Community, masking and belonging

Community has been pottering around in my mind recently. And then I wrote this and the first half ended up being about masking, so I'm changing the title.

Not this kind of mask!

I wrote almost a year ago about the revelation that I actually like being with people when I am sufficiently regulated. Although I have had friends since I was about 10, I generally had between one and three at any time and didn't feel comfortable socialising with them in an unstructured way or out of the context in which I got to know them (often interest-based or non-rejection-based) until I was an adult. I considered my friends as out of the ordinary in that the enjoyment of being with them outweighed the anxiety (which was decreased by their acceptance or appreciation of my quirks). Until I was an adult I was certainly still performing or "masking" when with my friends, though less than with other people. Even though as an adult and especially more so since being identified as autistic I have become more accepting of my natural self I think I have almost always masked: it was so much of a necessary survival strategy when I was younger that it became automatic and hard to identify how I would behave if I were behaving entirely naturally. For information on masking and its dangers, see here or here or do an internet search.

As I have become more noisy about being autistic and less hide-y, I have begun to lose the mask. Most of this work has been done over the last year. 

A perfect storm of conditions came together - I hadn't gone there to try and make relationships so I didn't have any expectations of myself or any pressure, I'd never met any of these people before so they wouldn't think it odd if I was different from how I was in the past, I felt safe, I was fairly well convinced I was not going to be judged (by and large anyway, and if I were there would be sufficient people around to give me the counter-reaction), my "behaviour" would not be out of place or unusual (OK, it was sometimes unusual, but it was very much accepted and even valued and I learnt that it was OK or even good for some of my oddities to become parts of my identity), and I was so much reduced to nothing as a person that I didn't have the will or the energy to hide anything. It was a chance to find out who I am when I don't pretend, and a bit like a reset button on my life. Who am I when I stop behaving how I think I ought to behave because I want people's respect?

This, I think, is the most I have ever been part of a community, which is sad, and maybe one reason why I was so sad when I left. In life I have been part of many communities. In some I have been more myself and in others have masked a lot, but never have I been able to simply be until this point. On second thoughts, perhaps it's not all sad. Perhaps it's happy that finally all the pieces came together at once to allow me to discover that there is a possibility that I can be me, and I can be me safely and happily with other people. And that the time when I didn't mask was when I first found belonging - it was my true self that belonged, not some self that I thought I was meant to be. There were things in my past communities that could have been more inclusive and helped me to belong, and there were things in me that needed to be in place to get the most out of the opportunity (look, both of these things can be true!! If you read my earlier post...). The right people, the right environment and the right point in my life experience came together to give me a kick-start on finding myself, accepting myself and educating others about myself.

Now I have to learn how to translate that into the real world. The real world is not made up of only people who understand neurodiversity and are full of compassion. But the more I carry on being me, the more I find out just how many of those people there are. And the more I carry on being me, the more people will become compassionate understanders of neurodiversity as they find out that people like me aren't scary or dangerous or incapable, to be despised or wary of or changed or hidden away. 

I have often been scared of communities in the past because I have been either on the peripheries of them or an outcast. Sometimes I have sort-of-belonged-a-bit but never felt comfortable except with a couple of people. Communities have never been somewhere I can relax. They have been fraught with danger and vulnerability, so many ways to get it wrong and find out once again that you don't belong. So I have preferred to stay with my one or two people outside the circle where we're happy. And I'm still happy to be there, but I've found out that there are circles that I do belong in too. If I am naturally myself the circles start to find me. My work circle is becoming a place of belonging - there have been pockets of belonging there since day one, but I restricted that circle by hiding bits of me. As I start to be myself, instead of my circle shrinking and my being cast out, my circle is growing. I am becoming part of the family. I am valued and cared for and I am OK with that. Actually, it turns out that I like it. 

If I don't accept myself I don't give others the option of accepting me. They may choose not to, and there are certainly still those around who don't (the security guard outside the supermarket when I shutdowned yesterday... luckily he wasn't nasty, just annoying, and the Supermarket Lady and Hair-Changing Passing-By Work Peggy were very understanding and helpful), but if I judge what I think they'll do without even giving them a chance, then although I may be protecting myself, I may be missing out too.

Will I be brave enough to offer this opportunity in some of my other communities I wonder, and will they take it up? And will I find anywhere I belong quite as naturally as with my fellow loonies?!

Now I have discovered that being part of a community is something for me too. It may be scary and involve risk and investment, but a safe community for me is a thing that can exist and a place I can thrive and belong and have all those things that people think autistic people don't want or can't have. Only because we've grown up in a society where we don't understand most people and most people don't understand us do we all have those beliefs. Autistic people do benefit from belonging, and we can belong safely.

Picture from https://artmiabo.blogspot.com/2015/08/colours-in-circle-abstract-art-by-miabo.html