Hi.
Today I'm going to tell a game we did in class, but left me wondering how I could feel so good while doing just a "character" for everyone else.
As we're going to work in a psychiatric with people diagnosed with way different disorders, our teacher likes to play games that will make us face some random situations for when we will be in the units for developing some skills before the real thing.
Today's game was becoming an unit composed by blind, deaf, mobility disabled, Schizophrenia, depressed, etc, people and two classmates where the "animators". My character was the only deaf, so I had to put on my headphones (nothing unusual) and play music really loud so I simulated how a deaf person feels. Still, they shouted so freaking loud I could listen to some explanations so it was hard to remain clueless.
Said this, my classmates had to propose an activity and I kept in silence, playing with my fingers (really stimming in here and I didn't feel out of place so my sense of satisfaction was high). One of them approached to me and understood I was deaf so she wrote in a paper what I had to do. Then, the other one came, but didn't really get I wasn't hearing so I kind of helped her because I saw how some people was getting too much into character.
I started to paint a cat, over the rooftop of a house, looking at the moon with a leaveless tree embracing the whole picture. I didn't have to force myself to laugh, I didn't have to force myself to fit into the group and understand the dozens of things that may happen and be said in one second, I just had to keep drawing, with music, muted and stimming all I wanted with the stuff around, with my fingers, with moving slightly my limbs like clapping my hands.
To be honest, if I had lived that without my character, without my headphones, without stimming, I would have suffered a serious sensory overload. My classmates became a wild jungle, shouting, fighting, insulting, just as the characters, but even the teacher had to stop them because it was damn too much. Luckily, I didn't notice even half of what happened around.
Analyzing myself back then, I think I did the opposite of everyone else there. My classmates got into a character, but I got out of my daily character and became myself. And it felt incredibly satisfactory. I have no words to describe how happy I was, I didn't have to smile to prove its level, just how relaxed my brain was for ten minutes proved me how unmasking feels like.
However, I did notice the degree of stimming I need and how incompatible it is with a NT's daily life. It felt like that perfect dream you want to sleep in your whole life but need to wake up eventually. So I just want to take it as a small chance to understand myself a bit better and get some ideas of how I can keep unmasking progressively. Maybe someday I will learn who I truly am.
Thanks for reading.
Tomoya 17/05/2022 9:26 PM
Today I'm going to tell a game we did in class, but left me wondering how I could feel so good while doing just a "character" for everyone else.
As we're going to work in a psychiatric with people diagnosed with way different disorders, our teacher likes to play games that will make us face some random situations for when we will be in the units for developing some skills before the real thing.
Today's game was becoming an unit composed by blind, deaf, mobility disabled, Schizophrenia, depressed, etc, people and two classmates where the "animators". My character was the only deaf, so I had to put on my headphones (nothing unusual) and play music really loud so I simulated how a deaf person feels. Still, they shouted so freaking loud I could listen to some explanations so it was hard to remain clueless.
Said this, my classmates had to propose an activity and I kept in silence, playing with my fingers (really stimming in here and I didn't feel out of place so my sense of satisfaction was high). One of them approached to me and understood I was deaf so she wrote in a paper what I had to do. Then, the other one came, but didn't really get I wasn't hearing so I kind of helped her because I saw how some people was getting too much into character.
I started to paint a cat, over the rooftop of a house, looking at the moon with a leaveless tree embracing the whole picture. I didn't have to force myself to laugh, I didn't have to force myself to fit into the group and understand the dozens of things that may happen and be said in one second, I just had to keep drawing, with music, muted and stimming all I wanted with the stuff around, with my fingers, with moving slightly my limbs like clapping my hands.
To be honest, if I had lived that without my character, without my headphones, without stimming, I would have suffered a serious sensory overload. My classmates became a wild jungle, shouting, fighting, insulting, just as the characters, but even the teacher had to stop them because it was damn too much. Luckily, I didn't notice even half of what happened around.
Analyzing myself back then, I think I did the opposite of everyone else there. My classmates got into a character, but I got out of my daily character and became myself. And it felt incredibly satisfactory. I have no words to describe how happy I was, I didn't have to smile to prove its level, just how relaxed my brain was for ten minutes proved me how unmasking feels like.
However, I did notice the degree of stimming I need and how incompatible it is with a NT's daily life. It felt like that perfect dream you want to sleep in your whole life but need to wake up eventually. So I just want to take it as a small chance to understand myself a bit better and get some ideas of how I can keep unmasking progressively. Maybe someday I will learn who I truly am.
Thanks for reading.
Tomoya 17/05/2022 9:26 PM
