I got quite lucky with my current team where I think they’re all about as neuro divergent as me. We act like goofballs all day in person where I go blah blah blah blah all day and prance around the room.

Before my mask was generally perceived as either shy and quiet (I’m not) or some weird demonic evil creep who looks angry all the time (i wasn’t my face just looks like that). The latter one hurt me a lot which further enforced keeping that mask on because showing who i really was most people just deemed as weird and obnoxious. I’m actually convinced neurotypical people genuinely desire to see me unhappy for some reason. My own mum told me she thought i was going to grow up to be a serial killer and likened me to the character Kevin in “lets talk about kevin” (i cry when i accidentally step on a bug).

But generally i opted to just be quiet and not say or do anything because I’m terrible at lying or acting.