Healing out loud… Removing the mask

3 cats cuddling, Hazel a tortoiseshell curled up on the left, snickerdoodle, orange, stretched out in the middle, and Toothless curled into a little black ball of fluff on the right. With the title, Healing out loud, Step 1 - Removing the mask.

A major part of my healing journey will be spent figuring out (and sharing freely) how to remove the mask I spent 32 years blindly building and perfecting thinking that was my personality. I have joined SOOO many facebook groups and bought soooo many books trying to figure this out. I’ve also asked myself and seen it asked 100s of times in said groups.

“I just got diagnosed with autism… how do I remove the mask so I can get out of burnout?”

Or adhd, or audhd, or whatever kind of masking helped caused your mid/early/ or even late life burnout…

No one seems to know the answer. At least not in a way they can clearly state it for us. Maybe I won’t be able to either, but I’m done doubting myself in this life. I’m going to see what happens when I just try. This isn’t going to be an instant answer for any of us, but if you’ll join me in the process maybe you’ll make some progress too along the way.

It may seem counter-intuitive that I’m “removing my mask” while not actively revealing who I am. If you know me IRL of course then you know who I am because I’m posting my business to all my personal socials. But if you found me from one of my posts then you’ll only know what’s on the site. If this takes off like I’m intending then I still want the hope of a little privacy in my life. I struggle with being observed. Always have even though I’ve built a pretty heavily “seen” life for myself as a bartender. I’m hoping that living completely authentically can free me from this uncomfortable existence finally.

I have so many privileges that so many people in this world can only dream of, so I’m going to take advantage of them for all of our sakes to see what happens. I’ve already started making drastic life changes, but I’m definitely not done yet! Thanks to the efforts and perseverance I have put in through my life I have 2 jobs that are understanding of my illnesses and let me have pretty free control of my own schedule and life. I do the work I can do, when I can, and it’s usually enough if not extra. One of them kind of has to be, to be fair, since I am the boss… but nothing in life is set in stone, the owners could fire me tomorrow and try to figure it out for themselves. It’s also not set in stone because I have a feeling my body is actively revolting against it. It’s the life I built for the mask… not for myself. The more I find myself, the more wobbly that foundation feels. But I still LOVE it so much… I feel torn in two right now honestly.

So if you read the last blog, you have a decent idea how the last year and half has looked for me medically, so now I’m gonna fill you in on some of the changes I’ve made that have helped me over the last year or so… and then next time we will revisit my childhood together and try to figure out WHERE/WHEN the mask started. Which could be tricky considering I don’t necessarily remember all that much of it. But the more memories I have been able to trigger, the more that seem to come back. So I’m hoping writing it all out for you will also assist me with the processing of it.

In May ‘25 I bought my house out of the lease-to-own contract I’d been fighting for years. I started working on turning it into a home that I actually enjoyed being in, not just somewhere I lived. I needed a safe place to exist away from humans and observation. I had spent the last 6 years in a pretty codependent relationship and just having the space to myself made me feel like I could finally breathe again. The codependency was as much on me as them, even when I knew space would help me I couldn’t give them the space I needed. That was my starting point for healing. I had to figure out why I was like that, and how I could prevent other people's emotions from deciding the tone of my day to day life. 

Of course this is when therapist #1 disappeared… so I was on my own.

I stopped saying yes to socializing just because I felt obligated, or because I would feel bad receiving a NO from the other end. I stopped watching social media to see what I was “missing”. I bought plants and happily played in the dirt like a little kid to my heart's content. I also killed a lot of those plants… cause flairs happen even before diagnosis. But that also helped me learn to accept that it's the cycle of life. If we are too hard on ourselves it only holds us back from all the beautiful things we could be experiencing instead of focusing on the negative right in front of us.

I had tried having plants many times in my life but always killed them seemingly instantly, to the point I just thought they weren’t in the cards for me. But now I have many that have been with me for over a year now and they are THRIVING. We figured each other out, they understand when I’m dying and wait patiently for me to water them instead of throwing a fit and giving up on everything. And I learned the earliest signs of them needing water, so I could hopefully get them before the flair hit. I needed to learn to be more like them in the rest of my life.

Clover, a fluffly black long haired cat.

I also adopted a kitten, to go with the two cats and 3 dogs I already had. And then in December I adopted 2 more…

3 kittens… 2 cats… and 3 dogs… with chronic illnesses, while managing 2 bars, another job, and a whole life ahead of me to handle alone. And then I started this business.

Everyone thought I was crazy. I thought I was crazy! But Clover, Hazel, and Snickerdoodle all help remind me EVERY SINGLE DAY to just be my weird crazy eccentric self. Clover has helped me with boundaries because he is SO FLUFFYYY but does NOT like to be held. Snickerdoodle is always there when I’m down and LOVES to cuddle and be picked up whenever I want. And Hazel has taken it upon herself to YELL at me to cuddle with her when I need to rest but am in go mode. And who could say no to that beautiful face?!

Hazel, a black and orange tortoiseshell kitten, cuddling with her brother, Snickerdoodle, an orange kitten.

I haven’t felt an ounce of regret yet. Just healing and unconditional love that I haven’t really ever FELT from humans if I’m being honest. This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten a cat to help me heal either… I did it when I was 11 too.

Maybe my receptors are screwy on receiving other’s love the way they intend it. But I know they aren’t broken, because I have felt love. Because I’m not broken. Just different. I love differently so why wouldn’t I also receive love differently? I always KNEW I was different, and I tried for years to understand why, and how exactly I was different. And let me tell you…

THIS WORLD IS CONFUSING!

Just about anything you go through you can go online and find soooooo many people going through just about the same thing. But it’s still made out to be weird? Or like you’re less than because of this thing. Why? We are all just trying to exist and understand ourselves a little bit, damn.

I’m doing what I need to do for myself whatever that may end up being. It doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else. It doesn’t need to look pretty either. Because the only person who it SHOULD matter to is ME. I hope you’ll join me on this journey that’s been my life so far. And if you’ve been a part of it you may find yourself mentioned. I may talk about things you didn’t necessarily want to share with the world. I will not say names… but I also won’t hold back important details if they are relevant to my healing and growth.

I’m sorry if this triggers a negative emotion in you, but I’m not sorry for speaking my truth. I will do it from as healed of a perspective as possible as that is the GOAL of this whole thing.

I am trying to see how the seemingly negative experiences of my life may have actually been setting me up for and onto this path I plan to take forward now. If you still have an issue with what I talk about please take this as an opportunity to do some introspection about why you are triggered by me sharing these events. What part of yourself have you not accepted yet? What part of yourself are you not only lying to yourself about… but ultimately the whole world? 

Because I always thought I was a bad liar… until I realized I didn’t even know who I was anymore.

Then if you want to go a step further, you could try asking yourself why you reacted in that moment the way you did. What trauma response of your own have you not yet worked through that may have lead to your actions or response?

And if you’re just here reading along you could also ask yourself those questions as you move through your life after this. And that will hopefully help you start to learn the edges of your own mask. It’s not a fun process, tears will be shed, but NOT BEING TRIGGERED in the first place is a whole new world let me tell you.

If you need something to call me for this adventure you might as well go with Khaos. Cause I’ve embraced it my whole life so there’s no need to stop now that I’m taking back control!