I have always felt I had to 'mask' and be someone I'm not really due to bullying.


But I was born in the late 60's when very little was known about autism in girls and/or selective mutism, so I was misdiagnosed as deaf.

That kind of became part of my identity I was even moved to a deaf school as I struggled so much in a mainstream class of 32 enduring relentless bullying everyday

I guess this kind of paved the way for others like me as there are some deaf schools that now have a unit for hearing children with language disorders (Autism, Auditory Processing Disorders, Aphasia etc) within them and they recognise how using sign language can help them understand and learn to use language themselves.


When I eventually learned and understood that I in fact was not technically deaf as I'd been told for over 20 years by then I felt like I'd lost my whole identity and didn't know who to be any more!


'Deaf friends' rejected me acting as if I'd deliberately deceived them all those years, when I just hadn't understood or being properly able to explain my symptoms (due to the selective mutism too and being unable to speak 'in the moment' under pressure in medical appointments when you've got like 5 mins to explain everything to a doctor!)


It ended up being yes/no questions from the specialist and given that I rarely understood them without them needing a signer present or writing things down, they continued to tell me this meant I was deaf! ..and they're the experts after all...what do I know? ...eventually when I got connected to the internet at home and started to learn how to do my own research I discovered Auditory processing Disorders and the link to Autism.

But this revelation greatly affected my ability to mask in front of everyone I by then understood knew me as 'a deaf person'.


As I've got older its got harder and harder as I get severe chronic fatigue now too so just don't have the energy to deal with any situation where I feel I'd have to mask.