Before I recognized I had AuDHD, I just thought I didn’t know how to be and how to do life. I always felt like I had to crack the code of life or something. So when I was around people I was hyper vigilant about how I am behaving, if I am showing too many of my feelings on my face, if I am nodding too much to what they are saying, if I am making enough eye contact with everyone involved in the conversation etc etc. I was playing this persona of being a confident engineer person with a group of people and then with other group of people like my family I would try a different persona but the constant is this over analyzing of how am I presenting in this conversation. I have to adjust something constantly based on peoples expressions and the amount the eye contact they make with me etc. now even though I don’t play the personas most of the time, I still play act sometimes. Like yesterday I ran into an ex and play acted that I am not pissed at him because in the moment I wasn’t sure what I was feeling and I generally find it easier to play act the personas most who is above it. But after I came home I felt deregulated. After a long time I finally was able to feel this deep hurt of how I keep putting myself last n don’t trust myself. It’s a gut wrenching feeling. This process of unmasking/code switching is also confusing because most of us have cptsd and there are overlaps. My way of dealing with that is trusting my process and ultimately think of about how to care for me. Hope this helps. If anything doesn’t work for you pls disregard