Hello. For context, I am in a university. I do not have any friends, and it feels like colleagues talk bad about me. This makes me quite hesitant to join any circles or attend seminars. I am not sure it is everyone who thinks bad about me though, I fear about asking. Yet I plan to do research, so I should attend seminars to learn current trends and stuffs. May I ask what I should do in such a situation? Are friends necessary, or not really? Also should I stop being in this environment and get a job instead? Thanks for reading lengthy paragraph, I would love any comments or advice for this.
Can confirm. This is my entire life.
Might be time to do a little research my friend.
The extremely oversimplified and short version of it is, a trauma mask is something that kicks in automatically to protect you. Autistic masking is a form of trauma masking and it is fully automatic and usually not known to the person that they are doing it. We learn the skills to get through most normal social situations, but beyond that there is little development. So we do all the neurotypical things to blend in and it works until people realize that it’s fake, and then they feel like they’ve been deceived and they don’t like us.
The fix for this is, as you go on a journey of self-discovery and learn how to stop masking you will present yourself as your authentic self, and attract the right kind of friends. It is a difficult journey, and especially because almost always we don’t realize that we’re doing it at all. I don’t know if you believe that your neurodivergent or autistic, but I also believe that there are other neurotypes that are able to trauma mask similarly to autistic masking. You may find good company in an autistic community because they will understand how that works. There’s also something oddly comforting knowing that you’re in a group of “weird” people and it will help you get your real self out.
I am by no means an expert on this but I found out that I am autistic after over 30 years of living on this earth. Everything before that was fueled by masking and it has currently become the new most interesting thing that I know of. If I can help with advice or information, or if I can help by just listening, feel free to shoot me a DM!