Acting and Masking

About 20 years ago, I got my first job at a bakery in my hometown, I didn’t really need to work but I liked the feeling of making my own money. I was a shy and quiet kid and was trying to break out of that as a teenager, but it didn’t always go well, especially in new environments. As you can imagine, you can’t really be shy or quiet when you are taking orders in a busy café for coffees, pastries, or lunch. About a month or so into the job, my boss at the time told me that if I did not become more outgoing, she would have to fire me.

Of course, I was devastated. I cried, I don’t really remember crying but remembering my teenage self I know I cried. I remember the feeling of rejection and hurt over 20 years after the fact. I felt like I was not enough; I was trying hard to learn the job and do well, but they were potentially going to fire me! How could that not hurt? Firing equals failing right and I could not fail.

I had started taking acting classes at 8 years old and enjoyed becoming different characters on a stage. It was a little reprieve from being “a little weird” (aka undiagnosed autistic girl). Once I got to high school, the drama club was the only place I wanted to be.  I distinctly remember thinking something along the lines of “well if I could act on a stage, I certainly could use a character persona to be more outgoing at this job.”

So, I developed an outgoing character.

Around the same time, I was consistently told I was “too sensitive,” probably because I cried a lot. Well maybe not a lot, just too often for what was deemed “acceptable.” It just happened to be what my body did whenever I  experienced a negative emotion; anger, sadness, rejection, confusion, sometimes even physical pain caused tears. I still don’t understand why crying is considered bad, other than the fact that society tends to be wildly uncomfortable around people who cry. It’s a healthy way of releasing emotion and almost everyone cries!

Anyway, I wanted to learn how to change or overcome the perception of being too sensitive. Oddly, I remember being at the state theater competition and watching one of the other towns perform Bang, Bang You’re Dead by William Mastrosimone. While I remember almost nothing about the play, I do remember the chorus chanting “make your face a mask, a mask to hide your face, a face that hides the pain.” After looking up the play, I feel like the context of the chant is much more sinister than my 16-year-old brain registered. But something in my brain went “That’s it!  You need to make your face a mask and hide what you feel, or you’ll never fit in.” Maybe it wasn’t that exactly, but you get the point. All I wanted was to fit in.

Blurry photo of me from the state theater competition

I chanted that chorus in my head for years to hide my discomfort and sadness. I masked. I hid. I was afraid that if I let myself be seen, people wouldn’t like me. I mean I had the years of failing to make new friends at school to prove that I was unlikable. I learned to live my life as constantly slipping into different characters that fit the situation.

Anyway, these are the two times that I remember actively creating a mask for myself. And they happened within months of each other.  I remember times when I was younger tweaking little things about myself to be more acceptable. I was able to adapt my special interests as I aged. Fitting in was always the priority but what if I was meant to stand out?

Now that I am in my thirties I have a group of amazing friends, many of whom are also neurospicy. I’m grateful that a few people did see me throughout my life beyond the masks and the insecurity and remain in my life today from almost all phases of my life. I was officially diagnosed this summer and with it has come a revelation around self-acceptance and trying to undo some of the mechanisms I had in place to be seen as acceptable rather than accepting myself. I think I’m getting ready to stand out and finally accept I will only “fit in” with the right people otherwise I end up contorting myself into a person that is too uncomfortable to be sustainable.

Me and the dog a few weeks ago

Finding your people really makes all the difference

Finally, I still love acting but have a lot of trouble with it. I find it hard to unravel who I am from who I thought I needed to be. Which then turns into over analyzing characters in my head and  not being able to put myself in the character’s shoes.  I guess this comes full circle by realizing acting (and life) shouldn’t involve making your face a mask but living in the present and being vulnerable. Maybe if we all leaned into our vulnerability the world would be a nicer place.