you were talking at the top of the episode, you were like, you know, oh,
in work you have a certain persona and at home you have a different persona.
(31:01):
You know, like I can't, I can't, it's not, it's not conscious.
I don't say, okay, I'm going into this and I'm going to be this way.
It just snaps into place.
And when I'm with people who are reflective of how I used to be, I can't always control
it coming up.
It just, it just happens.
And then afterward I will realize how tired I am.
(31:27):
I will get headache.
Sometimes I start getting a headache during the time I'm with them.
I start getting flooded.
I start having all of the, all of this, like, I'll be more likely to have physiological
responses.
Like I will flush.
I will feel like heated.
(31:48):
I will like all of this.
I'll have heart palpitations.
Like, like these are the physiological responses that my, my nervous system now has to attempting
to mask.
So when you tell people your presence makes me feel like I'm wearing a gorilla mask and
(32:10):
it's itchy and I'm sweating, they don't respond very well.
Right.
I wouldn't think so, but what the other thing there.
Is, you know, I would, I would think, I mean, both the, probably the reality and the fear
is that once you tell somebody, well, I am not that person or I do not behave that way.
(32:36):
I do not do those things.
I do not enjoy the things that we've done in the past.
You're telling them those things and maybe that's the features that they liked about
you.
Like those, that would be the fear, right?
But then I guess the way of looking at that is, oh, okay.
Well, now you're getting away from that.
Right.
(32:56):
Okay.
Cool.
Yeah.
I mean, the, the people who, you know, benefited from my people pleasing are not people that
have stayed in my life.
You know, I broke up with a, you know, a four year long romantic relationship just about
a year ago because I knew I was, I was at this part of the journey where I started to
(33:16):
unmask and his response was like, you're mad at me all the time and I don't understand
why you're mad at me.
And you didn't, you know, like this and that.
And I'm like, I'm not mad at you.
I'm just not making things easy all the time.
And when you are the person who has made things easy for someone, for your entire relationship
(33:38):
and more comfortable and been very accommodating and you start to have things called boundaries
and they're hard and they're not smooth and easy to move around.
You didn't like me anymore.
And it's like, okay.
Right.
(33:58):
And then I would think this is one of those things where it's very hard to do initially
and you struggle through it.
But I would assume that now once you get on the other side of this and you're recognizing
you're now like, you're not putting the mask on when you're meeting people, you're not
being that person.
So it is a lot easier on the other side.
(34:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, it's definitely easier now.
It's, and it's, it's almost like, it's like any reflex, right?
Like you're like, I'm learning to strengthen it, which is why, like I had to put a pause
in a couple of my friendships because like, I'm hoping I get to the point where their
masking won't be as triggering for me, right?
(34:40):
Like they can mask and I won't care like, but it won't create this automatic process
where, where I start to compensate and I start to be careful and I start to change how I
am because they're in that state.
And so I am hoping that it gets to that, you know, maybe at some point, maybe at some point.
(35:02):
But the other thing is that, you know, like there's all those adages.
You can only meet someone as you know, from where they've healed to, like if somebody
hasn't healed as far as you have, you can't really, they're never going to meet you where
you're at.
You're further ahead on the road than they are, or you're on a different road because
they have chosen, you know, a different path or whatever it is.
(35:24):
And letting go of those friendships and letting go of those relationships has essentially
meant I'm rebuilding good portions of my life right now.
I am, you know, I am rebuilding an entirely new social circle because I can and starting
new new relationships and new friendships based on who I am now, which is different.
(35:50):
It's just, it's just fundamentally different.
And I mean, I think, you know, first of all, excited to be a part of the still, still the
old crew that's there, but I mean, I think the original crew there, the reason why you
still have some of those people is because you were able to be around them and not mask.
(36:12):
Yeah, no, I, the people who have persisted are people that I knew before, before my twenties.
I didn't really start masking.
I was able to not mask through most of college.
I think I started masking in the later part of college when things got more business like
and I'm asked through a good portion of my twenties.
(36:33):
When I look back at my friendships and my late twenties, I recognize now that they weren't
really my friends because they weren't very nice to me.
Right.
And this realization a couple of months ago, I'm like that because that's the, that's the
(36:53):
autism.
That's, that's where I think I'm, I'm autistic.
I didn't read the social signals.
I as what they were.
And now that I look back, I'm like, you know, I said this to a friend of mine when I was
going through and I was telling her a specific story and she's like, they weren't your friends.
And I'm like, I know.
(37:14):
And I didn't, I didn't know, I didn't know it then.
Like I didn't know it because I didn't know how to read that they weren't my friends.
I was just kind of like running on, oh, you know, this is how they treat everybody, but
it wasn't, it was how they treated me.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
I, um, I used to think too, like, you know, in going to parties and I'm thinking like
(37:38):
later parties, like thirties, even forties, going to parties and just dreading them certain
parties because it's going to be the same small talk.
It's going to be the same, you know, like whatever, and just be so annoying and just
so like unenjoyable.
And I, I, I imagine and taking those feelings and just putting them out there.
(38:02):
Like that's kind of, I guess what you could be just every day if you're, if you're doing
the masking.
So yeah, yeah.
It's like, it's that sensation of I'm uncomfortable here.
Right.
And I need to figure out a way to be comfortable.
And so I would turn myself into whomever was hosting the party, whatever, you know, I would
(38:27):
mirror, I would behave like them.
I would, I would say I liked, like that was, that was a big thing.
Like I, I have, I have been thinking about music a lot lately.
Um, and you and I have a story of, you know, on our first date.
Now everybody gets to know that we dated.
(38:47):
Yep.
Yep.
She played classical music.
I played classical music in the car and he was just completely thrown off by the fact
that I had classical music in the car.
And I, I didn't love classical music.
Um, also I was looking to very much date us, although my car that I was driving at the
(39:09):
time was older than I was.
That was very, very old car.
My car in high school did not have an FM radio.
And so I had like easy listening and classical music or like the two, like genres.
Right.
(39:31):
And so in order to impress Russ, went classical.
I went on the classical station and it forever kind of marked him as, okay, this is, this
is Regina.
And like, but that was performance.
Like that was like, I mean, you know, I didn't have a lot of choice and that there wasn't
(39:51):
a tape deck, tape deck.
There wasn't a tape deck.
There wasn't a CD player.
There weren't, there weren't other options.
And yeah, you're going to need to put definitions for all of these things for the younger listeners
of the show.
They're still looking up AM radio.
Anybody even listen to the radio anymore?
(40:14):
But yeah, like so that had that, that was, you know, that was, there were some masking
involved in that there.
There was, you know, there was, you know, okay, I was taking a choice of like, do I
put on, I don't even remember what, what would they call it?
Yacht rock.
Now I think they refer to some of that, like music that was played on like the AM, the
AM easy listening station.
(40:36):
But I, I would often just agree with other people about, especially about music.
And I'm not sure what it is about music that made me more insecure, but I, you know, would
just agree with whatever somebody didn't like something and say, oh yeah, I don't like that
too.
That kind of thing.
That was very heavily part of my masking.
(40:57):
And so then when I started to try to figure out who I was underneath it and who I really
was, it turns out that I really do love classical music.
Okay.
Well, as, as the editor, I'll try to get some classical in there.
Right.
Right.
Public domains.
So you should be fine.
(41:18):
And I, you know, and I love, I love dorky things and I have problems with romantic comedies,
but I love romantic comedies and I love pop music.
I think pop music is like my favorite genre, but like, I would always be embarrassed to
say that because it was like, oh, it's so mundane or, oh, you like pop, you don't like,
you know, rock and roll or whatever.
(41:38):
It's like, no, I, you know, I keep up with current music because like, I love me some
eighties, but like it gets a little old after a while.
Like, you know, I like, I like chapel Rowan.
I like Sabrina carpenter.
I like some, you know, I like new music and I like new pop music and you know, that doesn't
make it any less valuable.
I still like Coldplay.
(41:59):
Right.
Imagine dragons.
I'm trying to think of all the bands that are like, that people have a fringe when I
was like, oh, I love there.
And they're like, oh, you like that.
And it's like, I do because I can say that now.
I'm trying to think of the one band that everybody makes fun of.
I can't think of it right now, but okay.
(42:19):
There's, there's a train.
Maybe, I don't know.
I'd make fun of that.
Yeah.
Okay, so I would say what made like, so I, I mean, I, I mentioned to you, I kind of came
into this conversation.
I wasn't in the best of moods when I came into the conversation.
(42:40):
That's right.
You didn't say that, but like being real, being open and having conversations like this
makes you feel better.
It does.
It's really, it's really interesting.
That's really what we're doing this show for.
It's like ourselves.
Yeah, to be ourselves and to help people understand that they can be themselves.
And you know, unmasking is hard, but I can tell you coming from the other side, that
(43:03):
dropping it and you know, is really very fulfilling.
I know, I know the life I'm building now is very different from the life I built before.
But I also know that I'm being my authentic self.
So these, these relationships and these friendships and the ones that I'm lucky enough to have
persist like yours are going to be fabulous forever.
(43:26):
Exactly.
Well, well, thanks for sharing all this with me.
Yes.
Thank you.
(43:48):
Thank you so much for listening.
What's your experience like masking?
Have you started trying to drop your mask?
Wherever you are in your journey, we would love to hear from you.
Catch us on Instagram at Divergent Paths Consulting.
No spaces.
Make sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen, like and leave a review and share
with your spicy brain friends or perhaps someone that loves someone with a spicy brain.
(44:12):
And until next time, stay spicy.
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