A metaphorical mask, where you act like you care or have feelings & emotions.
I practice my facial expressions, laugh, emotions, and tone of voice in the mirror every few days.
I read some truly good books on charisma and how to act normal too! They helped a lot!
I am a really logical person, and emotions rarely have a place in my world. If ever.
It’s not that I want to be ‘fake’, it’s that without practice I would always be the very same: a being who feels little and displays little.
It’s not that I don’t care about people or their troubles either… I do, sometimes! I just like to focus on myself and deal with my own problems..
There have been periods where I took my mask off for close friends and family, showing my true apathetic & logical side, with barely any capacity for emotions, and not everybody liked this.
Some went out of their way to call me weird, grumpy, cold, even scary… I didn’t like this.
I even had a ‘friend’ who for a while introduced me as the psychopathic & damaged one of the group. We’re no longer friends, obviously.
Does anybody else feel the need to do this? Should I just embrace who I am?
My biggest ‘fear’ is people finding out I’m slightly different… My therapist tells me it’s okay to not be like everybody else, but life can be hard when you’re not like the collective and you don’t fit in naturally.
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Everybody has a *mask*. For me, I do feel things I just don’t really know how to show them, so I make myself try to show them even though it’s kind of unnatural for me. But it would be very rude not to… Especially if it’s something important like… A funeral or a big achievement or an injury… I will feel sad, happy, worried.. but how I show it will be very voluntary and not Automatic or subconscious.
But honestly… I think you should keep doing it. You don’t need to exaggerate but try to show it in some degree. People will appreciate it and it’s important to have people in our lives.
Life is hard because we are pushed to follow ridiculous social norms all the time that no one can perfectly fit in. And I guess that’s the beauty of human complexity. We are all very unique with our unique journey on this universe.
I belong to the more emotional end of the spectrum and I used to put mask on by hiding and suppressing my emotions so that I would fit better in society. I lost my identity and I ended up spending time with people that were really not my tribe. That was quite depressing. It wasn’t until therapy that I learned to embrace who I am and it has made me happier. Sure I lost lot of people in thw process but they never really were my type of people.
That’s why I also think your therapist is right. Embrace who you are and do things that make you happy because then you have a chance to meet people that better match with your vibe. Also it’s not bad idea to practice some things you just mentioned but it shouldn’t be a tool to change yourself, rather just help you to understand other people without having to be like them.
Honesty also carries you far. When people open up to you and you struggle to emphasize then let them know. It’s not your cup of tea. Maybe with your logical way of thinking you can find other ways to support someone or maybe it’s just not good match. I could imagine if we hanged out that you might struggle to connect me emotionally. If you’d faked it I probably would sense something is off. I would appreciate more you would be honest you are not that type of person. We could connect another way. Maybe you might help me sometimes act more rational when I’m almost taken over my emotions or maybe we just wouldn’t get along – that’s completely fine too.
Had a friend on the autism spectrum. He learned quickly that if he didn’t “mask” – people flat out ignored him or disliked him. And he didn’t really DO anything to them…but his vibe was off/different, he lacked facial expressions (even laughing was hard for him), his voice was monotone and robotic, and his body language was so rigid people always assumed he was in pain?! So adding all of that up, he came across as “creepy” to people and they avoided him because of it…ans so he learned ro mask like he was some talkative outgoing guy. He stopped stimming publicly too – which in the end, all the masking and hiding who he was ended up affecting his mental health. He burned out…
Point being, everyone to some degree has a mask. What the diff is though is when that mask becomes a necessity to fit in OR be someone you aren’t for acceptance – then that really is a personal CHOICE that only you can make whether ot is worth it or not
We get it, you’re unique.
You say “I” 14 times. Seems like you care.
I am sorry you are logical. That has to be rough. Life gets so much better if you can abandon that.
People with mental disorders often do this to hide the fact that they’re different to avoid being ostracized. It’s actually very common with autism, which is why you may hear “autistic masking” associated with it a lot.
Normal people don’t mask. They may show different sides of themselves to different people, but that’s something totally different. Masking is when you basically pretend to be someone else to hide your true self.