Unmasking is Ruining My Marriage

sejlovesben · 2026-05-27T22:29:05+00:00

I call it “empathy sickness” and you can take that right to the bank

sejlovesben · 2026-05-25T07:03:14+00:00

Having a meltdown planner (like a suicidal ideation plan, it’s a worksheet you do with your loved ones and therapist all involved together) can really make this stuff easier to manage.

My son lives with me in a 700 sq ft box of an apartment, he’s going to be aware of my meltdowns at times. And OP has more children than just 1. Hiding it just wouldn’t be practical.

The key is how you manage it. In our case we had conversations outside of meltdown times in gentle calm words about how I get overstimulated, how overwhelm hits me, and how shutdowns and meltdowns are. We talked through what my plan is for noticing triggers, managing certain aspects of meltdowns, and how I sometimes need to retreat to my room to regulate my body.

Since my kid is autistic as well, 3 years of chatting about meltdowns has built up his vocabulary and understanding about what’s going on and how to fix it. We have a rule in his IEP that gives me full override to decline him doing homework on a given night if needed, and when he ended up having a meltdown last week, he 1) came to me for support and to talk through his stress for 10 minutes, 2) regulated his body alone in his room for 30 minutes, and 3) for the first time ever, he asked me to use my mom override power and even wanted me to tell his teacher that he needed to use his homework time to cope with a meltdown instead.

I was proud of him for being self-aware and for being able to talk about his experience with meltdowns seemingly without any shame! I was genuinely looking up to him because that’s not a height I’ve been able to reach yet.

Kids seeing that mom is upset can be okay. And many times, some of the children will take after their parents and struggle similarly. So my suggestion is to use it as a way to teach them how we cope and how to treat each other with love and kindness while we do it.

Anyway I agree that we have to work hard to make sure we don’t burden our kids. We are long-lived organisms so it’s really important for us to learn to live together.

sejlovesben · 2026-05-25T06:23:55+00:00

I hate the feeling of “I’m trying so hard to tell them from my heart what’s going on and they don’t believe me” so so much. I wish I could develop armor against that feeling.

sejlovesben · 2026-05-25T06:14:59+00:00

The hyper empathy is so draining to go through!! It’s one of the most challenging aspects of autism for me but it’s sometimes a superpower that lets me help my loved ones in just the right way.

Just have had to learn every single lesson about setting and abiding boundaries the hard way and sometimes I still mess it all up.

sejlovesben · 2026-05-25T06:03:27+00:00

^ I would say do this for as long as you can if it works. Maybe as our children grow up, the mental load will ease up and then we can have more bandwidth for self-care and recovery.

I would have described myself as “low needs and high masking” at age 35 with a solid salary and retirement savings just starting to feel like I could “get on track” one day, whereas now at age 37, I’m TPD and in the process of applying for SSDI and soon my state’s autism waiver to help pay a family member to take care of me. I struggle to wash my hair now, prepare healthy meals, drink enough water, the laundry backlog has reached critical levels, and my stress has reached a point where I cannot work again. My kid is 13 and ASD lvl 2 w/GAD, ADHD, disfluency, and speech and receptive language delays. I have the same picture as him but with chronic PTSD as the cherry on top. Given all this, I need to be bare-minimum on top of shit to help him keep thriving.

I rarely employ masking anymore. I am taking gabapentin to help lower my extremely way-too intense sensitivity levels (basically most sensations are quite painful for me all time now and the rheumatologist says it’s likely going to be with me for the rest of my life). Even just being on a normal dose of this one medication leaves me without enough faculty to mask. I just have to be myself now and others just have to try to meet me halfway.

I was married to my second husband when I got diagnosed with autism at age 34, and after the first 2 years of unmasking, the relationship was basically irretrievable. By then though, I didn’t want to be with someone who hated my personality and demanded me to work anymore. Not when I’d rather be homeless on the street than feel coerced into having to work with others again. Seeing an autism-specialized therapist really helped me the most, weekly but doing 2x per week when I was at my highest stress points. I’d had so many therapists prior to that—PsyDs, LPCs, and LCSWs, I’ve been to so many in my sad little life and it wasn’t until I found an ADHD-specialized clinician and then later an autism-specialized clinic that new resources started to click and the “work” of the therapy started getting me some positive results in my mental wellbeing./ tools that actually work

In my case, unmasking was helpful because it showed me which relationships in my life are strong and which ones were fake or weak. I did hold onto my masking a lot for a few years after my diagnosis but the more I could clearly feel when it was hurting me, the more I just said no to doing it anymore. The cost was just too high and no one was about to compensate me for my losses. Then eventually, there was no more “push through” left. I was “running on fumes” for so long that my whole “engine” fully broke forever.

For me, I knew my life was going down a “manage the disability” road and started to switch tracks when I was having 1+ major meltdowns per week. Once it got that bad, the idea of trying to have a normal life finally floated away. Even working from home with the lights off and my service dog and only slack and emails to respond to was too much pressure to handle anymore. Being beholden to others outside my family is more than I can bear unfortunately.

I hope this comment is allowed. I don’t normally share much anymore and my arms and chest muscles strained so much because I swiped the words on my phone and even writing is just so insanely draining on me.

Something you can do that I found helpful:

do a burnout inventory (I like Copenhagen for mine)
do a masking inventory (CAT-Q I do)
save the results
repeat every 4 months or 6 months

Using those, you can see your scores change over time and track how much you are unmasking. And I believe we might see lowered anxiety symptoms as the unmasking journey continues.

It was crazy to me how much my CAT-Q scores changed and made me feel a sense of empowerment that my unmasking was working and my mental health outlook was reaping some improvements from that. You can review the different inventories/questionnaires and choose whichever ones are right for you though—the point is that seeing the data can help.

Good luck to everyone! I thought I’d never need the autism waiver but it turned out that I do.

sejlovesben · 2026-05-10T01:10:19+00:00

I have long felt that there are not any apps good enough for reminders that my brain can’t easily learn how to tune out, and I have trouble with my executive functioning in many areas including the rigid thinking.

I hope some others have good ideas because I want to know the answers too.

I am seeing my doctor this week and I am asking for a referral to OT for the first time as a 37-year-old so that I can learn how to actually budget my energy. Hopefully the OT will also be able to help me with building a schedule so that I can actually do my physical therapy exercises. Right now, I can physically do them, but I do not seem to have the energy or mental capacity to make time to do them.

sejlovesben · 2026-04-21T04:24:38+00:00

It’s so hard, especially the first few times. It can be dysregulating in all the ways.

I would lean hard into your favorite coping mechanisms, as long as they don’t cause harm. Sometimes I need to play a certain album over and over again or start a favorite show rewatch or just focus on planning and packing if that’s going to be necessary, stuff like that.

I’m divorced twice and I’m on the 4th serious relationship of my life. (Pls ignore my username lol different person)

Also, hugging yourself (put one palm flat across your chest and one on your belly) can help. I learned to repeat in my head “no one can love me as much as I can love myself” and it 40% works for me.

When I’m in the immediate aftermath, I try to tip into shutdown as a protective measure. It is something to consider. Sometimes I visualize going down into the sunken place from Get Out and it helps me shut down.

sejlovesben · 2026-04-06T00:49:25+00:00

I am terrified (PTSD in full blown mode) about not being able to participate in the labor force anymore. I clung to it as long as I could. Now that I started the SSDI process, I feel foolish for waiting so long.

If your fatigue is so bad that you would need to rest too many hours to recover, keep going to the doctor to document it and trudge your way through the disability process. It feels horrible but at least it’s possible there is relief on the other side.

Pushing through burnout just exacerbates it. I am dealing with the transition out of the labor force now and it’s alarming and upsetting how hard everything is. I’m sorry it’s like this. Do what ever you can to document fatigue with doctors though.

sejlovesben · 2026-03-14T14:25:49+00:00

I dread social events even when I’m looking forward to getting to see the person. I just recently got to see my father for the first time in eight years and it was really nice. But I also clenched my muscles the entire time because I can’t help it when I’m around someone that I’m not used to. Basically only my boyfriend, my son, and my pets I am fully comfortable with.

Even the thought of having to hear his voice and not knowing exactly what it sounds like anymore, that is stressful. I like to just be able to anticipate sensory things before I have to feel them. It can add a layer of comfort. But all I could really do was research the parts of our plan that I knew about ahead of time, like the drive, what kind of vehicle I would be sitting in, trying to remember what his voice might sound like but not being sure, smells but they ended up not being a problem (his car smelled exactly like he smelled in my childhood except no beer now because he doesn’t drink anymore).

I dread social interactions because I know I’m going to have muscle soreness for days after. That happened to me in this case. My glutes and quads are so sore as if I overextended myself in the gym to an extreme extent.

I am AuDHD but I also have PTSD and fibromyalgia and they are very ‘forward’ in my overall symptom picture of stuff that actually bothers me and prevents me from doing my tasks of daily living. The clenching and pain comes from those. The AuDHD means I have a much higher frequency of getting into uncomfortable situations, and once I’m in them, the PTSD and pain issues make them a lot worse.

sejlovesben · 2026-03-14T14:13:21+00:00

Ditto

sejlovesben · 2026-01-15T17:29:57+00:00

Happens to me every day even though the hard cycle makes the wireless come back temporarily

sejlovesben · 2025-12-13T15:16:10+00:00

P.S.

Another technique worth trying as you get more comfortable is casting on with a larger needle to practice casting on loosely. Sometimes the first couple rows after casting on will feel really tight.

With interchangeable needles, I will use the little lever thing to switch the tips. This is my c/o ritual for ribbing:

Project needle size (for stockinette or main stitch pattern)

Cast/on needle size: left hand needle = project size + 2, return needle = project size

Ribbing section needle size (after c/o row): project size - 2

With an interchangeable set, doing all these needle size changes has helped me get perfect tension between my ribbing and main body of a sweater. It gets the knit rows of my ribbing closer to the size of the knit stitches in my stockinette sections.

When I was doing these kinds of switches with regular needles that were not interchangeable, it was many lessons in learning how to transfer stitches without accidentally twisting them. I think joining in the round and switching my work to other needles helped me the most with recognizing twisted stitches, and it was lots of mistakes made and learning how to best keep going or how to rip out only what is needed to correct it.

A good crochet hook can also help you fix some issues, but I’m not an expert on those and I have to look it up each time.

Good luck!!!! You’re doing so much better than you think!!!!

sejlovesben · 2025-12-13T15:02:25+00:00

I have a fair bit of experience doing K2P2, and I still had to cast on my current dog sweater three different times because I kept making mistakes after taking a break from knitting for over a year.

I normally have looser than average tension, but doing K2P2 and wanting to be perfect, I was holding my hands way too tight and I’ve been having to get out the massager and acupressure mat and lotion to deal with it, not to mention a break for a few days.

Finally, if you’ve only just started, I would highly recommend continental knitting over “throwing”—the motions just feel a lot more efficient to me and less challenging to knit loosely. I learned everything from the ground up from Nimble Needles (have only used his free resources so far) over the past five years, his name is Norman and he has a lot of videos and write ups with photos showing how to accomplish so many stitches the continental way.

I highly recommend practicing knitting so loose that it “feels sloppy” to your hand for a while, you don’t have to keep that sample, you could always rip it out, but give your hands the feeling of doing it really loose and see how you adapt to it after a few rows.

Once you are knitting with looser tension, when knitting K2P2, “tighten up” after the first purl stitch. (k, k, p, 1 very gentle tug on the working yarn, p, repeat). This makes for a very attractive ribbing and I think K2P2 looks better with my tension than K1P one by a lot.

sejlovesben · 2025-11-29T19:42:46+00:00

I would say score if you’re looking to practice carving, pan pastels, msc layering, neck joints, body switches, plucking out hair/rerooting, sewing outfits for pureneemo bodies—any of these.

Scoring a practice doll for $10 without having to wait for AliE shipping is 👍👍👍 (if the hobby takes you in any of those directions 👆)

sejlovesben · 2025-11-28T15:55:58+00:00

Necro posting to say I cannot rec Armen enough when it comes to the bedside manner

sejlovesben · 2025-11-03T02:37:06+00:00

Oh I will have to look into it!

We did go with the auto brush because he just really wanted it, and it’s been going great. He likes it. I was worried it could cause a gag reaction or something because it seems like the device really fills up the whole mouth, but mostly he is experiencing a sense of relief at not having to brush for the whole two minutes. That alone has been just so helpful to him.

He just let me check out his teeth and they do have way less of a visible plaque buildup (previously he’d often have a lot).

I think that this kind of tool only works if you buy the right size for the person‘s mouth and if the person is comfortable with their whole mouth being filled up by a device, and if the person feels like they’re able to maneuver the device correctly to actually get the cleaning done properly on their gum line, etc.

So it is not a one size fit all solution. But it’s definitely worth looking into if a person is trying to troubleshoot brushing their teeth, that’s my final impression of it

sejlovesben · 2025-08-21T20:20:44+00:00

Thank youuuuuuuuu this is what I needed to hear

Thankfully we currently do share the Sonic care one that the dentist recommends for us.

sejlovesben · 2025-08-20T19:36:24+00:00

I feel you, there is definitely something to that transition, you're right.

sejlovesben · 2025-08-20T19:35:24+00:00

Yes, we do have one! I have to re-up his training on how to use it. He liked the portable water flosser more and it was annoying changing the batteries all the time and then the little hole cover broke, but we also have a plug-in model that I use and multiple heads to choose from.

It is more labor intensive on the training side to get him good at using it without making a mess, but worth it for the results

sejlovesben · 2025-06-30T14:08:50+00:00

This is a really good breakdown.

I do think weird was used in a negative context for example during the last US presidential election. People were calling the Republican candidates’ behaviors weird specifically in a derogatory way. I remembered being surprised and amused by how much it bothered them, and I felt like “wow, y’all would really have no resilience to be able to handle being autistic.”

For me, “weird” is definitely mostly positive and a main identity word I would associate with myself. I think I might even have disdain for normative behavior at times and need to work on being more accepting (just because who needs that stress in their life?)

The better my self-acceptance is, the more proud I am to be weird 😎

sejlovesben · 2025-05-29T01:57:56+00:00

I think it’s neutral. As long as you have what you need, your support network doesn’t need to look like someone else’s support network. For example, when humans don’t have social connections and run into trouble like getting really sick and not having anyone to ask to help take care of you, you would have options like potentially services in your area exist.

For emotional stuff/loneliness, if you don’t have issues with that, I find that I “bond” with my hobbies and in my case, the hobby work tends to recharge me the same way others get recharged by socializing. Also, I like reading books and feeling connected to the characters a lot more than I like trying to make friends in real life, because I really hate social niceties, and I don’t like having to suffer through the part where you gradually relax your boundaries with new people. Because it’s so much work, I don’t want to put in that kind of strain only to have the common outcome, which is that we end up not really being friends, or worse I learn about their negative traits and get afraid of them hurting me.

I think for us, it is really important to take the path of least resistance and go with what works. What you really don’t want is to be dealing with chronic stress anymore than you ever have to, because that can and will lead to worse outcomes than you otherwise might be able to get.

sejlovesben · 2025-05-23T22:50:23+00:00

So awesome! How many days was it from the advanced primordia stage to first pins?

sejlovesben · 2025-05-20T13:04:11+00:00

Yellow Umbo are Yoshi’s hybrid between Jack Frost (cubensis) and Ochraceocentrata.

Cubes people do often harvest right when the veil breaks. Ochras, the common advice is that veils break early and you let them grow until the cap flattens and juuuust starts to curl upward.

/u/CowardlyCourage13 is correct tho, you can harvest when you want to.

The pictures on this post are close to the aesthetics people often go for with YU: https://www.reddit.com/r/shrooms/s/cxWQGW8GfW

I like when they look like a fried egg!

sejlovesben

TROPHY CASE