The many faces of me

For most of my life, I believed I was a collection of contradictions. A walking mosaic of other people’s traits, borrowed manners, and adopted accents. I’d look in the mirror and wonder who would look back today—not in a metaphorical, poetic sense, but in a genuine, bewildering one. Which set of gestures, which tone of voice, which personality would be in charge? At 53, I finally have the word for it: autism. And with that word comes the understanding of a core experience for so many autistic girls and women: we are often perceived as liars, not because we are deceitful, but because we are supreme adapters. Our survival manual was written by observing everyone else. From my earliest memories, my brain operated like a sophisticated recording device. Every interaction, every character in a book or movie, every friend, every cousin—was a potential script. I didn’t just listen to them; I absorbed them. Their speech patterns, their accents, their laughs, their opinions on things I didn’t even care about. It wasn’t a conscious choice to be fake; it was a primal directive to blend in. To crack the impossible code of “how to be a person.”

This mimicry marked my entire life, creating a childhood that, in retrospect, looks like a series of poignant, earnest attempts to get it right. I remember being seven years old, sobbing to my loving, bewildered mother with a profound sense of injustice. “You don’t love me as much as my brothers!” My evidence? While my brothers had wonderful, cozy birthdays at home with a cake and a piñata, mine were at a big party salon with tons of food, a magician (because I hated clowns), and a lovely new dress. In my mind, their simpler party was the “right” kind of love, the one I saw in movies and other families. My extravagant party was a deviation from the script, and I interpreted it as a flaw in affection. I was mimicking a template of “normal family love” I’d seen elsewhere, and our reality didn’t match.

I remember insisting on carrying chewing gum because my cool older cousin did. It wasn’t about the gum. It was about the gesture—the effortless, casual offer to a friend. It was a prop in my performance of “cool kid.” I watched the other children crying on the first day of preschool, their faces crumpled in fear. So I stood at the entrance, decided this must be the required ritual, and made myself cry too. It wasn’t that I felt scared in that moment; I just understood it was what one did here.

This constant, exhausting adaptation creates what the world often sees as inconsistency, or worse, dishonesty. “You said you loved this band last week, now you say you hate it?” (I was mirroring the friend I was with). “Why is your accent a little different today?” (I’d been binge-watching a British show). To the outside world, this looks like shifting sands, a lack of a solid “self.” We get labeled as flaky, fake, or manipulative. But it’s not a lie. It’s camouflage. It’s the desperate, brilliant, and draining strategy of a brain trying to navigate a social world without an innate map. We assemble a personality, piece by piece, from the people and stories around us, hoping to find a combination that finally lets us pass, that keeps us safe from the glaring spotlight of being “other.” Now, at 53, I look back at my myriad of selves—the book heroine, the cool cousin, the quiet observer, the exuberant friend—and I don’t see a liar. I see an archaeologist uncovering my own truth. I see a survivor. The realization isn’t “I have no personality.” It’s “My personality was forged in the workshop of observation.” The core me was always there: the one feeling deeply, cataloging meticulously, seeking connection desperately. She was just speaking in a thousand borrowed tongues until she could learn her own native language. I am not a collection of contradictions. I am a symphony of adaptations. And finally, I am learning to be the conductor.