Dropping The Performance After Sexual Trauma

We name the double life so many neurodivergent, trauma-experienced women live: performing neurotypicality while also performing “I’m fine.” We walk through what unmasking looks like in real life, why it can trigger rage and grief, and how small steps bring you back to yourself.

• the identity crisis question: who am I underneath
• rage, grief, and fear as part of healing rather than proof you are failing
• practical scripts for being direct, naming overload, and asking for clarity
• what changes in relationships when you stop performing
• small-step unmasking with safe people first and giving yourself grace

Work With Me Individually
I offer trauma-informed therapy for high-achieving women navigating:

• Complex trauma
• Late-diagnosed ADHD or autism
• Nervous system dysregulation
• Relational pattern healing

If you’d prefer one-on-one support, book a free 15-minute consultation here:
http://linktr.ee/EmpoweringWellnessHub

Good Music for Healing

🎵 **Divine Woman Playlist (Apple Music):** https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/divine-woman/pl.u-leyl096uMoD885j

Episodes Mentioned in this Episode

Unmasking: The Hidden Cost of Being “Easy-Going” and “Low-Maintenance”

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2467345/episodes/18287637-unmasking-the-hidden-cost-of-being-easy-going-and-low-maintenance

You’re not alone. 

We’re healing together.

Transcript

Unmasking Feels Scary And Liberating

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Howdy howdy. Welcome back to the Awaken Heart, a podcast for healing women. I'm Anna Moran, your host, licensed professional counselor, life coach, yoga instructor, neurodivergent trauma experience woman. And we are in the rage arc of season two, which is the season of healing after sexual trauma. Today, today's topic is scary and liberating. Can be scary and liberating both at the same time. And that is unmasking, dropping the performance, stopping the pretending to be anyone that you're not. I want to be really specific and acknowledge that this episode and all my episodes are written, are scripted, are formulated with my audience in mind, and what I perceive my audience as is neurodivergent trauma experience women, often late-diagnosed women. And with that comes a specific set of masking. It's at minimum two, sometimes three or more. You've been masking your trauma and you've been masking your neurodivergence simultaneously for years, decades, every single solitary day. Two full-time performances running at one time, and you've been doing it so long, maybe you forgot it was a performance at all. Because what has happened is that the world has told us that who we are naturally is wrong on multiple levels. Your brain is wrong, your responses are wrong, your emotions are wrong, your body is wrong, your needs are wrong. So what happens? We performed, we masked, we looked at everyone else, saw what they were doing, and mimicked that, the ones that seem to be doing it right. You build a version of yourself that was acceptable and safe for others. Maybe you force eye contact even though it's physically painful. Maybe you suppress your stems, even though stimming helps you regulate. Maybe you script conversations in your head before you have them. Maybe you mirror other people's body language and facial expressions. Maybe you laugh at jokes you don't understand. Maybe you pretend social cues that are invisible to you are like maybe like the social cues that are invisible to you, you pretend they're obvious. And underneath all that, you're also carrying trauma, carrying the weight of what was done to you, performing okayness while you're quietly falling apart.

Work From Home Reveals Masking

SPEAKER_01 3:33

My first real dropping of the mask was when I decided to go into private practice. I am one of the individuals whose life changed for the better during COVID. My unmasking, my late diagnosis came right around 2019-2020. And I began unmasking so much. Not, no, I don't even want to say I began unmasking so much. The way that work from home was set up, that I had to work from home, showed me how much I was masking. The difference I felt working from home compared to working in an office was night and day, black and white, two opposite ends of the spectrums. And I had decided then, like, okay, so this is the missing piece. The work from home was the missing piece for me. So my first choice for myself was to do something on my terms based on what felt good for me, not what other people thought. The scariest part was that the was the fear of failure, because I even had supervisors I thought were worthy of looking up to, that would say, Oh, well, you'll come back, you're not going to make enough money. Everyone comes back out of private practice. Just really negative, just hate or aid. But what surprised me the most is how much I've grown in my career as my as an individual. And I think I've grown in ways I never could have if I would have stayed performing in someone else's structure. I stopped wearing makeup. Like that was another big thing that I always smear my mascara. Lipstick makes me feel like a clown. But I did it anyway because that's what professional therapist does, always perfect, always has to present as perfect. But when I started dressing according to how I felt, not some pretend therapist presentation pushed on me in grad school, like things just started to unfold for me. I could wear a hoodie and do my job. I can wear comfy joggers and still be a respected therapist. I can wear athlesia and still get a good job, do a good job, get the job done, help people. No one ran away from me or told me I was unprofessional. No one told me that there was something wrong with me.

Dropping The Role At Home

SPEAKER_01 7:01

No, I'm not cooking dinner. At this time, they were in their teens. So everyone in the household had the capability of making dinner. So my first step to unmasking the burden of just being the food maker, uh, we all took turns. You got to pick a meal and you got to cook it. So two out of two in two days. I couldn't trust my spouse, their dad, to cook because when he would cook, he would either put ingredients in that I absolutely wouldn't eat, or there would be some surprise ingredient, just almost seemed like a joke, was a waste of a meal. Might as well have just gone to bed. So two children helped me cook. Fingers crossed, if you could eat on the night that my spouse cooked. But I still unmasked, despite the resistance, despite the ridiculousness of it, despite having to teach my kids a little more in the kitchen. I don't cook much now. One's out of the house, one's still in the house, and we we take turns cooking. We find joy in cooking now, I guess, because it's not so much of a demand. I've learned to balance myself and accommodate myself with half foods on the virtual list, are for to cook a meal, and half the foods are grab and goes. Heat and eat, open and serve. I asked for more breaks. I took more breaks. When I first got into private practice, I jumped all in, doing 40 hours a week, helping anyone that I could. And it was not sustainable. I then have morphed it into a schedule that I like. I have breaks in the day, I have evenings open. Most of my mornings are open, and most of my work gets done midday, which is fine for me because I like to have me time morning and evening. And I I started to understand that being tired, that spending a day in bed laying around on the couch, not doing anything, but just resting and rejuvenating was okay, was more than okay, was necessary. I stopped beating myself up for taking a day in the bed to recuperate after I've worked Monday through Friday 40 hours a week, back-to-back clients every hour with 10 minutes in between. The fear of not doing it right, the fear of being called out, the fear of not being liked. F-E-A-R, though. Spell it out. F-E-A-R. False evidence appearing real.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

It's just bullshit. It's just bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

All right, that was a rambling intro.

Two Masks Neurotypical And Trauma

SPEAKER_01 10:38

And now let's get into defining this mask. These masks I'm talking about. So a general definition for masking is masking is essentially the version of yourself you perform for the world. But for us trauma experience neurodivergent women, we have two masks at minimum. Mask one is your neurotypical mask. You built this one because your brain works differently and the world punished you for being different. You learn to force eye contact. You suppress your stems because that makes other people comfortable. You script the conversations to seem more normal. Mirror other people's expressions to seem more relatable. And you pretend to understand social cues to keep you from being excluded. So the neurotypical mask is saying, I am like you, I think like you, I process like you, I am not different. And then the second mask is the trauma mask. You built this one to survive what was done to you. You learned that if you seem fine, no one will ask questions. If you perform happiness, no one will probe you. If I don't show how much I'm hurting, I'll be safer. If I seem okay, then maybe I'll be okay. The trauma mask is saying I'm not falling apart, I am functional, I am fine. And we are running both of these simultaneously, performing okayness for trauma while also performing neurotypicality. Two full-time jobs in the background of every interaction every single day. Exhausted much? Burnout hits you really hard? Does rest never feel like it's enough rest? You're not just tired from life, you're tired from performing two entirely different people while living in your actual body and life. And it's not that you chose to mask consciously, you learned to mask because being yourself wasn't safe. Maybe you were called lazy and punished for it. Maybe your need for routine was called rigid and difficult. Maybe your sensory sensitivities were dismissed as being dramatic.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Maybe your stemming was mocked or forbidden. Maybe your emotional intensity was called too much. Maybe you having knees were meant you were being called needy.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Maybe your voice was bossy, disruptive, too loud. And so you built the mask and then another one, and you performed and performed and performed until you forgot there was anything underneath.

The Hidden Cost Of Performing

SPEAKER_00 14:00

What does this look like? Suppressing emotional responses that feel too big. Performing productivity when you're in executive dysfunction. Never asking for accommodations because that would mean admitting you need them.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

It looks like being the easy one, the low maintenance one, the one who never needs anything. Maybe you perform certainty when you're deeply confused. The masks work until they don't. The masks get you through, they keep you employed, they keep relationships intact, they keep you acceptable, but they cost you energy, your identity, your relationships because no one knows the real you, your health, like chronic masking causes neurodivergent burnout. It's different from regular burnout and it hits harder. And it costs you your healing because you cannot heal what you are still hiding and performing over. And eventually, especially in healing, the masks becomes impossible to maintain. So neurodivergent masking is not the same as regular masking. So you've been masking since you were a child. Neurotypical people who learn to perform do it gradually, usually in adulthood. Neurodivergent people start masking in early childhood as soon as like the realization comes that you're different. As soon as you got your first sign that you're naturally, that who you are naturally is unacceptable. Some of you started masking before you could even articulate what you were doing. The mask can be that deep, that wired in. And when you've been masking since childhood, unmasking raises the most terrifying question. Who am I underneath all of this? Not just who am I without the trauma performance, but who am I if I wasn't suppressing my stems, if I wasn't scripting my convos, if I didn't force eye contact. You might genuinely not know, and that can be terrifying. And that's also the beginning of finding yourself. Your masking isn't random. The things you learned to hide were specifically your neurodivergent traits, the exact things that make you who you are. Your intensity, enthusiasm, deep focus, sensitivity, your need for routine, your way of communicating, your emotional depth, depth. These were called problems and you hid them. Unmasking means claiming them, saying that these things are not problems. These are me and I'm not hiding them anymore. When you start dropping the neurotypical mask, you stop suppressing your sensory responses. You stop filtering your emotional reactions. You stop performing calm when you're actually overwhelmed. And suddenly you will feel everything more intensely. The sensory input you were filtering hits harder. The emotional responses you were suppressing come out way bigger. The overwhelm you were performing over suddenly has nowhere to hide. And it feels like getting worse, but it's not. It's feeling the reality you've been masking over. Then this is a lot. It's a lot to do at once. So please be gentle with yourself. You don't have to do it all at once. You don't have to unmask everything all at the same time. Please start with what feels safest. Start with one layer at a time. If you were diagnosed late in your 30s, 40s, 50s, you're realizing that the professional version of yourself, the socially acceptable version of yourself, the functional adult version of yourself was built almost entirely on masking your neurodivergent traits. And now you have to figure out what was actually me and what was just the performance of being neurotypical. That's an identity crisis.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Let it be one, it's real. When you start dropping the performance, there's nothing to hold on to.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

The mask was structure, it was safety. It was, I know how to be this person. It was proof. Without it, you're feeling like you're free-falling, exposed, vulnerable. You don't know what happens next. For neurodivergent women, especially, the mask often provided structure that your neurodivergent brain couldn't create for itself. Dropping the mask means losing that structure, and that can be disoriented, disorienting. The mask, like literally protected you, and dropping it feels like everyone can see the real you. The real you who stems, who needs things explained directly, who gets overwhelmed in loud spaces, who has trauma responses that look irrational to people who don't understand. What if they don't like what they see? What if the real me is too much? You grieve the mask, even though it's not serving you, it's familiar. It's what you know. So there's a specific kind of grief for all the years you suppress the things that make you you. You abandon yourself so thoroughly, and that's a loss worth grieving.

Rage Grief And Fear To Move Through

SPEAKER_01 20:29

In the rage season, unmasking comes with anger. Fury at everyone who made you feel like your brain was wrong, rage at teachers who punished you for stemming, anger at parents who told you to make eye contact, stop fidgeting, calm down, be normal. Rage at the world that required you to perform okayness while you're dying inside post-sexual assault.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

A rage at having to comply at the cost of yourself. The anger is part of the process, let it be there. Because underneath that is relief. You don't have to be anyone, you don't want to be anymore. You can just be your full self.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

So I talked a little bit about fear, F E A R, false evidence appearing real. Your fear tells you if you stop performing, you'll lose your job. If people see that you're autistic or ADHD, they'll treat you differently. If you stem in public, people will stare. You say you're overwhelmed, they'll think you can't handle it. If you drop the trauma mask, you'll fall apart. If people see all of me, they'll leave. If I show my real emotions, I'll be too much. And if I admit I'm struggling, they'll use it against me. That's trauma-based fear. If I'm vulnerable, I'll be hurt again. And neurodivergent fear. If I'm visibly neurodivergent, I'll be excluded, mocked, or fired. Two sets of fear, both wired deeply, both feel like survival. You've been taught what a professional looks like, and she isn't visibly neurodivergent. She doesn't stem, she makes eye contact, she dresses a certain way, she communicates a certain way. And if you deviate from that, what's the fear? Your career's over. And here's what I know from experience and from working where I in my seat that I sit. The people who show up authentically, who dress for themselves, who speak their truth, who bring their whole selves to their work, build the most meaningful careers. Because people don't connect with performances, they connect with people. Your neurodivergence is not a liability in your work. For many of you, it is your greatest gift, your intensity, your pattern recognition, the depth that you have. And you've got the fear that people will leave you, people won't accept you, you'll be all alone if you stop performing. But the people who leave you when you unmask, they love the performing version of you. That's not you. They don't love you. And although very fucking painful, it's also very important, necessary information. It lets you know who's there for the right reasons. Because the people who stay when you're being real, when you're overwhelmed, when you're fully yourself, those are your people. And then there's the fear if I take off the mask, who am I? You've been performing for so long. What if there's nothing underneath? What if the real you is someone no one can love? There is something underneath. There's you, the authentic, neurodivergent, trauma-healing, messy, real, beautiful you that's been waiting. Feel it, acknowledge it, and do it anyway, despite the fear. If it's in your heart and in your mind, do it. Don't let F E A R keep you from performing. No. What did I just say? Don't let your false evidence appearing real keep you performing. It's just false evidence. The fear will be there. It doesn't go away at first. You've got to move through it. You just gotta prove it that the new way is the best way.

Practical Ways To Unmask Safely

SPEAKER_01 25:24

So neurotypical social performance. What dropping that mask looks like is asking someone to be direct with you. You miss subtext. Looking at foreheads or noses instead of the eyes when the eye contact is overwhelming. Be more literal in your conversations, less perform. And simply saying, I don't understand what you mean when you don't understand. Dropping the I'm fine performance looks like saying, I'm in sensory overload right now. I need quiet. It looks like saying, I'm struggling today. This is too much for me. I need a break. Dropping the professional performance looks like dressing for yourself, not a role. Speaking in your own voice, your own communication style, building your work on your terms, showing up as yourself, all of yourself in professional spaces. Dropping the always available performance looks like honoring your actual capacity, not performing to push through, to serve, to people, please, to save, to rescue. It's saying I'm at capacity before you hit capacity, before you shut down, before you melt down. It's about building recovery time into your schedule after each and every task. And it's about letting people know you have limits because you do, and they're real, and everyone has them, and you're allowed to have them too. The being dropping the not too much performance, that means talking about your special interests without apology, letting your enthusiasm be visible, taking up space you actually take up, and being as intense as you actually are. Move your body however you need to move it. And I don't want you to perform wellness, stopping the healed and together performance. And what that looks like is saying I'm still healing too. I don't have all the answers. I'm neurodivergent and I'm figuring this out as I go, being human, and I'm being human in my healing.

Who Stays When You’re Real

SPEAKER_01 28:14

So when you drop these masks, when you stop these performances, some people can't handle the real you. Partners who needed you compliant and easy, friends who needed you small and always available, family who needed you to maintain their system, no matter how dysfunctional. They'll leave, they'll become distant, they'll be passive aggressive and say some things, or you'll have to leave them. And that's painful. And it's also information. They love the performance, not you. And some people get closer, your neurodivergent community finds you. And honestly, when you stop performing, you get energy back, real energy. The energy you were spending on the performance is suddenly available for your actual life. This energy return can feel dramatic because if you've been running on empty for so long, spending so much processing power on performance, once that performance stops, ample space, ample room for activities. You start to discover who you actually are when the performances drop, what you like, how your brain works, how your body actually works, what your stems are helping you, what environments work for you. For many of us, we're meeting ourselves for the very first time. We have had to hide ourselves because we've carried so much pain from sexual trauma and the trauma of being a misunderstood neurodivergent woman.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Unmasking is not optional for for healing, it's necessary.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Eventually, not immediately, but eventually, unmasking leads to feeling at home in yourself. That's the gift on the other side of this terror of unmasking. Being at home in yourself, maybe for the first time ever.

Small Steps And Self Trust

SPEAKER_01 30:40

So you don't have to unmask everything all at once. Start in one area, one relationship, one context. Let yourself stem at home. Be honest about one feeling. Wear what you want one day out of the week. Say no once. Say I don't understand once instead of performing understanding. Unmask with the safest people first, your therapist, your most trusted friend, yourself alone. Build the muscle of being real in safe spaces before unmasking in risky ones. Notice the performance. Awareness before action. So awareness is key. Start honoring your no. When you want to say no, say no. If it's a full body yes, say yes. If it's a full body no, say no. If it's a little bit of both, or you're not quite sure which one, let me get back to you. And do it despite the damn fear. Your future self will thank you. You will put the mask back on sometimes, you'll perform when you're scared, you'll default to old patterns, and all that's okay. That's part of the process. It's not a switch you flip. You've got to give yourself grace. Unmasking takes time. It protected you when you needed protecting. So that's unmasking. What it feels like to drop the performance. It's terrifying, it's a free fall, it's grief and rage and relief all at once. And it's necessary for your healing, for your freedom. You've been performing long enough. You've been acceptable long enough. You've been small and quiet and palatable and neurotypically adjacent long enough. It's rage season. And rage burns away the performance. It burns away the need to be acceptable.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

It burns away the mask.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Because on the other side of performance is you, the real you, the neurodivergent, healing whole you that's been waiting.

Bonus Lilith And Final Invitation

SPEAKER_01 33:35

In the bonus episode this week that's coming out on Friday, I'm gonna go deeper with Lilith, the original woman who refused to perform, the first one who said no and meant it, and what her story means for your unmasking. This will be exciting. This is something new I'm working on. So we'll be learning and growing together when it comes to archetypes and goddesses. I think it's something I know it's something I've been wanting to incorporate into the bonus episodes, but just didn't know where to start because again, I'm learning now in real time. So this will be exciting. What I've learned about Lilith and what I put into the bonus episode. We'll be working with her for a couple of weeks in the bonus episodes. But ultimately, if I could round it all out, like when it comes to a trauma mask, when it comes to masking, it's baby small steps showing up for you in a way that is authentic to you. Not to do something for the sake of it, not to do it because you're obligated, not to do it to save someone or help someone or do it for someone else, but taking action for yourself, with yourself to do something or say something that aligns with your internal world. All right, my dears. Unmasking is a big thing. I have a couple of other episodes about unmasking that I'll put in the show notes. Anything you want to learn about me, work with me, listen to an awesome episode, uh, awesome playlist, it's all on the link tree in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, if you're enjoying this season, please share the episode, talk about it with other women. I am not marketing, nor am I on social media. So the word of mouth is really how I'm growing, and I really appreciate you if you do share my podcast. That really means so fucking much to me. I appreciate the time you take out of your busy day to share something with someone else. Pay it forward, right? Yeah. All in the show notes. I appreciate you listening. Well, dead air at the end. My goodness, I don't know what I'm saying or where I'm going. Let me wrap this up. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you Friday at the bonus episode. Until then, take the gentlest possible care of your awakened heart and drop something today. Just one thing and see what happens. Take care. I'll see you soon.