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Guidance for: I've been holding it together all day and I'm done

Stop performing before you do anything else

How much longer do you have to hold it together?

I'm nearly homeA few more hoursThe rest of the day

Start here

Nothing until you've had twenty minutes of no faces and no talking. Not a task, not a message. Twenty minutes.

Masking is work, and the bill arrives afterwards rather than during. You spent the day running eye contact, tone, posture and expression as conscious processes, and none of that shows up as effort to anyone watching, including you.

Then, if you have room for it

Unmask somewhere safe as soon as you can. Rocking, humming, staring, silence — whatever you've been holding in.
Delay decisions. Anything you agree to in this state tends to become tomorrow's problem.
Feed and water yourself before anything social. Masking eats the same fuel.
Count masking as work when you plan a week. A day of it costs what a hard day of anything else costs.

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Stop performing before you do anything else

Start here

Then, if you have room for it

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