The Wholeness of My Unmasking Journey

Last year, as I was writing about my upcoming travels to San Francisco to present at a conference, I told you would I would write more at some point about the often not talked about elements of unmasking. I think now is finally that time. As per usual, this is a brave and vulnerable Nyck share. I hope you enjoy, and it’s totally ok if you don’t 😊

Conversations about Autism often accompany conversations about masking and unmasking. This makes sense, as we live in a neurotypical dominant culture that oppresses people who diverge from neurotypicality. The cultural expectation is that there is one so-called right way to be human, and anyone who diverges from that must effort at all costs to appear or present as close to neurotypical as possible. In order to do so, we find creative ways to blend in, hide our Autistic traits, mimic those around us, become who we perceive the environment expects us to be, etc. Not all Autistic people have access to masking. It is simultaneously a privilege to be able to mask, and also deeply oppressive at the same time. It is a coping strategy, a trauma response, and a way to stay safer, and/or invoke a sense of belonging.

To unmask is to reveal more of our authentic selves, to be known more clearly both to ourselves and to others. When it feels safe enough to consider unmasking, “who am I really?” is a question often asked on this journey. “What do I like, what don’t I like, what do I want or not want, who do I desire to be” are all questions one may ask of themselves. There can be so much to discover, so much courage to traverse, so much possibility.

Unmasking is usually talked about as a pathway to freedom and liberation, to greater authenticity, to better mental and physical health outcomes. I do believe all of this. And that’s not all.

For those of us who are safe enough to explore unmasking (as in, some people can’t afford to possibly lose their job, relationship, or other forms of security in exchange for being more true to who they really are), there comes with it a risk. This risk may be tied to why we started masking in the first place. When we start to uncover more of our authentic truth, we get confronted with the trauma that instigated these adaptive strategies. We also may discover that the life we are living, either in part or in full, isn’t actually the life we desire to be living. Some of us may have the means to make the needed shifts, others may not. And then we are confronted with what may feel like a terrifying prospect:

“What will I have to give up or lose in order to make my life more congruent with who I actually am?”

OR

 “What the fuck do I do now knowing this life isn’t working for me, and I can’t actually change it?”

Of course, there’s many more than two possibilities, but I think these are the ones much less talked about. My unmasking journey brought with it many changes I had not anticipated, some pleasurable, some not. I’ll offer a few of the pleasurable ones first, as they are updates I’ve been wanting to share anyway. For me, unmasking has had a tremendous impact on my career in ways that I couldn’t have imagined, and am still shy to share. As I’ve become more visible in my work, particularly around counselor education, opportunities have showed up that have left me in a state of surrealness. While I haven’t written a blog in a number of months, I’ve actually been writing a ton. I was contacted by a publishing company in December and am writing a book about my model for Neurodivergent affirming, somatic, trauma informed approaches to anti-ableist care. This is profoundly exciting, humbling, sometimes terrifying, and very much “holy shit!” This project feels so aligned with who I am: my love to write, my love for solitude and getting all consumed in a passion project, getting to have a wider, more far-reaching impact on reducing harm in the mental health field, and the need for my continued self-growth in order to keep showing up for this project. I am so grateful, and so loving writing this book.

Secondly, as you may notice from the sound of my voice (if you are listening to the audio version), especially if you haven’t heard it in a while, my unmasking journey has also pushed me to confront more of my truth around my gender identity. For my personal journey, which is different for every trans person, it has meant taking testosterone and updating my pronouns to include he/him. I’m deeply grateful to feel more congruent with who I know myself to be.

Now I’ll share the less glamorous, less talked about elements that me, a high-masking, historic fawner has also navigated. In the process of finding my “buck” energy (see the blog “On being the Buck”), I also discovered my rage, my meanness, intense melt downs, and crippling performance anxiety. I spent so much of my life being deeply contracted, becoming an expert contortionist, compressing parts of myself that weren’t allowed by my environment. I thought I was so self-aware, yet had no idea how much of me I was actually hidden from.

Without shaming myself, I want to acknowledge that while this journey did liberate me in ways- it gave me more access to my life force energy, lessened my depression, and helped me to better know my more full truth-it has also been incredibly messy. Yes, we humans are messy, and I hadn’t anticipated just how messy I was capable of being!

After growing up in a home where my mom was the only one who was allowed to get angry (or my dad for all of maybe 5 minutes, once a year), I have gotten intimately connected with my anger and rage. It can feel big, and loud, and intense…it’s a whole lot of life force! I also discovered a new level of melt downs. Excruciating, self-hating, “I’ll survive this…right?!” kinda melt downs. Growing my counselor education program brought me in touch with a whole world of profound performance anxiety that has nearly kicked my ass at times, and moments of burn out that have left me feeling utterly incapable. I’ve learned that as sweet and kind as I can be-and I do think that is my true nature-dysregulated Nyck can be such an asshole.

This liberation journey has been both deeply satisfying, and in moments, profoundly intense and wildly uncomfortable. I have made a lot of messes that took a great deal of repair to clean up. Both with others and with myself.

At the same time, my sensitivity and intuition are stronger than ever. I now have more awareness and more tools for supporting myself, more compassion, can better anticipate my needs at times, and feel the depths of my wholeness.

I now know that when anger and rage show up, they are an indicator that something isn’t OK or that something isn’t right for me. That my life force is trying to communicate to me that I need to be brave and uncover what my whole truth is, not just the parts I wish were true about that particular moment or situation. Sometimes, the whole truth requires me to take action that is deeply uncomfortable, often related to setting boundaries and expressing myself more fully. The upside is that I actually have boundaries now, but sometimes those boundaries also mean letting go of what is no longer congruent with who I’ve become.

My story of unmasking has meant that I know myself more deeply than ever before, that I have less tolerance for abandoning my needs and wants, and that I am still very much discovering what I want out of this life. I am now accepting that my wholeness means I am both soft and hard, kind and mean, tame and wild, patient and intolerant. That I simultaneously know who I am and have no clue who I am! It was a bit of a shit show getting to this point, but I am so profoundly grateful for all the love in my life that has supported me to become the most authentic, whole Nyck I’ve been yet.