Being great at masking can make your life harder

I have never been exceptionally great at masking but i definitely always did to a certain degree. Now I got diagnosed with autism in July at 24 years old and I started to unmask and also explain as to why I don’t wanna do something because it just really strains my resources and energy.

I always functioned very well in school and university, still do and I realized that masking and essentially prioritizing performing over living and feeling somewhat comfortable made my life harder.

People who are close to me don’t understand that my disability actually does disable me, I have physical disabilities too such as epilepsy and Ehlers Danlos, auto immune stuff but nothing that’s permanently visible.

Being great at masking or doing it non stop sets the expectations for other people around you, as everyone‘s behavior does but I realized it does a lot of harm too in the long run and in phases of setbacks