The Actualising Woman

AUDHD MASKING + UNMASKING | PROs +CONs | Late Diagnosed | Authentic + Congruence Identity

• Season 1 • Episode 10

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0:00 | 38:05

Hi Everyone who is listening, Clare here... I've been The Actualising Woman for a little while, but sadly the pressure to keep this poddy going has been a little too much for me due to my perfectionism and a lot of overwhelm over the last 6 months. (AuDHD!)  

However ... I have started Flooba! (much more manageable for me). Flooba is a new podcast which is a sensory sound space for neurodivergent minds. 

I produce immersive audio support for rest, sleep, emotional regulation, anxiety,  productivity, focus and sensory recovery for ADHD, ADD, ASD and AuDHD.

Using binaural beats, isochronic tones, rhythmic drumming, sound-drift, solfeggio, ambient textures, soothing frequencies and SFX (and so, so much more), each episode creates a calm, predictable sound environment for us spicies!!

These soundscapes may help with:
• Focus and productivity
• Anxiety relief and stress reduction
• Emotional regulation and sensory balance
• Meltdown recovery and post-overwhelm decompression
• Burnout and masking fatigue
• Re-grounding after sensory challenges or stimming
• Frustration, anger and emotional outburst
• Parasympathetic ("rest and restore") activation
• Vagus nerve calming and lower stress-related cortisol
• Background noise masking, relaxation and sleep

Here are my links to this new venture. These sounds have helped to settle me and become more emotionally stable (because of all the sound production!) 

https://linktr.ee/flooba

I'm on Apple, Amazon Music, Youtube and soon to be on Spotify and Patreon. 

Thank you for staying with me, and I do hope that you will look into Flooba and tell me what you think!

Contact: floobasounds@gmail.com for requests or questions

Clare Llewellyn-Bailey: Counselling psychotherapist, podcaster, empty-nester, and AuDHD-er!!

INTRO

Clare

It's me, it's The Actualising Woman. Hey, and welcome back. Today I'm gonna be looking at masking and unmasking, and sometimes it's called camouflaging, so whichever you want to call it. And it's a huge topic. I mean huge. I'm definitely going to be doing some more episodes about this, and I guess I've been consciously unmasking. Oh, it's hard for me to say, unconsciously. I have a slight speech impediment and it's always an S with an L. Uh so annoying, really, because I have a podcast that's called Sleep Like a Log. It's for people with

Beginning of Masking + PHASE 1

Clare

anxiety trying to get to sleep. So now I'm very aware of it, and now I I try not to put two words together that end with S L Y. If you notice it, you might know well, you might notice it and then think, ah, there it is, and I'm just gonna keep talking because I can't give this thing any attention. I don't ever remember having this until about five, ten years ago. Anyway, come on, Clare. I have been I've been consciously testing myself a little bit with unmasking on with certain people, if I feel that I'm safe to do that. So if if it all goes tits, then I know that I my myself is still together. I'm still okay. I'm I'm a bit Teflon, you know it's okay. If that doesn't work, if it falls on deaf ears, or there's a strong response, or they glaze over or look at me like, oh, what's going on? I can I know that myself, my esteem, all of that is still intact afterwards. So I'm in that bit where I'm I'm noticing how I'm engaging, da-da-da, but I'm also leaking slightly. Anyway, okay, so I found out about it, I suppose, which was only last year. Uh I when I was training to be a counsellor, no doubt we looked at masking, but it didn't hit my consciousness properly, I don't think at that time, until I got my diagnosis and until I had my breakdown last year, which also meant tied in with that diagnosis that I'm not I'm not doing I'm not doing bullshit anymore, you know, sod it, you know. I've seen the worst. Um I've been in the worst place I could ever be. So I might as well be me now, for goodness sake, you know, because I've survived that. So what the hell, you know, what an attitude. Love it, very empowering. Anyway, I won't talk about that today, but um, yeah, so last year was when I kind of noticed it all and started to think, better read some books, really get stuck in because now it applies to me, and I really need to know what this is. So for me at this point, I feel like I'm in phase one, and phase one for me is now I've learnt about all ADHD, is the bit where I'm watching

Watching, Noticing, Spying

Clare

I I put a video out decades ago, it wasn't quite that long, about watching myself, spying on yourself. You've got to spy on yourself. Don't ask what it's about, but it was a spying on yourself, and it comes to the fore right now because it kind of is that now. It's about watching myself, noticing myself from a place of those three core conditions. Remember, having empathy, congruence. Well, I'm becoming congruent, and I'm having unconditional positive regard for myself. Remember that that's always the fundamentals in this whole process of unmasking or un-camouflaging, if you like. So I'm going around in my daily life and my interactions with other humans, if or when that happens, because it's kind of rare. I don't go out much. So I'm watching how I am feeling, behaving, and talking in when I'm in interactions with other humans. Okay, that's that bit. I'm kind of the learning phase, the spying on myself, the noticing, the somatic awareness really of what is happening in that moment. So it's very much about being very present and and tuned in while obviously still communicating with somebody. Now, I don't know if you noticed on my last episode or two, I think it was just the last one, that I am putting in breathing spaces. Okay. And now, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on podcasts, you will notice that there will be gaps of about 10-15 seconds or so. And I've done that not only for myself to just take a breath, Clare, but also for people listening who are thinking, oh god, will she ever breathe? So I've put breathing spaces in, and it's for me to slurp my tea, which I'm going to do right now. Hang on one second. Thank you for that. Tea's going cold. So it's gonna, like I say, about 10-15 seconds long. Just have a breather, just go. So I'm bearing you in mind, okay, while I'm I'm in a verbal diary. I've had one of my pills today for ADHD, and it makes me uh oh, we'll talk about meds another point. But uh yeah, pill day is always a good day, you know. It's uh just brings me right back to who I am, right inside. You know, no masking, no nothing at all. Focused. Okay, so today this episode is gonna be about bear with. So I have a set of notes over here. You can probably see if you're watching on YouTube that I'm always looking that way to see what I've written. Bullet points become great

Synopsis

Clare

long passages sometimes. So I do apologize if it sounds like I'm reading stuff because I am no BS today. Okay, what I'm gonna talk about today is what I've learned about masking and unmasking so far. I'm also gonna talk about why I think I was doing it, why and to an extent I kind of am still. I'm still learning, I'm coming out, if you like, why I think I was doing it, and that might align with what you were doing as well. I'm also gonna talk brief. Is it briefly? No, I think there's a couple of passages in there, yes. I'm gonna talk about why I'm suspicious that hiding who I really am has caused me mental and physical harm. Uh, and I will be dipping into a book called The Body Keeps the Score. Cracking Book by Bessel van der Kolk, and it's uh one of the first books I read while I was doing my degree. Completely mind-blown. So I will be diving into that and quoting very briefly. I don't want to be academic-y all the time. When I have a thought about something I'm experiencing or something's happened, or something, I think read that in a book, read that in a book, which book, which book? And then I'm super focused on finding that damn passage, even if it takes me the rest of the day. So I just want to dip in, you know, because it feels like to me that I am backing myself. And an author is validating what I'm thinking, I suppose. So, what I've learned about masking and unmasking are why I think I was doing it, why I'm suspicious that it's caused me mental and physical harm. And I also want to include what I remind myself if I'm having a bad day, if I'm losing my uh, it it's what I say to myself. If if it gets messy, then it's something that I remind myself to keep me going. Obviously, we'll talk about that. At the end, I'm gonna pose a kind of a food for thought question or two. I haven't decided whether I include two of them or only one so far. So let's see what happens.

Books

Clare

Okay, so the books I'm gonna use again are my old faithful, uh Aspergirls, Well Thumbed, brilliant book, especially if you have ASD. Um Body Keeps the Score, brilliant, and again, my favourite probably because of the swear words, Kat Brown, it's not a bloody trend. The references for those books are in the description.

6 Things I've Learned

Clare

Okay, so what I've learned about masking and unmasking for myself so far. Well, like I say, new concept to me. I thought I was just odd. I didn't realise that I was faking and all that. Yeah, I didn't know. I just thought I was it was the I was about to say, I thought it was just the mask that I put on in order so to survive in the world. There you go. I might have been slightly aware of it before breakdown, but when I had the breakdown in July, August, September, October, November last year, good six months of the year I've lost. Um, and I had the my diagnosis for all ADHD right in the middle of it all. I I mean that just made me any mask I ever had just fell off. I felt like I had to just sit there with the hand over my mouth because I was gonna I knew I was gonna be um uncontrollably peeing everybody off with what I actually really want want to say to them and have for years. Uh so I kept myself hidden away. Uh actually I didn't want to go out. So what I've been doing is peeling away the layers, love that. Peeling away the layers to reveal my true identity, not just this formed identity to survive, you know, with PTSD and um life. Because I think I was thinking, cover it up, Clare, cover it up, pretend, pretend. I would practice and caught myself doing it a few times, practicing smiling in the mirror before I leave the house, you know, like get the muscles going, love, put the fake on, put the mask on. I know that I was being different outside, but I didn't know what that was all about. Let's let's put it down as that. I thought I was doing that because I was a bad person, uh, a liar, two-faced, oh, two-faced. Oh, the biggest fear that I've been two-faced. That I should be locked up. Just generally a big bad person. Thank you, parents. That's an entire episode all on its own. Anyway, so I know better than that now. I've been diagnosed, and I'm learning how to drop the BS and let myself leak out safely so that I um don't get punched in the face. So these are the things I've

No.1

Clare

learned. Unmasking is ongoing. Oh, goodness me. I'm in process. Okay, so that's a Rogers thing about being in process to revealing, to becoming, to be learning, to be becoming yourself. I'm always learning and inching forward slowly and softly, carefully, kindly revealing who I am to people, to be congruent. I'm taking my time and don't forget the three conditions. I'm having no judgment on myself, and I'm having empathy for myself and understanding, self-compassion if you like, while I'm becoming and learning how to be congruent.

No.2

Clare

The next thing I've learned is to tune into my body. What am I feeling? What am I thinking right now? What am I doing with my body? And that's giving me an idea of when I'm putting the face on, you know, the mask on. And yeah, a period of watching and learning, really.

No.3

Clare

Next thing I've learned, it wasn't my fault that I was doing it that I was masking. It would have started right back in my childhood, and that and you know, it's that slow, slow drip. You just don't you're just building up on something you think you need to do to survive in the world. I was just a baby, a kid, who was trying to survive and make a way through a complicated home life. So I keep rolling my eyes when I say home life and parents. Emotionally complicated home life and uh trying to adapt to a very confusing, bloody great world, a world of people and norms.

No.4

Clare

Next thing I've learned is that, and this is a big one, and I don't really want to be sharing this with you, but I'm going to because you know, um, that I have to say this because this is the thing that has surprised me the most, and I shouldn't have been surprised, but it has surprised me the most, and that is that I should have been prepared to lose people. That a lot of people don't get it. You need to know this. Not everyone's gonna understand you being different, not everyone's gonna understand ASD and ADHD and this new you who's becoming. And what I found is that I've three people in my life, and they were the they weren't two of them weren't particularly close, and the other one is a very complicated relationship. But what I've noticed is that um they couldn't have got out of there soon enough, to be honest, and I was really surprised because they really were in my inner circle, and there was only five people in it anyway, and three of them have buggered off, they just aren't interested, even though I've said this is happening to me, and this is breakdown as well. I'm in breakdown, I've had diagnoses, I'm needing someone. That's what I've kind of said, um, maybe too subtly, but um I'm in crisis, quite frankly, and the one, the complicated one in particular, I've never I've never experienced anything like it. That I mean, I might as well have said, look, I've got COVID, you know, let me cough all over you. And they're buggered off, completely buggered off, not in just not interested, and I'm really kind of still angry about it, um, because that took a lot for me to say, I'm I need help, I need, I need someone, and for them to go, doors are shut, locked, bugger off out of my life, um, and I don't get it. I don't understand how you can be and let yourself. I I don't know how I could have let myself be so vulnerable, but at some point, as we know, you have to trust. You've got to trust people who you think and you believe are going to be there for you, and then they're not. It's an absolute smack in the face. And for me, one of the cruelest things they could have ever done, to be honest, because they I thought they knew better than that. Um, I remember being, and I didn't realise I was still so upset about it, but I remember being super upset about it initially and really disappointed in them, but there was no way for me to just go, oh sorry, didn't mean that. Delete that last message or delete what I just said, um, uh, you know, and shove it all back in the box again and and go back to masking me. It you can't, you can't. The already I I there's no arrow back, there's no page back, there's no uh copy delete, there's no the eggs are already scrambled. I can't go back to how I was. I remember feeling this, especially after the things I learnt during the breakdown. It it's like you're walking along a road and you don't know what's ahead of you, and if you look behind, you see the road crumbling away into the ether behind you. I cannot turn around and go back and be who you feel I should be. I actually can't. I will keep saying I can't. I can't, I can't. Uh come on, Clare, move on. Oh, I know. Slurp of tea. Hmm. Okay, the

No.5

Clare

next thing I've learned about myself is that I'm proud of myself for daring to be me, but I'm also really proud that I'm advocating for myself. No one else is gonna do it. I'm my own best friend now, especially as who I thought were my best friends have bugged off. I have to learn how to be my own best friend, and as well. And I've talked about this before about how to be your own parent as well. Like I say before, a million times I've said already that I am estranged from my parents and will never go back. Uh, but I am learning how to be my own decent parent. Yeah. So I am not only protecting myself, advocating for myself, supporting myself, uh, self-compassionate. I am also g-ing myself along, you know, like the parent that would say, Oh, Americans say all the time, good job, good job. I'm saying, good job to myself. It irritates me actually. But I think, oh my goodness, those kids have got such an esteem because they've had that input from parents saying, everything you're doing is just blimmin' amazing. I could do with a bit of that. So there's a part of me saying, Well done, Clare, good, good, you're doing it, Clare, you're doing it. When I catch myself talking to myself, I'm very often saying, Come on, you can do it, you're doing it, come on. That's self-parenting.

No.6

Clare

Next thing I've learned, my esteem is recovering. Oh, goodness me, as I learn more about myself, I can feel the change in me, I can feel it. And I also feel like I'm reclaiming me, the bit that was right back there 58 years ago, that got covered up, that got masked, that got, you know, the armour on, if

Why Was I Masking?

Clare

you like. Yeah. Why do I think I was masking? I know exactly why I was masking. I think we all do really. For me, it was about surviving, protecting myself from negative judgment, especially from my parents. I was trying to protect what little esteem I had. I was trying to be, I was trying to protect my identity that I hoped that I had. For example, that I was efficient and I was reliable, really reliable and always on time and and compliant and no badness at all to see here. Uh, I'm a nice person and and I'm really easy to get on with. And do you know why? If I lie down on the floor, you can tread all over me. I'm I'm fine, and then you'll never say a bad word about me, and and uh and and I'll fit in and I'll I'll make lots of friends and people will like me. Oh and lastly to avoid conflict, any conflict, again, PTSD in there, you know, childhood trauma, and it didn't help me, you know. Didn't help me work out who I am because I'm already as a youngster primary school age, I'm already on the back foot. I'm already trying to appease parents, I'm already trying to um protect myself, and you shouldn't have to as a as a young child, and then on top of that, protect myself from a uh perpetrator. Who maybe could see my vulnerability. I've always been someone who's a people pleaser, and I wonder if that essence of me, that aura, that energy in me says, do what you want. I'll say nothing. It's fine, it's probably my fault. I laugh, but not so much when I think of the little girl, you know.

Caused Mental + Physical Harm

Clare

I'll move on because otherwise I'll be choking up. Okay, uh, why am I suspicious that hiding who I really am has caused me mental or physical harm? Hello, breakdown. Uh enough said, six months worth of breakdown. I thought it would be six days. Um I hoped it would be about six weeks, it wasn't. Yeah, so mental breakdown, but um until that moment where I was really slipping quite rapidly into breakdown and then had the diagnosis almost in the two weeks later. Two weeks later, I had been what Kat Brown, it's not a bloody trend, says um, I'd been shape shifting for decades. I love that shape shifting. I couldn't find actually anything in this book. If you do buy this, I couldn't find anything about masking or unmasking or camouflaging specifically. The book is really good, it's a really simple read. It's your best friend, you know why you're reading it. It's a it's a comforting read, it's good, it's brilliant, love it. I'm pretty new, it's 2024. But actually, I unless I didn't mark it up somewhere, I haven't been able to. I mean, I flicked through it and and found the bits that I've highlighted. Nothing there about masking as such, but I think the book itself is talking generally about not being yourself, etc. So it's a good buy if you want to. It's about 15 quid, I think. Anyway, shape shifting for decades. Yeah, I was trying to alter myself depending on who I was with. I was suppressing, suppressing my stimming or movements, I was suppressing my emotional reactions, mirroring, rehearsing, self-monitoring, pretending to be okay. That was huge for me, pretending to be okay. There was a young woman, sorry, at university who got me almost straight away, and it's really bugged me. Yeah, she was on the same course as me, so she's also a counsellor now. And she looked at me, she said, Clare, you always look like you've got a lot going on in your head. I think, oh god, put all the spotlights in the world right on me. I will just slice myself down the middle and just open up my entire soul. And Alex is sitting in there, she's on to me. Uh-oh, she's on to me. Uh yeah, annoying. I didn't go anywhere near her after that. Oh god, she's right. I was offended actually initially, and then I thought, you've got to take on this information. When someone's giving you a clue about yourself, you have to listen. But I did suck on that one like a bitter, sour, sweet for a long time. But she wasn't wrong. Absolutely wasn't wrong. You know, that was the very first moment of me realizing that there is something going on underneath it all. Yeah. Uh, and this Van der Kolk guy, he says that any suppressed emotion or actions don't disappear, they stay within you and they become physical symptoms. It's an energy within you that needs to be expressed in some way healthily. Yeah, he also says the body will hold on to what the mind is trying to push through. And over time, masking can show up as burnout. Hello, burnout, stress, anxiety, shutdowns, or physical pain, for example, back pain or headaches, achiness from tension, IBS, tummy pain, he said, because our bodies know when we're not being ourselves. This is so true. I mean, I can tick all of those. I also looked up the same topic in asper girls, and there's a an interesting phrase there as well. So, specifically then with ASD, people with ASD, uh, females mainly, regarding stimming and and holding that in, uh, the author says there, make sure that you can let it out. If you've held it in all day, make sure that you can let it out at some point, or you'll damage yourself, your nerves, your psyche, and you will diminish your potential for happiness. So she says, stim and smile, smile and stim. It's better for you than smoking. Let it out. Anxiety. Oh gosh, yeah. Anxiety for me. I'm a I'm on meds for it. When we're masking, we're acting differently, and the body is very aware of that. The nervous system knows it, and it's kicking out the adrenaline, the cortisol that it needs for fakery for this status that isn't right. It stays in high alert. And when we're constantly monitoring ourselves and suppressing emotions and our natural responses and impulses to things where we seem like we're calm on the outside because we're trying to appear acceptable, our bodies often experience stress and tension and exhaustion on the inside. Depression for me, yeah. Ever since I don't know, 20, yeah. Lots and lots of meds have been taken over those years. For me as well, weight gain, oh goodness me, um, I've always been pudgy. I've always been squidgy, you know, sometimes less squidgy, sometimes more squidgy, and it's about food. It's a comfort, it's it helps me get through the day if I have felt attacked, if I'm upset emotionally, which hello, a lot of the time. And for me particularly, I've used sugar to re-regulate myself after a tough day. I deserve the treat. Yeah, yeah, it's a toxin, Clare. Work it out. Yeah, I had a chocolate business for 10 years, uh, and I was making the products as well, so I was very comforted in those times, but I am now diabetic and have lost half my teeth. So just saying,

Reminding Myself

Clare

okay, what do I have to remind myself on days, you know, days that are that little bit harder, and I'm thinking, oh, I don't know who I am, I don't know what, I don't know what, and I don't, I'm confused. There's a lot been a lot of confusion. Um I have I have to realise that I'm on a voyage of disc on, let me just take some tea before I kick off on this one. There we go. I don't know why I take such big gulps. I have to remind myself I'm on a voyage of discovery. There's going to be no end point. This is it now. This is how things are going to be. I have to learn and remind myself that I'm transitioning away from what I've been calling version one of myself. The the person I was, the construct of a person who I was for 58 years. She, like I say, the road has fallen away behind me. I can't go back. You can't rewind awareness. I know that this is just moving forward now, realizing I'm I'm in process. Yeah, in process. Being my own supportive parent and friend as well. I have to remind myself that I'm gaining a better grasp on who I actually am. Okay, quick analogy. So about three doors down, okay, they are renovating their house and they haven't done the front yet. They're doing the insides but not the outside. And if I go out, I walk, I walk past it, and their windowsill, and bearing in mind these properties are all 500 plus years old. The windowsills on this thing are huge, yeah, on the outside windowsills, and this windowsill, particularly that I walk past, has has had what looks like about nine coats of gloss or something over the decades, over the hundreds and maybe not hundreds here because we didn't have paint, I don't expect. Um, but there has been a lot of repainting, and I through it, it's all lifted and and flaking, and I I just want to get a little screw, flathead screwdriver under it, just yank it off. It's like beautiful, you know, when your face mask is just lifted, and you think, Oh, I want to pull it, I don't want it. It's like that, and I'm just thinking, instead of repainting over and over and over it, just take it back to its stone, it's how it is supposed to be. Take it right back, get all the shite off of it, scrub it back however you do that. I don't know if it's a wire brush or what, just get right back to the original stone, please. It's original, intended, natural state. I have to realise that I am taking off the layers and getting back to what should have been. Yeah. Uh yeah. I can feel it's already benefiting me, this unmasking stuff. I can feel it, I can feel it in my gut that it's good. You know, it's good. I can feel also that I'm off the kind of bullshit merry-go-round that I was stuck on, and I'm I feel it more every single day. I feel that I'm function functioning. Gosh, I feel that I see I don't talk to people. Any talk to you. I feel that I'm functioning without so much fear, without so much negative self-deprecation, and the need to people please, to please people who don't care about me. And I'm also feeling that I don't have that need to prove myself. I don't have to justify myself. You know, if somebody, if a visitor comes round and they say, Oh, what lovely house you've got, and I don't think, oh god, I must show them round. I really must show them round because um that would be rude not to show them round. I have to show them every single house. Uh I have to show them

Food For Thought Question

Clare

every single room, otherwise they won't believe me how lovely it is. And God's sake, shut up, Clare. Stop it. Anyway, so I have a food for thought question for you. I'm only gonna give you one. So one question, one piece of food for thought, let's say. So, which one am I gonna choose? Yeah, the first one. Here it is. Write it down if you need to. It's not gonna be in by Thursday at 12 o'clock. It's it's uh it's just something for to what's that beautiful phrase? To swim around in your mind until we speak again. And that is who am I when I stop managing how I'm perceived? Who am I when I stop managing how I'm perceived? The windowsill is stone, it's heavy, it's strong, it's natural, it's beautiful. Doesn't need all the layers of paint shite on it. I'm gonna leave you

Quick Recap + End

Clare

with that. So I'd love to hear your stories about your journeys, your experiences of masking and unmasking that I could share and talk about on this podcast. Would be gratefully received. I'm so nosy. I want to know what's going on out there, what's your experience? I suppose that's the maybe the counsellor in me. What's going on for you right now? I want to know that. So don't forget, it's Clare@ actualisingwoman.co.uk. That would be my email address. It's also in the description. The next episode is going to be about a support network, and you might want to um kind of get working on that if you're just starting out in your excuse me, itchy ear, if you're just starting out in your unmasking process, because it's important that you have the right people around you, that you have backup. I think it's important to be to be prepared. I talked about it today. Be prepared for people to go, nope, can't deal with that. I'm off. If they do, thank God. That's an interesting piece of information that they've given me. You can't rely on me. Okay, thank you. All right, I get it. I let you go with love, and I will move on and find my people, my tribe. Yeah, it's a bummer, but let them go with love. Okay, all right, food for thought. That question: who am I when I stop managing how I'm perceived? Okay, so have a good think on that. Get a notebook, write it down, scribble it down, always good. Okay, so that's about masking, unmasking, or sometimes called camouflaging. Uh more coming, of course, more coming. I'm gonna dig a little bit deeper because this is a really big part post-diagnosis. It just is. You are changed, I'm changed, it's huge, and it's juicy, you know. Anyway, I'm gonna, as as we say in Wales, or I've heard said in Wales, I'll leave you go now. Untangle that. I'm signing off. You have a great day, and I'll speak to you in the next one. Thanks for listening. Ta-da!