Autistic masking at home

 I have been recording videos about autistic masking and what it is and how we mask. If you haven't listened to them yet, please do. They are on myYouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@julieday9517

As I am tired today, I thought I would continue with the series but with this blog. I am going to talk about autistic masking at home. Here are my thoughts.

Do I, or have I masked, at home? When I thought about this for the blog, I felt that my answer was, no, not when I was with my family indoors. When someone visited or we visited them, that was a different matter. Looking back over the years, I don't recall having to mask when I was at home with my family. If someone came to see us or stay with us, usually relatives, I think I did mask. Having to say hello, be cheerful to them. Or if we went and visited them, which I am thinking of years ago as a child when we visited an aunt and uncle on my dad's side, I definitely did mask. I remember I would play with my cousins for a while, then after enough time I would find my mum and be with her. Either sitting down in the lounge area or in the kitchen where she was helping my aunt. It was always when we went out anywhere that I masked. To the shops, to relatives, to hospitals. Any where with other people. Not when I was indoors with my own family. I feel that it was as an adult, especially after I was diagnosed with Asperger's, that the mask slipped and I would sometimes reveal my autism self. It would be when we had visitors and the noise of the chatting got too much for my brain and I sensed it becoming an overload so would go to another room to keep calm and quiet.

So, as an autistic, do you mask at home?

Me, Asperger's and noise

One of the things that does affect me and my Asperger's is noise. Though, what noise it is has changed since I was a child and how it has changed.

When I was a child I hated going through the local subway under the train station. I think I feared the trains would fall down on me. I would stand one end, wait for a train to go over, then dash to the other end. I had to get used to it as it was the main way to get to the station if I had to go to hospital, and later to work. I did get used to it.

Another thing I hated when I was a child, and still do, is a balloon bursting. The bang makes me jump, so if you have a balloon and are with me, please don't burst that balloon. I won't like it, and I won't like you.

It seemed to be sudden noises I didn't like when I was a child, but now as an adult with Asperger's, noise comes to me as a sensory overload. I can't take too much loud noise in a small space eg loud voices in a small room. It makes my head go fuzzy, I can't take any more, and have to go into a quiet room, usually my bedroom upstairs. I think this must have been why when I went to a writers' party, after a while I would go to sit down away from the rest of the authors chatting. If I can get away from the noise, either to another area, another room or outside, then I will. It helps my head to calm down, and therefore, me to calm down, too, because I get upset if I have to leave a room when there are other people there.

So, that is how noise has affected me in the past, and affects me now. If you have Asperger's, how does noise affect you? The same? Let me know.