I think I just had a major mental health episode and I discovered some new things about myself I didn’t expect. I unlocked some painful memories and I feel the need to write some of it down. I think there are going to be at least a few people on here who understand. Sorry, I’m ESL so I have a bit of trouble writing long pieces of text. I hope this is not complete gibberish.

It all started a few days ago with me researching OCD. I knew for a long time that I had some OCD tendencies. I’m obsessed with symmetry, powers of two, geometric shapes. I have hand washing compulsions. I tend to doubt my memory a lot. I get physical “itches” if I don’t obey the compulsions. It’s a kind of “stretchy”, “crawling” feeling right beneath my skin. I had these feelings my whole life. I remember being 7 and finding comfort in symmetries of a cube (8 vertices, 8, my favorite number). I remember 5-year-old me turning 360 degrees and then having to “unwind” the spin of his body by spinning back 360 degrees. There are so many memories like that.

I didn’t think about it too deeply before because, honestly, the symptoms aren’t that bad. I learned to cope and silently comply with these urges (scratching both sides of my face simultaneously is an all-time classic). I’m not in a mental health crisis and I don’t need a DSM-5 worthy diagnosis. Sometimes I develop new compulsions, sometimes I would drop the old ones, but it’s all “fine”. My rituals are small, private and manageable. Yeah, I have to wind my watch exactly 8 times, what of it?

My OCD (or whatever you call it, a subclinical OCD-like condition) just feels like a low-level background noise that makes me feel just a tiny bit uncomfortable in my own body. I’m just always a bit neurotic, a bit on edge, a bit too aware of my senses. I was wondering if my OCD was actually affecting more of my life than I previously realized. Maybe with proper treatment, the discomfort would go away? Is it worth the trouble? Maybe it’s like that useless “background app” that does nothing but drains my battery?

That thought about the “battery drain” led me to another thread – masking. This one was truly devastating.

I was always an “odd” kid. I remember I would spend a lot of time day-dreaming, absorbed in my own thoughts. I would create elaborate fantasies in my head or just focus on random small things that I saw. I would draw cubes in my notebooks instead of listening to my teacher – entire voxel worlds, fractals. My “oddness” might not have been too out the ordinary – a lot of kids have rich imaginations and have trouble focusing. But I still felt a bit out of place. It didn’t prevent me from having friends though. I was shy but I was able to socialize okay. I’m not sure if I exhibited any “masking” behavior but I do remember some moments where I was scolded by my teacher for being too extra and having to dial it down. I think I was okay.

The real problems began when I had to change schools. New social environments are very stressful to me to this very day. But to a small child, it was like my whole world has just collapsed. I was forced into this new unfamiliar environment. All these new names to memorize, faces to remember, social cliques to figure out, in-jokes to learn. But I was trying my best – I was slowly building connections, making friends, adapting the best I could. However, at some point kids started noticing that I was “weird”.

I need to switch to the third person now. It’s too painful if I don’t.

That kid was definitely a bit “weird”, no question. His smile was “too wide”, his laughter was “too loud”, his interests were “too obsessive”. The kid didn’t really consider this bullying – there were kids in this school who were REALLY bullied, and he wasn’t one of them. He knew they were just “roasting” a new kid – a little tribal ritual. But that kid still took this to heart. “How can my smile be weird? How can my laugh be too loud?” he thought. It felt like an attack on the very core of his being – his basic, honest, human expressions of pure joy. He felt deeply hurt by this. He was, however, a resilient and clever kid – he came up with an engineering solution to this “problem”. “Okay, if my smile is weird, let me try to force a different smile. If my laugh is too loud, no big deal – let’s dial the volume down. My interests are strange? Whatever, I’ll just stop sharing”

Obviously, this was a futile effort – you can’t please everyone. But the kid tried his best. He kept adapting, he kept “fixing” every new “weird” thing they would notice. Eventually, this process led to him eroding every bit of public-facing “him” that was left. He adopted this emotionless dead-pan façade – it was still “weird” but at least people would leave him alone. He made himself impenetrable, totally unapproachable. He was trying to hide in plain sight. He held to this façade for dear life – it made him feel at least somewhat safe. Letting it slip would often lead to ridicule. He made himself the platonic ideal of “normal”.

But the façade felt very heavy on him. He would come home feeling exhausted. He would constantly pretend to be sick just to get another day to relax in safety of home. He skipped meals because he was afraid to eat in front of other kids. He would hide in remote corners just to get some rest from all the chaos. He would face abuse from his teachers because they though he was dumb due to not wanting to go in front of the class. And yet, day after day, he persisted. He was a brave fighter. He built himself a thick suit of armor to protect his soft, vulnerable interior. I am so proud of him.

The reason why I had to write this in third person is because it felt extra profound to me yesterday, when all the memories were flooding in. I managed to reframe my experience from “me, a weird neurotic kid” to “him, a scared and lonely child”. It allowed me to finally accept him and forgive him for all those years of self-inflicted torture. He really was doing his best. I wish I could give him a hug.

I only now realize it was probably “masking”. It was a torturous, terrifying experience. My mind was in a constant state of flux. I would come to school, sit in class, and just dissociate, not doing anything, just waiting for time to pass. Sometimes I would stand in the corridor frozen in absolute terror, unable to move a single muscle, constantly anticipation what would be the newest “weird” quirk they’d notice – the mask was already too heavy and I didn’t want amend it one more time. I even internalized the mask. I thought I was just a boring person unworthy of social contact.

I somewhat connected my masking to the city of Omelas. My body was trying to maintaining this perfect ideal of a “normal” person at the expense of that poor abused kid in that dark basement. This one might be a bit of a stretch but fuck it!

A few years after this, I had to live with another group of kids for some time. Again, stress from new environment, struggle to fit in, yada yada. These kids were significantly kinder. I managed to have some fun times, make friends, make good memories. I remember one day we were all sitting on and around a big couch. It was a quiet rainy day; the atmosphere was warm and friendly. We were watching a movie and just shooting the shit. Being teenagers. We were basically a big friend group; we would share everything about each other. This would of course involve some light banter. We started talking about things we noticed about each other – endearing things, quirks. At some point it was my turn. They noticed how “odd” I was. My smile was unusual, I spoke too quietly, my interests were… obsessive. They didn’t mean to offend, they were just telling me I was really cute. But to me it still felt like a personal attack. My smile, my perfectly engineered, completely “normal” smile was unusual??? It made me realize masking was a losing battle. I could perfectly mold myself to the exact expectations of the exact social circle I needed to fit in, but someone out there would still think I’m “weird”. It was devastating to hear this from my friends. At that point, it felt like it was easier to completely withdraw from society. But I think it taught a valuable lesson – give less of shit about what everyone thinks, just a little bit.

Things gradually got better however. I was growing up. I was getting an education in a field I liked. I’ve gotten a job I actually enjoyed. I really liked becoming an adult. My best experiences during childhood were always talking to adults. Adults were different – they weren’t tribal, they wouldn’t immediately jump to judgement, they wouldn’t mock you if they found something about you “weird”. Becoming an adult felt like a very euphoric experience. Unlike kids, adults aren’t as cruel. I was finally free.

The mask is still there but it has now shifted into a “quiet but friendly nerd” persona. Yes, it’s a persona now. I think it suits me well. It sets expectations – people don’t expect a computer guy to be a social savant. They understand that we tend to be quiet. They don’t find it weird when I seem to have a massive amount of knowledge on a specific topic – it is expected from an expert. I think the normalization of “the nerd” in society is such a great thing. I like when people immediately assume I can fix their computer (I can and I will!). I like when some lady asks me how to save word to pdf. I like when someone asks me my opinion on “AI”. It all feels almost “normal”. Almost.

The scars are still there. My smile is still different, I still talk too quietly, I’m still somewhat afraid of sharing my passions. It’s all involuntary, it’s now deeper than psychology.

The one thing I still definitely struggle with the most is social contact. Small talk seems to be a particular enemy of mine. I have some colleagues who just like to come to me and talk about their day. I like these people, I respect them. But that “small talk” thing just feels deeply perplexing to me. Whenever I’m interrupted from work by a colleague, my mind enters into this almost “fight-or-flight” mode. I’m sitting there, smiling, keeping an eye contact, saying “damn that’s crazy”, and yet my mind is almost in a state of panic. This should be a nice relaxing moment for me, but my brain is demanding to end this immediately and get back to work. I can almost feel the radiation from my monitors burning a hole in the back of my head. I feel really bad about it too. This person is being nice and friendly, they are sharing their little slice of life with me. I should be listening to this person and yet my mind is always somewhere else.

This “somewhere else” feeling keeps haunting me. I still often have to pretend to smile, to laugh, to be interested in a conversation. I feel numb. My mind is just “out there”. I’ve been trying to teach myself to enjoy these little moments of socialization. I’m trying to give myself permission to have fun. After all, it was the exact thing “that kid” desperately craved, and now I want to make him proud.

I think I need to address the elephant in the room: am I just autistic? I considered this for a long time. I even briefly self-identified as autistic, but it never sat quite right with me. I relate to so many things with autistic people – hyper sensitivity to external stimuli, intense hyper obsessive episodes, trouble understand the “social game”. I didn’t want to take on this label without fully “deserving” it. After all, I was able to build a functional life. I didn’t want to seem like a “fraud”. There are some real brave troopers out there, and I didn’t want to steal their valor. But I think my “masking” revelation was the final piece of the puzzle. I don’t intend to pursue a proper clinical diagnosis. I don’t want to go through the hell of medical system just to get my official “autism certificate” – maybe that’s very autistic of me.

I researched how autistic community views self-identification and it seems to be a well-accepted practice.

I will now invoke this right.

I will give myself permission to belong.

I am autistic.