Mothers with Autism - do you mask around your children?

[MamaLlama123]

I am just generally interested. To what extent do you mask autism around your own children?

My own Father didn't really mask his autism at all and was sometimes a bit neglectful as a result. He was obviously very overstimulated by the noise of children and would often be overly absorbed in his interests resulting in him not parenting effectively etc

I go to a lot of effort to mask around my own children although it causes burnout

What are other people's experiences.

I don't and I never have done...my daughter is an adult now and has never known me any different. I guess I'm lucky in the sense that my traits have never had any effect on my ability to look after her and bring her up (alone since she was a baby)..obviously the spectrum is so massive that no two people are the same, but wanted to share my experience 😊

I don't know if I'm autistic (diagnosed ADHD) so my experience of masking may be different, but I think I don't mask around my kids. I tend to feel that masking is something that I mostly do unconsciously - I don't make a decision that I'm going to present a different side of me or play a role if that makes sense. But there is a way I sort of "relax" and feel "able to be myself" when I'm on my own and that side of me comes out with my DC as well, even more so, I'd say, than around my DH or my mum/sister now I'm an adult.

Yes an no, I did a lot when they were younger and it was not good for my mental health... (Ended up being sectioned etc)
I do a bit now but not as much, as I've learnt it is not healthy to! Especially as we all trigger eachother with our stims.

Dd tells me to stop flapping. Flapping is a relatively new thing now that I know I’m ND and am not so focused on masking.

I'm happy to have come across this thread as it's only recently that I realised that I do mask a lot around my children DD5 and DD3. Despite how I was feeling internally which is often very overstimulated, I would present as though I am fine but I've started to try to tune into my body a bit more and let go of the need to mask. I think it will help with not getting as burnt out as often.

Yes I do but not as much as when around others and not all the time as often I’ll be overstimulated from something else and when in the house with young children it’s hard. I also find myself trying to teach my dd to mask, even though it’s not needed but I find I do this automatically.