Since I started on this journey of discovering my PDA nature, I’ve started peeling back the layers of masks I’ve created to keep myself safe. My masks have saved me from feeling things I just couldn’t allow myself to feel. And each one, as it comes off, seems to expose me to some fresh new pain. But each time I lose a layer, I get a little closer to who I really am. Who I really am without the fear of being rejected.
So with each layer I peel, I have to grieve. I have to grieve for the little one who had to trade a piece of his real self for a little bit more safety. I have to really feel what it felt like to lose each piece of my personal jigsaw puzzle. And I have to grieve for the decades where I always felt un-boundaried, vulnerable in the worst way. Vulnerable to self-loathing, and to the whims of the people in my life. Every issue people had with me was an “opportunity for me to grow”.
I have to grieve for the little one who had to trade a piece of his real self for his own safety
As each layer has come off, I’ve raged at the universe for all the lost time. All the time I’ve spent fauning, cowering, “improving” myself. And I never made a dent in who I really was. Who I really am comes through loud and clear anytime I’m evaluated, observed, analyzed, watched, graded. I know exactly what to do, and my body won’t let me.
My body won’t let me because it’s had enough of the slavery I’ve inflicted on it. Every time I needed a new mask to ask less weird questions in class, or to be appealing to women, or to look identical to the other software engineers in my department. Every time I got my ass kicked at school for being too sensitive, too emotionally available, too fat. Every time I swallowed an atomic bomb of a panic attack — gulped it down like a big green Hulk. Every time I held my real emotions in because I could no longer reconcile them with my chosen image.
My body says, enough.
My body won’t let me because it’s had enough of the slavery I’ve inflicted on it
Because the reality is who I really am is very beautiful. As each mask comes down, more of that original beauty shines through, and starts to receive the light again. It brings a brand new kind of warmth. Warmth like I had forgotten I could be warm.
The reality is who I really am is very beautiful
I see masking differently now. Masking, as I have so assiduously done, is a universal human survival tactic. Everyone is being shaped by the expectations of their community, donning one mask after another to fulfill their perceived role. It’s just that for whatever reason, my body just won’t tolerate it.
Masking is a universal human survival tactic … And my body won’t tolerate it.
There are two ways for me to interpret that.
One is that I have a disability, a congenital malfunction in my nervous system that pins my amygdala to sympathetic fight-or-flight mode. My dysregulation has prevented me from doing the things I love, because whenever I receive praise or recognition — a “keep up the good work” — I register a threat.
But the second interpretation is … I’ve done the impossible by persisting under such constant threat. What did I implicitly figure out that allowed me to persist?
This I feel is the essence of the questions I get from the PDA families I’m working with. How can our kid live a happy life in a world that is designed not only to exclude them, but is actively filtering them out?
How does a human who needs freedom, live in a world so suffused with control?
It is a truly terrifying feeling to know you have lost the trust of the people in your life. Ironically exactly because of all the masks you donned, which have created a schism, an inconsistency between the role you’re playing and how you really feel inside. The masks are a two-sided sword, as it turns out. I put the mask on to increase my felt sense of safety, only to sacrifice the authenticity that actually binds me to the world.
I put the mask on to increase my felt sense of safety, only to sacrifice the authenticity that actually binds me to the world.
Masking, for me, doesn’t feel like wearing makeup. It feels like medieval armour. Amour I’ve carefully refined over decades of covert survival. A masterpiece of armour.
Masking, for me, doesn’t feel like wearing makeup. It feels like wearing medieval armour.
What’s different about me is not that I am wearing these masks. The masks are part of the routine programming we all receive. What’s different about me is that I could never get used to the sensation of being programmed in this way.
It’s not for lack of trying. I’ve become an expert at reprogramming myself to meet the demands I perceive. It’s just that, in my case, the way I’m trying to program myself isn’t supported by my personal operating system. My operating system crashes when it’s tampered with.
Is that because I’m disabled, or is that because my authentic self is perfect as it is?
I guess I’m un-programmable then. And I’ve got no choice but to trust that whatever my operating system is built to do, it’s valid. It’s intentional. It’s me.
Excellent dive into the act of putting on a mask and deeply resonating. Thanks for that insight.