A Mask They Put On: The Me Nobody Knows
Five of five in a series for the undiagnosed neurodivergent child who survived
You’ve just discovered you’re autistic—or finally received a diagnosis after years of wondering. Maybe ADHD is part of your story too. And now you’re looking back on your life with fresh eyes, asking: What happened to me? What could have been different if someone had known?
This five-part series, A Mask They Put On, explores the lived experience of growing up with generational trauma as an undiagnosed autistic child with ADHD. It’s a story of survival, of misinterpretation, and of reclaiming self-understanding and compassion.
I’m a late-diagnosed autistic adult myself. I write this series for people like me, newly diagnosed autistic adults, who are piecing together a lifetime of being “othered,” masked, and misunderstood.
Over five posts, I’ll tell stories of my childhood—not as pathologies, but as evidence of the brilliance, resilience, and sensitivity that went unseen. I’ll view my younger selves not as broken or problematic, but as heroes who adapted in a world that didn’t make space for us.
To read the first post in this series, click the button below.
[A Mask They Put On: The Me Nobody Knows]
That January, my difficulties peaked when the phone rang one afternoon. Nancy relayed a message: the woman with the shop wished to speak with me. I was horrified. She must have figured out that I ate her food products. My journey to her house fueled anxieties; Politburo awareness held untold consequences. When I got there, an unpleasant situation turned into a critical one. She claimed I’d stolen some jewelry. She played “the good cop,” holding back her disgust and guaranteeing her silence if I returned the item to her. I told her the truth, that I didn’t steal her jewelry. She was unconvinced. I had no choice but to leave without resolving the issue.
Dread consumed my days following that conversation. If this woman shared her hypothesis with Nancy, the guilty verdict would be swift, and the repercussions awful. I was already in so much trouble at school. This could push the Politburo to harsher punishments than I had already experienced. Everything seemed to be in her hands and out of my control.
My disordered eating and stress increased in frequency and intensity that January. By Super Bowl Sunday, I had experienced about a week of fatigue, horrible gas, abdominal pain, and unusual bowel movements. I was sick and didn’t feel safe to tell an adult. A random mom at the church youth group’s Super Bowl party figured it out. She pulled me aside and encouraged me to tell a caregiver about my symptoms. The Politburo had to learn about my illness from me. I had to prevent this woman from making things worse than they already were.
To check out a list of my series with descriptions and links, click below.
I returned home and told Nancy about my symptoms. The next day, we visited the doctor. He told us I probably had a bleeding stomach ulcer. Bloodwork revealed I was dangerously low in iron, and I was close to needing a blood transfusion. I underwent hospital outpatient testing, confirming the ulcer. I started medication to stop the bleeding, treat the symptoms, and increase my iron. The weakness I experienced was sometimes overwhelming. My aunt visited. She was the only person other than my father’s brother who could sign off on medical tests and treatments, and Nancy didn’t like to do that kind of stuff if she could avoid it. When my aunt went home, she left me in Nancy’s care. School return depended on monitoring bowel movements, pain, and iron levels per doctors’ orders.
The auditions for the bi-annual school musical took place right before my absence. I sang “On This Night of a Thousand Stars” from Evita. I knew this song well. The original Broadway recording with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin was regularly playing in my Walkman while I walked to school, shoveled the snow, or mowed the lawn. I fantasized I would impress my choir teacher/director, thus securing a meaningful solo. As a super-fan of musical theater, this was one of two shows I could take part in during high school. If I missed this show, I missed half of my high school musical career. My illness threatened a rare source of joy. Every day I sat at home sick was one day I wasn’t in rehearsals for my solo. I couldn’t stop thinking that my choir teacher/director would leave me out of the show, or worse, cast me in the chorus.
Let’s go back to the start of the story, sitting in the snow.
I fainted in a meadow one afternoon in February 1990. My blood was low in iron. I was weak and bleeding internally. I shouldn’t have been there alone. Someone should have taken me to my appointment. The entire experience was unfortunate and avoidable.
At this point of my life, I acknowledge the younger versions of myself in these stories as the vulnerable children that they were. These boys needed help. Their struggles were unnecessary. The world’s problems were not theirs to carry. They sought the simple joys of childhood, play, and unconditional love. They felt alone and unlovable. Although they weren’t inherently bad, most treated them as if they were.
In school, the comment “Mark doesn’t apply himself” accurately described a system that blamed children for problems lacking simple solutions. The identical system was at play at home; however, the feedback’s intensity escalated with age. Home was where I was often deemed ungrateful, difficult, greedy, and lazy. In both cases, I was an undiagnosed neurodivergent child growing up in an abusive and neglectful family.
A 1998 article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reported results from a study on child abuse and household dysfunction called the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. The US Centers for Disease Control has recognized ten types of ACEs. Before age eighteen, more than sixty percent of American adults faced at least one adverse childhood experience. Roughly seventeen percent reported at least four types. The count was seven for me.
Learn more about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), their impact, and prevention strategies. Check out the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Vital Signs report on the topic by clicking the button below.
In spite of opposing opinions, I now acknowledge my successes. I managed to figure things out when it mattered. I juggled various part-time jobs. I was involved in school and church activities. I finished high school on schedule and gained admission to my first-choice university. While systems beyond my control made things more difficult, I still managed to succeed.
I can hear the Politburo’s justifications behind their choices, some from the grave: “Times were different,” “Everyone made mistakes.” It isn’t worth my energy to debate them. I choose to honor those boys instead. Their experiences were real. Everyone’s opinions and memories matter. If my memories hurt others, I won’t argue or defend myself. Multiple truths can coexist. I’m focusing on acceptance. I wish everyone well, even Politburo members.
The thing is, it’s not my goal to make anyone in these stories look like a villain. My goal is acknowledging my experiences. The real villains are generational trauma and dysfunctional systems that supported the adults and prioritized their needs over those of the children in their care. I believe that childhood trauma burdened Politburo members, based on their stories. I’m sure they were triggered at points while taking care of me. From a human level, I can empathize with them and their situation. I doubt it was easy. Having been a victim in a system beyond my control, I understand the feeling of brokenness and self-blame. You can go from feeling good to feeling out of control quickly. It’s uncomfortable.
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One of the most valuable things my experiences have taught me is that generational trauma is real. I visualize it as a ball of energy that follows the laws of physics. It’s like a “Hadouken” fireball Ryu used in the video game Street Fighter, except it’s always in motion. In our minds, cognitive dissonance masks trauma and tries to hold it back, yet it resurfaces, often transformed. A shift in direction, intensity, and focus helps it hide in plain sight- in our biases, beliefs, and behaviors- both implicit and explicit. It flows from one generation to the next with ease in systems where it’s accepted as a force that moves our stories forward in time.
For Politburo members, childhood trauma was as common as enduring hazing in a fraternity for a legacy pledge. It toughened them to prepare for the harsh realities of the real world. I bet they spent little time in healthy systems. If that’s true, it makes sense that they didn’t believe in them. Ultimately, they felt no guilt or remorse for perpetuating generational trauma, mirroring the behavior they experienced as children. Why would they? The cycles repeated, accompanied by significant cognitive dissonance, the same way they have for generations. One committee member’s oft-repeated phrase over the years that encapsulates this perfectly is, “It is what it is.”
I give past versions of me in these stories a lot of credit. Most kids experience trauma dumping from a handful of adults. By age ten, the system developed for my care included trauma dumping from eight adults, nine including my mother, who continued to make demands from her bed in the nursing home. It also included a myriad of adult community members, invited into private experiences and spaces, without my consent. In short, I received regular streams of “tough love” from a number of adults grappling with their own unprocessed trauma.
These past versions of me, with everything they experienced, made it through. They’re heroes. They deserve a story with a happy ending, and I am here to write it.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve made an active choice to carry my generational trauma with a new purpose. When I feel safe, I sit with it, analyze it, break it into pieces, note how it fits together, and learn how it functions. After a while, I’ve found it isn’t so scary anymore. This process is like kryptonite to generational trauma, cutting off energy and slowing momentum. It doesn’t function well in this environment. The trauma someone else put on me will eventually shrink to a manageable size and often vanish. What remains is the memory of the experience, like a virus leaves antibodies behind. I recognize what happened to me, no longer paralyzed with fear about it happening again. Things will be okay.
Now about that undiagnosed neurodiversity- I was an easy target growing up. My cognitive functions were fuel for traumatizing systems. The presentations of my neurodiversity were easy to misunderstand and made it easy for dysfunctional systems to work, often against me.
Undiagnosed neurodiversity is all around us. Some individuals have masked for safety most of their lives and don’t know it. Masking drains energy and will cause burnout. In my case, I developed masking after my exile and “intervention” that Sunday after Mass. I prioritized safety, but the methods were unsustainable. It resulted in my first burnout, the bleeding ulcer. It wouldn’t be my last. I would experience several more lengthy periods of burnout into adulthood, each time blaming myself for being weak or incapable of “adulting” like everyone else.
My autism diagnosis, at 48 years old, was six years in the making- six years of therapy, hard work, acceptance, changes, boundary building, and learning self-respect. In that timeframe, I began the work of letting go of the hurtful thoughts and ideas that weren’t mine. I started work on creating boundaries and identifying what was important to me. I began accepting multiple truths. The diagnosis marked a significant change. It gave me a better understanding of myself while also opening up significant pain and trauma from my past. It was useful and overwhelming at the same time. My ADHD diagnosis followed soon after and added even more context to explore.
Processing and healing in the present come from taking it one day at a time. I prioritize self-acceptance, riding waves of energy when they’re there to create safe spaces. I’m eager to learn how to be what I was supposed to be. After that tragic, slow descent, I’m learning to remove the mask the Politburo helped me put on. The inevitable awkwardness of my process is something I embrace. I’ve made many, many mistakes and I’m going to keep making them. My direction is clearer. It’s worth it to take the risks.
Back to the winter of 1990 and beyond. After weeks of worry, the whole stolen-jewelry dynamic faded away unceremoniously. The woman never contacted me regarding her lost item, nor did she admit it if she simply misplaced it. Since I stole some of her inventory, I realized I wasn’t a perfect victim. I don’t blame her for a lack of effort for closure. I was just happy to move on.
My health improved. The ulcer healed and has yet to reappear thanks to a decades-long Zantac, now Pepcid regimen. My iron levels returned to normal once the bleeding stopped. I continue to experience disordered eating. I feel positive as I work towards recovery one day at a time. My trauma responses dysregulate my eating, but I address it when I have the energy and feel safe. My shoulder tick comes and goes. I’ve accepted it.
And the school musical? They cast me as Benjamin in the school musical, “The Me Nobody Knows.” The show was adapted from essays written by children experiencing racism and poverty in New York City. Most of the characters are black. As an almost-totally white, rural school in Central New York with more cows than people, it was a stretch. I remember spray-painting graffiti onto cardboard panels as we built the set and realizing I did not know what to paint. What would an inner city kid paint on a wall? I just painted a bunch of peace symbols. The entire production would be cancelable by today’s standards.
“My favorite subject is lunch,” began my solo, “Flying Milk and Runaway Plates,” a rousing ethnographic piece about the social complexities of a school cafeteria. I didn’t want that part. I felt pigeonholed as the chubby kid who sang songs about food. The director/choir teacher didn’t like me, so I think I’m right. Two truths may coexist. While the typecasting was a shame, my solo and the name of the show were accurate representations of my life.
[About These Stories]
These stories are told from my personal perspective and memories, which are inherently subjective and may contain flaws, gaps, or interpretations shaped by time and trauma. Others involved may remember events differently—and their experiences are valid, too. The truth often lives in the space between these perspectives. I do not intend to harm or challenge anyone else’s narrative, but to honor the versions of myself who lived through these periods of time. I tell my story as I experienced it, knowing others may carry different—and equally real—truths.
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