I Can't Stop Mirroring People

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:18]Hello and welcome back to Autistic After Hours. I'm your host Ashra and today I wanted to talk specifically and in detail about one part of autistic masking for me which is mirroring.

[00:00:33]Before we get into the episode, quick reminder to follow Autistic After Hours on Instagram. I post original content on there multiple times a week and we just hit 70,000 followers on there which is amazing. So if you want to be a part of that Instagram community, be sure to follow. Also, be sure to follow wherever you're listening right now, whether that is on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube. It helps me out a lot when you follow or subscribe. I wanted to talk about mirroring today because I feel that for me it's very closely tied to what I talked about in last week's episode which was people pleasing. I have been thinking about people pleasing a lot and that is what led me to thinking about mirroring. And for me, the way that I would describe mirroring is that I subconsciously mimic or copy people. And again, it's subconscious. It is not a conscious process for me whatsoever.

[00:01:27]It's not in my control. It is something that I do just naturally for some reason and I don't know if this is something that I was just born doing or if it is something that I started doing and then it became a subconscious process.

[00:01:44]But basically where it is right now is I just completely without awareness or control mimic or copy people. And I do think that this is definitely related to being autistic, definitely for sure when it comes to masking because it is like a camouflaging technique. Mirroring people helps you to fit in oftentimes. It helps you to blend in. So, I think it's for sure part of my masking behaviors. But, the part that I don't know is that if it is just innately tied to being autistic for me regardless of masking, if maybe just being autistic has led to me having this tendency to engage in social mimicry. I don't know if it's innately part of being autistic {slash} if it's specifically from masking. Regardless though, it impacts me a lot. And I want to talk about the ways that I notice it. And I also want to note that there are probably a lot of ways that I do it that I don't notice. It's only something that I've become more aware of recently, especially very recently from thinking about people-pleasing and all of the ways that that is impacting me socially.

[00:02:58]But, the ways that mirroring shows up for me, at least what I can tell so far, is firstly, I notice myself mirroring people's body language. Again, I don't know the extent to which I do this because it's only something that I've become very aware of recently.

[00:03:15]But, I notice when I'm talking to people or when I'm around people, I find myself imitating the positions that their bodies are in. So, here's an example. A couple nights ago, me and Nick were sitting on the couch here having a conversation. He was sitting with his legs crossed and one arm on top of the couch and the other arm by his side. When I sat down on the couch, I, without realizing it, completely copied his exact position.

[00:03:48]And I only realized when I looked down at my body and then looked at his and realized that we were in the exact same position. And then I asked him if he noticed and he was like, "Oh, yeah. I can see now that we're in the exact same position." It's things like that and that's not the first time I've noticed it, but it's a good example. I will just, without realizing it, stand or situate my body in the exact same way as other people that I'm around. And it's very interesting because I do it completely without realizing that I'm doing it. My body just naturally does it. So, that's one way. Another way is that I mirror people's the way that they speak, the literal way that they speak, the way that they pronounce words, the accents that they have. And this is one that I really try to avoid doing because it can come off as mocking. It can be very socially inappropriate.

[00:04:47]It can be appropriative and it's something that I really try not to do because socially it can come off as very very inappropriate. Again, I really, really try not to do this for the reasons that I mentioned, but sometimes it happens and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that is so embarrassing. I cannot do that." And I like really have to focus on not doing it.

[00:05:10]But this is another way that it happens.

[00:05:12]Another way, I will start to mirror people's personalities. And this is something that I am a little bit more aware of because this specifically makes me feel really disconnected to myself.

[00:05:25]So, it's not that I notice that I'm doing it, it's that I notice that I feel really absent. I feel really disconnected from myself and from the situation and that's when I realize it's because I'm adopting their personality traits, so I don't feel like myself anymore in that context. And so, you can see how this type of behavior is very closely tied to people pleasing, right?

[00:05:49]Because it leads me to behaving in a way that is very consistent with the way that the person that I'm talking to behaves, and so it's very pleasing to them because I'm mirroring themselves back to them. And most people really like that because they feel then really close to you. They feel really comfortable with you because you're acting like them and they're very familiar with the way that you're acting because you're acting like them. So this mirroring behavior is very people pleasy because it makes people feel a sort of sense of comfort, a sense of familiarity with you in so far as it does not cross into like the territory of mocking or appropriating people's behaviors. When it gets to that point like or when it is when it is perceived that way people don't like that, obviously. But when it's seen as just this sense of like comfort or familiarity because the person feels as though they're interacting with somebody who is very similar to them, that tends to be very socially advantageous. That is honestly like one of the primary reasons and ways that I ever even made friends, especially in college, because my mirroring was at such a high degree. I was doing it so much and so well because it was at that point in my life that I felt the most disconnected from myself and so that kind of fed into the mirroring. The more disconnected I felt, the more I was mirroring, the more I was mirroring, the more disconnected I felt.

[00:07:16]And so I made friends through this mirroring technique that I didn't even know I was doing and I was doing it without my awareness or control.

[00:07:27]And that is why my friendships felt so inauthentic because I wasn't showing up as myself. And so this still happens to me all the time. It is only because I did that episode on people pleasing that I started to think again about the ways that I mirror and how that impacts me socially and how it's related to people pleasing, how it kind of feeds into one another. The people pleasing is a byproduct of mirroring, and the more that I mirror, the more that I subsequently end up people pleasing.

[00:07:54]Because again, people tend to feel really comforted and really secure and safe interacting with somebody who seems perceivably very similar to them. I wanted [clears throat] to also talk about some way that this type of behavior, this mirroring behavior, has impacted me.

[00:08:11]And this is something that I only realized like, honestly yesterday, I feel like.

[00:08:15]I realized that part of why going out into the world and doing things, doing social things, just being around groups of people is so difficult for me, is because I feel that my internal state, my energy, is completely just dispersed and like, washed over because of how quickly I absorb other people's energy. And I think this is directly related to the mirroring. When I go out into the world, I feel like I take on the emotional states and the behaviors and the energy of the people around me. And because of that, I internally feel so rattled and so unstable because I feel like I cannot maintain my own energy when I'm around so much other energy. Ultimately, I wanted to talk about this because I wanted to see if other people relate to this. I wanted to see if you also have any tips or advice on how to like, preserve your energy and stop doing this mirroring technique. I do understand that in certain contexts, it can be socially advantageous to do it.

[00:09:28]Yet at the same time, I feel that it really dismantles my sense of self and my own stability, and so it's not something that I want to do. Same with the people pleasing. I understand that to a certain degree people pleasing is a necessary social tactic because it helps you to relate to other people. It helps you to make other people happy. Like there's a give and a take of course in social interactions. And I do understand that to a certain degree like having a healthy relationship involves a certain amount of people pleasing because you know, there might be a situation where someone's talking about something that you are not in and maybe ideally you would not want to be involved in that conversation because it is of no interest to you. Yet, you may have to pretend to be interested because that person is very important to you.

[00:10:17]They're talking about something that is important to them and so you might engage in some sort of a people pleasing behavior because you want to make sure that they feel loved and respected and heard and listened to because again, interactions and relationships are a two-way street. I understand that.

[00:10:34]That's really not what I'm talking about when I make these episodes. I'm not talking about the certain type of respect or behaviors that keep a relationship healthy and alive. I'm talking about things that are way beyond that. People pleasing to a point of self-dissolution. Mirroring to a point of self-abandonment.

[00:10:55]So I'm not talking about the typical everyday amount of people pleasing or mirroring that a person does just to maintain relationships. I'm talking about way more than that. So I just wanted to address that because I noticed some comments on last week's episode about that. That's really not what I'm talking about. So I'm sorry if that was unclear. But ultimately I'm wanting to find ways to preserve my own sense of self and my own energy and avoid mirroring as much as I do because right now my mirroring is at a point where I feel like I do it so much that I don't even feel present because I feel like I am completely adopting the traits of the person that I'm around rather than being able to feel connected to myself and maintain my own energy.

[00:11:47]I hope that's clear and I'm really curious to hear from you guys if you relate or if you have any tips, but that's really all I have for the episode today. Thank you so much for listening as always remember autistic adults exist. We deserve awareness, support, community and acceptance and I'm so grateful that you're here. I'll talk to you again soon.

[00:12:05]Bye.

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