Hi friends,

What I’m about to write is a half-thought (a lot of you may be thinking to yourselves ‘Like a lot of your newsletters, Ren’ and you know what, that’s cheeky but also true.)

I haven’t fully fleshed this one out in my brain, and the last thing I’d want is for anyone to think I’ve just gone and lost the principles I have developed over the two and a half years of writing this newsletter. I enjoy thinking about how I exist as a neurominority in a neuromajority world.

So imagine it’s a therapy sesh. Except instead of it being a poorly connected Zoom call where the therapist leaves really awkwardly long pauses that you feel compelled to fill with your inane waffle, it’s this newsletter.

The mask has come back a bit recently, and honestly I don’t think it’s that much of a bad thing.

Because I haven’t been masking my neurodivergence… I’ve just been trying to present the best version of me possible.

Any version of me is neurodivergent, because that is me, right? So the best version is too.

I’ve stopped thinking about masking as a whole in black and white, good or bad terms. I’ve come to think of masking as a tool, used consciously or unconsciously, to get by in a world that provides a lot of friction, regardless of who you are (although some of us experience more friction than others).

Of course, for many people, masking is not a nice optional extra. They have no choice, if they want to get by, they have to mask. Whether it’s their neurodivergence, their queerness, or something else about them that makes them bristle against the status quo. Or, they are simply unable to mask. We’re all different. We’re all valid.

I found myself recently in a new environment where people did not know me. Without thinking about it, and with nervous energy from my social anxiety coursing through me, I ended up being a larger, brighter version of myself.

Outwardly happy, enthusiastic, mindfully helpful, switched on, positive. I wanted to make a good impression.

(For context, IRL unmasked me is a bit of a flat-effect, glass half empty ‘realist’ who tends to bore the shit out of people. I am proud of that! But I contain multitudes!)

Post-autism discovery a few years ago, I would have hated myself for this. ‘I shouldn’t have to change myself’, ‘I don’t need to impress others’, ‘I don’t need to be something I’m not’.

All of these thoughts are very valid. I don’t need to change myself. I am happy with the person I am. But I’ve realised that sometimes, particularly in my quest to find new people IRL and stop being such a hermit, I do need to be conscious of not looking quite so moody all the time (lol). I’m mindful that other people read me in ways that are different from the ways I read them. If anything, it’s considerate of the way other people’s brains work.

And yes, I know, autistic people tend to report that as we are masking, we are the ones making the effort to fit in, and not the other way round. I guess that as I have spent a privileged few years unmasked, I’ve realised not everyone is used to how I typically present, and might misunderstand me, until they are let in to my world. Hence why I ended up acting a bit… extra. Am I making sense?

Everyone’s situation is different, and I’m absolutely not advocating for anyone to push themselves out of their comfort zones without wanting to. I also don’t think I owe everyone a 100%-perfect-all-singing-all-dancing-yes-sir-no-sir-three-bags-full-sir version of me.

It’s a balance. Me sat at home in my joggers eating biscuits, mouth agog at Australian Survivor, is not the same me as the one who goes about their business in public everyday.

That Extra Ren from the other day, that is still me.

But it’s just one side of me.

Living as authentically-me all the time. That’s the way I want to live.

Maybe how I presented the other day is authentic. It just isn’t me 100% of the time.

I was just finding the right shade of me to present in that environment. Something that neurotypicals tend to do as well.

This is kind of a cool thing to realise. Because I definitely did stuff that unmasked-from-neurodivergence me does (i.e speaking to my eyelids because I struggle speaking + eye contact, stimming, not really policing my monologues, and more).

So in conclusion, I’ve split apart neurodivergent masking from run of the mill ‘presenting the best side of yourself’ masking that a lot of people seem to do, no matter who they are. We’re social animals, we want people to like us. It’s understandable.

If this made any sense to you, let me know in the comments. It might not, it’s very hot where I am right now and my brain feels frazzled.

Hopefully you stay subscribed to this random late-discovered neurodivergent northerner who is trying to work out how to behave around other humans and documenting it in real time on the internet.

Take it easy,

Ren

PS. I sell zines like this and this, I have a snail mail club that is about to mail out a new zine, print, sticker and letter in the next few weeks, I sell custom illustrations, and you can join a group of lovely people who support my writing via Patreon membership.

Still reading? Want to see the front cover of my new zine that my mail club will receive soon? Here it is… (and it’s about masking!)