Panic waves and heart flutters when unmasking?

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Hi! I’m a woman (23) currently waiting for an autism/ADHD assessment, and I’ve been masked pretty much my whole life.

Let's say 2 months ago, I started intentionally unmasking as a self-experiment — letting myself move more naturally, not forcing facial expressions, not over-controlling my body, etc. And something strange started happening:

I gradually got more sensitive to things I used to be able to suppress, like:

• Sun outside (even on clouded days) is too bright to ignore now
• crowds feel much louder and more suffocating than before (I also sometimes start feeling dizzy and push to leave quicker)
• Clothes I used to wear feel tighter, more itchy etc.
• I don't feel energetic enough to mask during conversations

It's like I can't be bothered to put the mask back on xD

But also for about 2 weeks now I've been going down a spiral which was caused by a sudden panick attack:

• Sudden anxiety spikes
• heart "dropping" and "exam" feeling in my chest that lingers all day
• heart flutters / palpitations (?)
• not really chest pain but the same feeling you get when you swallow the wrong way. (My, am I good at explaining things...)
• Health anxiety: thinking something is wrong with my heart / body

I don't feel like myself anymore. I feel like something is different.

What’s weird is: the only time something similar happened was 4 years ago, right after I graduated, when I suddenly didn’t have to mask all day anymore because I stayed home. (Back then I didn’t intentionally unmask because I didn't even know what that was xD Suspecting I had autism came a year or two later.)

I’m really curious if anyone else had physical symptoms during unmasking and if what I'm feeling at the moment could be the cause of unmasking rather than something else.

Was this a nervous system reaction for you?
Did it get better over time?

I’d love to hear others’ experiences so that I can understand what’s happening with my body.

I can relate to this. I think it's quite hard to separate "masking" strategies from "coping" strategies sometimes. My anxiety got much worse in the first couple of years after I was diagnosed, though it's eased off a lot since.