2e Autistic Masking

My favorite autism meme is a photo of a [video game] controller with a caption that reads, “Autism: Where life is a video game and you skipped the tutorial.”

This perfectly encapsulates my experience of navigating life on the spectrum. Social rules don’t come naturally to me. I’ve had to learn them one by one, through a mixture of observation, deduction, and sheer trial and error.

To fit in socially, I need to suppress some behaviors and perform others. This means that seemingly simple interactions — such as small talk at the dog park or waving to an acquaintance on the street — require tremendous thought and effort.

[explanation of masking/camouflage, what it can look like]

• making eye contact

• consciously adjusting facial expressions

• exaggerating body language

• following internal rules, guidelines, or scripts to navigate social interactions

• rehearsing social interactions in advance

• performing social niceties such as small talk

• not talking about deep interests

Masking giftedness

Giftedness doesn’t typically come up in conversations about masking, but I think it should. As a gifted kid, I felt like an alien. Thankfully, I was never bullied or teased, but my classmates found me baffling, and I can hardly blame them. I liked inventing my own languages and reorganizing bookshelves for fun. Sharing my interests inevitably brought conversation to an awkward halt.

I masked my struggles, too, because the consensus seemed to be that smart kids didn’t need help. I was perceived as intelligent, and so it was assumed that I could pull myself together.

The downsides of masking

Masking isn’t inherently bad. When deployed strategically, it can facilitate social connection and help a person effectively navigate new situations. But masking also has significant drawbacks.

First, masking is exhausting. It requires carefully calibrating facial expressions, word choice, tone, and body language, often in ways that feel utterly unnatural. Masking for prolonged periods is especially taxing and can even be linked to autistic burnout.

Second, masking creates a discrepancy between internal feelings and external appearances, making it harder to receive support.

I underwent two complete rounds of neuropsychological testing at ages 11 and 16. Both times, I was deemed non-autistic, although assessors noted my lack of eye contact and overall awkwardness. I’m not sure exactly why the diagnosis was missed, but I suspect that masking played a role. The same skill set that allowed me to blend in also prevented me from being fully understood

Even after the diagnosis, I still encounter disbelief from people who tell me I don’t “seem autistic.” These moments always rattle me a little. The contrast between my internal experience and other people’s perceptions of me is jarring.

Third, masking can be both the cause and effect of negative emotions. In the research literature, autistic participants describe masking out of social anxiety or a sense of inferiority. As one participant poignantly explains, “Because I'd spent so much of my life not fitting in and being ostracised, I thought that [masking] was the only way to be liked” (Chapman).

This is an awful thing to believe about yourself. What’s even worse is that masking can further reinforce this belief. If, after chronic rejection or bullying, you change the way you present to the world and are suddenly accepted, you learn that being yourself doesn’t work. A participant in another study put it like this:

“The worst aspect of my compensation techniques is that they work on the basis that I am not good in social settings and so by acting out my compensation techniques I reinforce this idea that I am bad at socialising and [this] lowers my confidence.” (Livingston)

What parents and teachers can do

Help kids reflect on the thoughts, feelings, and needs that they mask

One way to begin these conversations is by introducing the term masking and then asking, “Do you mask? Does that concept match your experiences?” If the answer is yes, you can listen actively and explore further. You might ask: How do you mask? Have any strategies been particularly effective or ineffective? Do you find yourself masking with specific people or in certain settings? What motivates you to mask? What are the advantages and disadvantages? How do you feel when you mask? And afterward? These questions will help initiate metacognitive processes that support self-awareness and emotion regulation. 

Advocate for them and teach them to advocate for themselves.

Because masking involves hiding inner experiences, high-masking autistic people often struggle to get support. Explaining the concept of masking can help address this disconnect, and so can explicitly naming experiences that may not otherwise be visible. Adults can also help kids and teenagers develop scripts to do this: “I’m very sensitive to noise. When I wear headphones, I can focus better on my work.” 

Additionally, high-masking individuals are likely to hear, “You don’t look autistic,” when they disclose their diagnosis. I have a few ways to handle this. If it’s from someone I’ll never speak to again or if I’m too tired to start the conversation, I smile, nod, and remind myself that some people don’t know much about this topic. If I feel like discussing it, I might say, “There are many different autism profiles. Some are immediately visible, but many aren’t.” This approach is a) true, b) informative, and c) polite, so it works for me.

Promoting authenticity and acceptance

Acceptance reduces the need to mask and the associated stress. My friends know that I hate taking phone calls with less than a day’s notice, that I can spend a couple of hours one-on-one before getting exhausted, and that I struggle to follow conversations in loud environments. Because they understand this, I don’t have to hide it, and the anxiety of masking evaporates, just like that.

Approach social skills through the lens of growth

Nobody is perfect. We all have weaknesses, flaws, and areas for growth, and that includes those of us on the spectrum. We can acknowledge all of that without framing autistic people solely in terms of deficits. It’s the difference between “How can we fix you?” and “How can we help you learn?”