Various Goings-On

It’s been a busy summer, but a kind of comfortable busy; I’ve had plenty of time to pursue new things, as well as to relax, while moving forward with plans in several different directions. I’ve been spending a lot of time studying for the GRE, which I am taking this Saturday. (GRE stands for Graduate Record Exam, which is required by many graduate programs in the US; for those familiar with other US standardized tests, it’s kind of like the SAT but for graduate school. It’s about a four hour long test of English language and mathematical ability.) Most of my studying has been brushing up on math that I haven’t needed in over twenty years, most of which I expect not to need again after the test, but so it goes.

I’ve also been working on a couple of different writing projects, one of which I am hoping to finish up before fall classes start at the beginning of September. There’s a little over a week between getting through the GRE this weekend and the beginning of the semester, and I think that will be enough time. It’s nearly done as it is, I just need to do some final edits and put together an introduction that highlights the major points.

Speaking of the fall semester, I am also excited to say that I have been working on getting a Neurodiversity Club started at my school! We had a preliminary meeting back in June to gauge interest among students who identified as neurodivergent (in whatever way), and had a great response. A couple of us then worked together to put together a proposed club constitution, which we will finalize with the larger group later this week. Then it gets submitted to the Student Activities coordinator, and if she approves it, we present it to the Student Senate in September. I’m really excited about it, because it’ll be a way to provide peer support for neurodivergent students, as well as raise the profile of neurodiversity in general.

I’m excited to be getting back to school and starting new classes, too. I did take a week off from work and most other scheduled activities last week, which was nice. I visited family for a couple of days for my birthday, and then spent a lovely week at home with my husband and dogs. We both started playing the video game We Happy Few that week, which is a fantastic (but quite dark) game with a dystopian, alternate-history setting. (It’s got this wonderfully quirky and amusing tone, though, despite the eerie and often-depressing storyline. I like the combination quite a bit.) I heard about the game from Invisible Autistic, who drew a comparison between the game mechanics and autistic masking. Having played it for several hours at this point, I completely agree with the parallels she noted.

So, busy, but mostly busy with fun and engaging things. I’m hoping to get back to a more regular blogging schedule after this weekend; I’ll at least have new classes to talk about, and stuff about the Neurodiversity Club. I think one reason I like being in school is the structure it gives to my schedule. Work does that a little bit, but my current job is so flexible that it’s not quite enough structure. But speaking of which, I need to sign off and get working for today. Talk to you later!

Archery and Anxiety

I have recently taken up archery, something I remember loving as a child and wanting to get back to for a long time. It’s been long enough, though, that it’s basically a new pursuit, which means there is a learning curve. And if you’ve ever tried archery, especially without much detailed instruction, you know that often that learning curve slides right into the intersection of bowstring with forearm.

In my case, it didn’t take long. Just a few days after we started, the string caught me right on the inside of the elbow, just at the top edge of my leather arm guard. (So I was trying to be careful, but…ow.) And then it hit me again, in almost the exact same place. And let me tell you, that tender spot inside the elbow is also one place that happens to bruise spectacularly when it gets hit by the bowstring. It’s a week later now, and it’s still a vivid purple and yellow.

This was motivation, however. With proper form, this kind of impact doesn’t happen, so I quickly learned what I was doing wrong, and how to improve my arm position and alignment. Other problems arose, however, when I tried to put this new understanding into practice.

I couldn’t help but flinch a little. Instead of releasing the arrow smoothly, with all of my focus on the target, part of my mind was worried about my arm, and my draw became more tentative. It wasn’t enough to send the arrow too wide, but it was enough to interfere. And, of course, it took a lot of the enjoyment out of practice and made me less enthusiastic about doing it.

It occurred to me later that this isn’t too different from social anxiety, at least how it often manifests for me. After suffering enough repeated social “failures,” I flinch away from engaging again; I anticipate that it’s going to hurt. So I often avoid social contact, and even when I try, I hold back. I don’t put all of myself into it. But of course, this makes me all the more likely to fail—people can tell that I’m not fully engaged, and maybe that makes me seem uninterested, inauthentic, or even dishonest. The arrow of my intention misses the mark.

It’s hard to get out of that cycle. As I continued to practice my archery, however, I found I was able to regain some confidence as my form improved. But first I had to just accept that each attempt might hurt. If I was doing things right, they wouldn’t—but I wouldn’t be doing things right if I let my fear distract me and keep me from fully committing to each shot. Instead I had to release the fear before I released the arrow.

I don’t hit my arm very often anymore, and I haven’t hit it so painfully again. But I also bought a different arm guard that protects me a little better and gives me more peace of mind as I’m learning. This lets me focus on really improving my form without getting stung by every single mistake.

It would be nice if I could wear some kind of similar gear to protect against social “stings,” but I think a good parallel is being willing to be vulnerable when connecting with other people, but also being aware that some pain can be guarded against. Sometimes that means learning to keep appropriate boundaries, because not all things are safe to reveal to all people. Sometimes it means avoiding people who hurt you through no fault of your own; unlike bowstring slap, social harm isn’t necessarily self-inflicted, and sometimes it’s not your form that is out of line.

But sometimes it’s enough just to notice that I’m preemptively flinching. Then I can take a look at what’s going on and figure out if it’s really warranted. Take this blog post, for example: I wrote the initial draft yesterday, and ever since I’ve been second-guessing whether I really want to put it out there. It’s not like it’s super-personal, but it’s a little personal, and I find myself wondering if I’m exposing myself to criticism by publishing it. (Actually, I wonder that with practically every blog post.) But it doesn’t do me any good to hold back, and if I flinched and second-guessed everything I would never get anything done.

So, with that, I release the arrow.

On Masking

I’ve been thinking about the concept of autistic masking, sometimes also called camouflaging. This is the act of concealing or suppressing one’s autistic traits in order to appear “normal.” Masking may include the suppression of “stimming” movements or sounds, putting up with sensory inputs that are painful, forcing oneself to make eye contact, or following previously-practiced social scripts in order to blend in and appear non-autistic.

Such masking takes a toll on multiple levels. As Laura Hull and her co-authors found in “Putting On My Best Normal,” camouflaging is frequently experienced as mentally and physically exhausting, due to the constant vigilance required. Masking one’s autistic traits can also lead to a lack of support (or a lack of diagnosis altogether) because one’s struggles aren’t evident. Lastly, it can make one feel inauthentic, even to the point of losing touch with one’s own identity. And if you can never truly be yourself, all the connections you make with other people feel false as well.

Now, most people wear masks at least some of the time. Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote a foundational book about this back in 1956, called The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. In it, he discusses the self as a performance: we try to manage the impressions others have of us by presenting ourselves in a certain light, hoping this will lead them to treat us the way we want to be treated. To do this, we choose what information to present about ourselves, and what to conceal.

This “impression management” is, essentially, masking: we reveal and conceal different parts of ourselves in order to be accepted and seen in the best possible light. Consider, too, how we present different aspects of ourselves in different contexts; the self we present in the workplace or classroom is not the same self we show to our friends at a party. (Theoretically, at least, if you go to parties.)

So, to some degree, masking is a universal phenomenon, and it can be a valuable social skill to have. Then why is autistic masking so often draining and even damaging? I believe the key lies in that opening phrase: to some degree.

Autism is such a pervasive difference in our “wiring” that masking it is a constant effort; it’s not like simply not mentioning some embarrassing incident, or making sure you don’t have spinach in your teeth. It’s more like trying to maintain strict control over every natural instinct you have in terms of how your body wants to move, how you express yourself, and how your mind works. So in trying to appear “normal,” autistics may need to mask a lot more than someone just trying to present themselves “at their best.” So of course it ends up being much more draining.

It’s also important to note that many aspects of masking can cause stress directly. Making eye contact is very uncomfortable, even painful, for many autistic people, but many of us do it to meet social expectations, or to make others more comfortable. Stimming movements such as rocking, finger-flicking, or tapping are often a way of relieving stress and/or burning off energy that has nowhere else to go, so restricting those behaviors then causes stress to increase in an already-uncomfortable social situation. Similarly, forcing oneself to put up with—or even pretend to enjoy—a sensory situation that is causing distress (but which no one else seems to mind) will increase stress as well, and can easily lead to a meltdown or shutdown later.

There is also a difference between voluntary masking and coerced masking. When someone is making a choice about how to present themselves in order to appear at their best, this is a voluntary decision. Sure, it’s stressful to put on your best social presentation during, say, a job interview, but that’s a choice you make to give a good first impression. When, however, you have been told over and over (explicitly or implicitly) that who you are is not acceptable, and yet you still wish to be accepted, your subsequent masking of those unacceptable traits is essentially coerced. In other words, when not masking is met with ridicule, bullying, and ostracism, you end up masking out of fear. So of course this will have negative effects.

This kind of coerced masking can even be completely unconscious, as it was for me before I learned about autism. I simply grew up absorbing the norms other people expected me to follow, even though they were often painful to follow (and when I was younger I probably didn’t follow them very well). Eventually this caused some serious burnout, because the exhaustion and constant vigilance mentioned above were just as real even though I didn’t know I was masking anything. Scratch that: I knew I was masking something, I just didn’t know it was autism. Ultimately, I was simply masking myself.

It’s really hard to get out of the habit of masking, though. For one thing, it does get to be a habit, especially after decades of doing it. For another, it’s sometimes hard to know the difference between the well-adjusted sort of social presentation that everyone does in order to keep good boundaries and maintain professionalism, and the self-negating camouflaging that capitulates to social norms that see autistic traits as inherently deficient. It’s a tricky position to be in, especially when you also want to be able to navigate the non-autistic world while still being true to yourself. And I don’t have a ready answer for how to do that; it’s still a work in progress.