The Autistic Writer: Personas and Masks

tyunglebower ♦ August 30, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

People on the Autism Spectrum will often talk of “masking.” I myself have mentioned it several times in this series, but I’ll explain it in brief once more.

When someone with Autism masks, they are presenting a personality, state of being, attitude, or even an opinion that runs contrary to their nature in order to get along better in their environment. It can be a mask we place on ourselves with intent, or we may find that we are masking subconsciously at one point as a built in “survival” mechanism. Of course, as with so many other aspects of ASD, masking can represent a mixture of both, depending on any number of factors.

There are several masks I have worn on purpose in my life that I have worked on removing since my diognosis as Autistic. Plenty of the masking came about however without me even knowing it, and that is the hardest to get past. In some ways the mask hides me from myself, and certain things that are very much me om a deeper level are dismissed, or at least cautioned against by my intellectual side.

This dichotomy effects my life as an author in a number of ways.

I wouldn’t call my true self a marshmallow, so to speak. Certain amounts of distance, even coldness depending on the situation are in fact authentic. However, I feel that I am at my roots more placid of spirit than I appear. Less cynical than I project. Not a Teddy Bear, but perhaps a Kermit the Frog. Imaginative, whimsical, gentle as needed, but with the capacity to be annoyed if pushed. Healthy realism, but embracing magic.

I feel I project all intellect, all guarded semi-stoicism.

This wouldn’t surprise me; as a victim of bullying as a child, as well as total dismissal as a young adult, no wonder the childlike qualities within my soul become wrapped in a psychological cocoon I only recently realized I had constructed.

The result on the surface is a persona as an author that at times I fear doesn’t match most of the material I write. And by persona I don’t mean a total act, even if the public part of being an author requires a bit more polish than the private aspects. A persona when meeting readers, say, or doing book signings, or making videos talking about my latest work. The themes I tend to explore, and the feeling I wish to convey in my readers with most of my work could use a bit more of Kermit.

Naturally, an author’s work can’t always be a reflection of what they are, or we’d never have horror or murder mystery genres. But consider that Stephen King, for all his issues, is not a murderer. Yet he absolutely projects the sort of person that writes the books that bear his name.

Human imagination, and the awe it inspires in ourselves, and those around us, especially young people, is to me second only to human rights in the most vital aspects of being alive, and require a zealous defense. I am a proponent of wonder, and I like to believe my fiction tends to reflect that.

My TikTok videos on the other hand? My conversation about writing in groups? These weekly essays?  They cling to a certain cynicism, a subtle doubt and at times a minor bite that is more my mask than myself—a mask I’ve worn so long for such reasons I cannot simply cease to wear it.

Does my fiction itself do a better job? If I may be allowed to assess my own work, I will say, yes, it does. My stories may at times fall a few yards short of the warmth I hope to convey, or the depth of imagination I aim to invoke. It’s a big, heavy mask, after all, and it will drip every now and then into the work in ways I may not notice right off.

The good news is that the work hits the mark more often than the man does at present. This may make for complicated, exhausting marketing efforts. It will also hopefully make for fiction that inspires. That’s why my tagline is “I shift the everyday a few inches.”

I ask you to give my work a try sometime, and you can be the judge.