"My husband is the only person who's seen me unmasked" | Inside Our Autistic Minds

I'm so happy to see a woman represented in this show 💖 I was just diagnosed AuDHD at 33, 6 months ago, and I've masked my entire life. I've struggled with so many things, and having an answer, even after this long, has changed everything for me. There's too many of us women who have been lost in the system, our struggles ignored because we didn't fit the stereotype of the little autistic boy obsessed with trains. I hope this will help give us a voice

Wish more people felt like they could be themselves around people without being judged we would see a lot of funny and unique people

04:50 omg this. This is how I’ve always described it. It feels like everyone else was born with a handbook on how to live life the right way and I just wasn’t

It's wonderful to see autistic stories told by autistic people. I feel we're in a period of change and growing awareness. It's long overdue. I'm late-diagnosed autistic and when I realised, and later had it professionally confirmed, it was life-changing. It really is like we have lived with the wrong operating manual and so blamed ourselves when things didn't go right. Now I have the right operating manual and life is so much better, much happier, much safer. Identity and community matter and it takes awareness and representation to guide people. It's life-saving a lot of times. The thing with masking is yes it is protective, but it can come at a big cost to wellbeing and self esteem. It's not always voluntary, sometimes it's about safety. As autistic people we've all lived through a lot of invalidation, criticism, and usually significant distress. Autistic people deserve a lot better. It starts with understanding, and for the majority of the public that means realising that most of what you know is likely to be wrong. Misconceptions are widespread. Listen to those who live it.

This is so me. For as long as I can remember I've done masking behaviours. So much so that it catches me off guard if I accidentally find myself in the moment in social situations. I remember hating looking people in the eye as a child. It would make me incredibly stressed, like their eyes were piercing into me. Instead, I would look at their noses and would be very fascinated by different nose shapes. Because you know, I spent a lot of my time looking at them. I still hate it. But I've developed a routine of "ok, I've looked away for too long now, time to look into their eyes again so they don't think I'm being weird." And also forced hms and ahs, when people talk, because otherwise people have in the past thought I wasn't listening, and then they start asking if I'm listening, and that's a whole another unpleasant and stressful interaction. For my whole life, I just had this overwhelming feeling of there being something wrong with me. Constantly asking myself "is this how you're supposed to do this? Is this what "normal" people would do in this situation?" and constantly feeling like I was failing at a race I didn't understand the rules of. Only now, at the age of 30, am I starting to learn more about my brain, how it works, how to work WITH my brain and not against it; and that there isn't anything wrong with me, never was, I'm just not neurotypical, with the help of my therapist. Sounds simple, but I really wish someone had told me sooner! xD

Please put the full episode. I really need to see this .

Wow. My partner was the one that suggested i had autism. And after a couple years and a professional diagnosis, they were completely right. I relate to Flo so much, i feel like my partner is the only human in the world who has seen true unmasked, me. And even then there is a small 5 percent masking that happens because of fear. Feeling misunderstood and lost and walking around everyday with that camouflage on is definitely debilitating and exhausting

I wish I could be my authentic self with my parents because authenticity is the root of any strong, real relationship. But whenever I dared to be, I was systematically judged as too sensitive, too aggressive, too picky, too rebellious, too much of a dreamer, too lazy, too selfish, too limited in my interests (such as learning the language of the Romany people at 23 and graduating in Romany and Romanian) and I felt so unloved and inadequate that masking has become a survival strategy and I spent the last 25 years of my life exhausting myself to show a good facade. Now at 48, I know I will always mask with them, we have built a superficial relationship but I suppose they think they have the real me in front of them, or at least they prefer that one, even if she is dull most of the time, but dull with a smile. I, on the other hand, feel like an orphan.

When I saw her stood up on stage in front of people I was stunned!! I couldn't dream of doing that! Flo is better at masking than me.

Please make the episodes available for non-UK users ❤️🙏🏼

Hi, I´m Spanish and unfortunately I can´t watch the BBC from here. My son is autistic and I´m extremely interested in the series. Hope you upload more videos. Thank you.

I've lived most of my adult life as a loner unable to mix with others out of extreme anxiety in social situations. I never thought I was damaged I always thought I was just shy. It wasn't till a friend I look into autism and aspergers that the penny finally dropped and at 45 I realised I'd got aspergers. I've coped most of my life hiding behind a face I put on to appear normal and it wasnt till I saw this program that I realised I did this and that masks are something people with aspergers use to cope

Such an important topic and valuable content! He seem to really want to help people and bring more awareness. So when can we outside of the UK watch this? I'd easily pay a little something to watch this legally 🙏🏼 I self-diagnosed (AuDHD) 2021 and doing an assessment now (my second, last one was done very wrongly) and this is valuable. I definitely relate and it's only now after understanding this about myself that I can open up more to my parents. And they open up more about their own struggles which makes us more close as a family, slowly but surely. I'm about to turn 34 now so it's taken awhile, despite being in the psych system for almost my entire adulthood. So this is important to me aswell that more people can understand themselves. Or we're going to continue to lose people who can't take it anymore. Which I fully understand. Please make this documentary available for the world, it could save lives ❤️

5:03 thank you Chris, you’re awesome. this gave me some hope for the future. thank you.

I am so happy to be here for this! I discovered like 2 months ago! And now the BBC is talking about it!!! What luck!!!

Seeing the two of you, I'm here stimming which I normally don't do when I'm alone.

She is beautiful!

very good ... a real truth in both of them ...

Are there a lot of people who don't feel fake having that kind of small talk? I mean everyone follows the social script there, don't they. That's why these conversations are so formulaic.

All power and happiness to both of them.....but everyone learns rules of small talk and other social interactions and nobody knows anyone else fully.