A Mask They Put On: Traveling Matt
Two 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: Traveling Matt]
Childhood in a school district where your father teaches has benefits and drawbacks. A benefit is that teachers look out for you. A drawback is that teachers look out for you. My report cards regularly included negative comments like “Mark doesn’t apply himself,” “Mark is stubborn,” and “Mark disrupts his peers’ learning,” reflecting my academic struggles most days. I proved to be indolent and a source of disruption. While I didn’t see it, I can imagine the winks and nods between my father and his peers, my teachers, during parent-teacher conferences. I can visualize them sitting in the little chairs of my classroom, my father apologizing for my behavior, and my teachers telling him everything would work out as long as he reinforced their classroom approaches. All parties would hope for the best. There was probably an eye roll after the parties had separated.
I presented significant teaching challenges as a child. I absorbed words and phrases, and used them in a pedantic way, displaying a large vocabulary for my age. My observation skills proved astute, and I excelled at recognizing patterns. My intense focus let me concentrate only on my interests, ignoring anything else. I cared only about conforming to the social norms I had adopted and found beneficial. I guarded my autonomy. ‘No’ is, and always has been, one of my favorite words. In combination, these attributes confused my teachers.
I showed intelligence, but wasn’t learning. I proved an impressive speaker, but I spoke too long. In sixth grade, I struggled with math and told my father I wondered why other kids who needed help with math got help, but I didn’t. Thankfully, he listened to my needs and took action. My father arranged for me to go to the school’s resource room for math help a few times a week, and it helped. I took a remedial math class in seventh grade and thrived the following year. In ninth grade, things soured.
I now realize the New York State public education system of the 80s and 90s failed to accommodate my preferred learning style. The state-wide, standardized system left teachers little choice but to teach in a standardized manner, as their success depended on the results of a single annual exam. I didn’t connect with typical teaching methods. It proved a lonely experience. I’ve always considered myself an observer, like the character Traveling Matt in the kid’s show Fraggle Rock. I didn’t have HBO, but I’d try to watch an episode on “free weekends,” hoping to see a character I identified with.
To check out a list of my series with descriptions and links, click below.
I experienced delayed processing, so things my teachers and peers said and didn’t always make sense. I didn’t always receive positive responses to my natural reactions to this confusion. Understanding and interacting with the world proved challenging, unnatural. What I understood resulted from a painful, labor-intensive process. Hence, I have always been protective of my knowledge. I learned only when motivation and safety were present. When I felt the opposite, it frustrated me. I lacked words to explain my experience. I failed to respond to teachers’ inquiries about my challenges or needs. This was all outside the scope of the system’s design.
It only took a couple of months of ninth grade before I landed myself in the principal’s office. My classroom behavior proved disruptive, and my teachers’ patience wore thin. The dynamic began in my math and French classes. Both required significant memorization; I always struggled with that. Memorizing math tables, spelling, and conjugations seemed impossible. Meanwhile, it seemed most of my peers could memorize things just fine.
When I struggled, I confused everyone around me. I didn’t shut down, quite the opposite. I searched for control. Moments of discomfort kicked-on a character of a carefree jokester, a persona that used performance and humor to find control. Childhood observations of others, both in-person and on television, taught me early-on how to evoke smiles and put others at ease. I had no fear of employing that skill when I needed to feel the security of positive feedback and acceptance. My classmates could provide that to me in a pinch, if I needed it. This tactic confused many people back then and into my adulthood. People regularly told me that when I shared my introversion, it surprised them. I projected exuberant sociability. The complete account remained hidden from them because I withheld it. I didn’t let them see my vulnerabilities or the toll of the techniques I used to hide them. Afterwards, in seclusion, I yielded to exhaustion. The cycle was unsustainable.
As the pressure mounted in math and French classes, it expanded to my English classes. Reading challenged me, and my handwriting, crucial back then, was awful. Challenges in earth science and even gym class followed. As an overweight, queer, neurodivergent kid, gym class didn’t foster an environment where I flourished. It didn’t help that my gym teacher/football coach had been a family friend from church. I fell into a downward spiral. I regularly found myself alone, dysregulated, and craving starchy/sweet foods. The stress led to a neck strain and tick that would come and go at the worst imaginable times.
Choir and social studies, long-time special interests, remained my only self-regulation options. Unfortunately, neither provided the space I hoped for. Some well-off alpha boys who subjected the teacher to daily traumas for a laugh hijacked my social studies class. She wasn’t naturally gifted in her craft and struggled with self-confidence. These boys saw her weaknesses and ate her alive. Her eyes welled up many times. The situation didn’t allow for the development of a favorite-student-teacher fantasy dynamic between us. To avoid attracting the negative attention of my peers, I used a strategy I was comfortable with: try to blend in. It was clear what they could do. I used my energy smiling and laughing with everyone else.
My choir teacher and I carried a history from middle school. Besides music classes, he taught some creativity-focused courses in the district. I’m pretty sure he labeled me as one of the nemesis students after a writing course we had together. Then, as now, I had difficulty concentrating while listening to music. Music grabs my attention and leaves me unable to focus on anything else.
One day, I ruined the group privilege of listening to a radio station during writing exercises because I excused myself, found a telephone, and called in a song dedication for my then-girlfriend: Rockin’ Robin by Bobby Day. Bothering his class to impress a girl went too far. It’s funny, even though he identified my behavior as the source of his opinions, I sensed in him a greater disdain for my effeminate mannerisms than anything else. Many queer kids recognize that early in childhood, even if they don’t have the words to describe the phenomenon.
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Study hall and lunch were where I ultimately found regulation. In the mandatory silence of study hall, I let my thoughts drift to whatever imaginary design project interested me. I designed amusement parks, shopping malls, schools, traffic intersections, highway interchanges, fashion lines, or Olympic-level gymnastics/figure skating routines rather than completing my homework. As a grown adult, I still use this technique to help me relax in moments of stress and to fall asleep.
Lunch served as my other regulation outlet. I was a well-established emotional binge eater by high school, and the school cafeteria offered me a chance to get my fix. While I often brought a packed lunch, I would beg kids for nickels, dimes, and quarters to buy a cookie, bagel, or my favorite- a double order of tater tots. This practice began in fifth grade, so my classmates had become accustomed to it by ninth grade. As I moved from table to table collecting coins, I used it as an opportunity to enhance my understanding of the world around me- a high school ethnography of sorts. Like any John Hughes movie, my high school had hierarchies, and I noted how they ebbed and flowed by who sat with whom and what they talked about. I noted social connections, social capital, and how people moved within the system. It fascinated me.
Back in the principal’s office for unacceptable behavior, the principal interrogated me with the same questions I had heard since kindergarten. I offered the only responses I could.
I’m sorry.
It’s my fault.
I don’t know what is wrong.
I don’t know what I need.
I don’t want to cause disruptions.
I don’t mean to make things difficult for my teachers.
I know my (now dead) father wouldn’t approve of my behavior.
I know my (now dead) father would want me to behave better.
I know everyone has my best interests in mind.
I’m sorry.
It’s my fault.
My inner dialogue: I’m making a lot of adults worried and upset. I have to fix that.
Because of his dual roles, school administrators involved my uncle/science teacher in meetings and decisions. In the end, the group determined that the best solution involved my taking responsibility and making changes. I would carry a card with a space for my teachers to rate/comment on my behavior each day. My duty involved daily feedback reminders, followed by submissions of the card to my guidance counselor at the end of each week.
Documenting and evaluating my behavior would make me accountable. With a plan of action decided upon, I had to send a written copy of the plan to my aunt for her signature. Although vital to the process, my uncle/science teacher lacked the legal authority to approve the plan. With this, all the adults, at all levels of my care, had become involved. The Politburo reactivated for the first time since my father’s death.
Were you misunderstood as an undiagnosed neurodivergent kid? How did that impact your day-to-day life? What did you wish others understood about you then? What do you wish people understood about you now?
To read the next post in the series, click the button below.