29 May 2025 6 min read

You Seemed Fine Before: Why Unmasking Isn’t a Sudden Change

There’s a phrase that keeps finding its way to me lately—sometimes from friends, sometimes from family, always from people who think they’re offering comfort:

“You seemed fine before.”
“You were really killing it.”

And I get why they say that. My mask was convincing.

Most people only ever saw me in brief, curated slivers of time. I could always hold it together for a few hours here and there—spend some time at work, small talk at a family dinner, passing conversations in the hallway. They saw the smile, the nods, the composure. They didn’t see what came after.

They didn’t see the meltdowns that came when I got home, the shutdowns I couldn’t explain, the hours I spent trying to breathe through a brain that never quieted down. They didn’t hear the internal noise, the second-guessing, the sensory chaos disguised as stillness and coolness.

I never let people see behind the mask. Not really. Because if they saw the full picture—how emotional I could be, how sensitive, how overwhelmed—I was afraid they’d disappear. Who would want to talk to someone so different, so complicated, so much?

The truth is, I wasn’t okay. I was just convincing. Sometimes I’m not even sure how convincing, to be honest.

Wearing the mask feels a lot like being buried alive. You’re quiet. You’re composed. You’re still. But you’re suffocating under the weight of what you’re not allowed to show.

Unmasking isn’t me becoming someone new.
It’s me clawing my way to the surface.

What I Wish People Understood

Unmasking isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about revealing what was always there—what I was too afraid, too exhausted, or too conditioned to show.

For a long time, I played the part people needed me to play. I mirrored. I adapted. I smiled through overstimulation, laughed at confusion, and shrank myself into what was expected.

And it worked—for them. Not for me.

People praised the mask. They called me easygoing, composed, dependable. But that version of me was curated. Strained. A walking performance with a smile pinned to its face.

So no, I haven’t changed. I’ve stopped pretending. I don’t know if it was intentional, or if my body simply will not allow me to keep being so out of sync with myself.

I’m still the same loving, loyal, compassionate, and curious person I always have been. Maybe more of that can shine through now, without this exhausting mask—including the masculine features I could care less about. I’m sound in my gender, but I don’t subscribe to the idea that colors or behavior should classify someone as any particular gender.

If I seem more sensitive now, it’s because I’m no longer numbing myself for your comfort.
If I seem more tired, it’s because masking was draining me dry—and I’ve only now started to rest. I ignored it for decades, and unfortunately, it’s a toll that needs to be paid.
If I seem different, it’s because you’re finally seeing the parts I’ve always hidden.

I get that it might feel unfamiliar. It does to me too. This version of me may seem harder to connect with—I communicate differently. But I still want connection. Just not the filtered kind. I want something real, something intimate, something honest.

This isn’t a new personality. It’s simply the truth on display.

This is the truth trying to breathe.

And if it feels like a loss to you, imagine what it felt like for me—carrying the weight of that mask alone for years.

The Emotional Cost

Masking doesn't just wear you down. It erodes you—like a waterfall slowly carving away the earth beneath it.

It chips away at your energy, your identity, your sense of self, until all that’s left is a hollow shell.

When you mask for years—decades—you begin to lose track of where the performance ends and the real person begins. You say the right things, even when they don’t feel right. You nod along, even when your brain is screaming for silence. You smile, even when you’re collapsing inside.

And when people praise you—“You’re so strong,” “You’re so easygoing”—it doesn’t feel like a compliment. It feels like confirmation that the mask is working. That the performance is what they value.

Behind closed doors, the cracks show. The meltdowns. The shutdowns. The obsessive mental rewinds that play every night promptly at 2 AM PST for at least 3 hours. The shame. The guilt. The exhaustion.

You become a ghost in your own body. Alive, but absent. Present, but not quite you.

One of the hardest parts to explain is the emotional suppression. How deeply you have to bury your reactions just to be accepted. How many times you’ve swallowed the lump in your throat or blinked away overstimulation like it was nothing. Eventually, that twisted face you're covering starts to peer through the mask—and people do catch a glimpse, but they chalk it up to a bad day.

When you live like that long enough, grief sets in—not just over what you endured, but over what you lost in the process:

The grief of not knowing who you were.
The grief of wondering if you even have the time to find yourself.
The grief of realizing how often you abandoned your own needs just to feel safe.
The grief of thinking, for most of your life, that you were too much.

And then you go to sleep—if you can—and do it all again the next day.

That’s what “fine” looked like.
That’s the cost of being palatable.

Why I’m Doing This Anyway

Some people see unmasking as a collapse. Some may think I’m giving a big FU to life.

But it isn’t falling apart.
It’s the slow, aching rebuild of a self I never got to be.

I didn’t stop masking because life got easier. I stopped because my body no longer allows me to. I’m too tired. Buried. Asphyxiated. My brain faintly whispering, you don’t have to keep disappearing to be loved.

Unmasking isn’t a glow-up. It’s not a soft montage with soothing music and affirmations.

It’s raw. It’s jagged. It’s peeling back the layers you wore for survival and hoping—desperately—that there’s something human, something lovable underneath.

It’s choosing truth over performance.
It’s learning to breathe in your own skin, even when it hurts.
It’s facing silence where applause used to be—and realizing silence can be beautiful, too.

And it’s brave.
So unbelievably brave.

Because the mask made me easier to be loved.
But it also made me invisible.

I don’t want to vanish anymore.

So I will risk discomfort.
I will risk misunderstanding.
I will risk being too much.

Not for attention. Not for rebellion.
But because the cost of being palatable is my own self.
And I want to sit with, hear, and love that self.

I have a story to tell. And when this burnout loosens its grip, I hope to help others in the autistic community—those who want support, validation, and love—feel less alone in this world.

What I’d Like You to Know

If you’ve known me for a long time, and you’re confused by who I seem to be now, I want to say this gently:

I haven’t become someone new.
I’ve just stopped hiding.

The version of me you remember—the calm, easygoing one, always agreeable, always “fine”—that version was real. But it wasn’t the whole truth.

That version was trying so hard to be accepted that it forgot how to feel safe.

If I seem more emotional now, it’s because I’m finally letting myself feel.
If I seem more withdrawn, it’s because I’m still learning what it means to rest without guilt.
If I speak differently, it’s because I’m trying to use my own voice—not the one I thought you needed me to have.

This isn’t about rejecting you.
It’s about finally choosing me.

A Question for You

If you’ve ever been told, “You seemed fine before,”
or if you’ve told someone else that—

What do you think “fine” really meant?
And who gets to decide when someone’s allowed to be real?

Thank you for reading. If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts—or feel free to share it with someone who may need to hear they’re not alone in this.