Delving into the Complexities of Autistic Masking & Unmasking Safely

This is a fantastic article by Keiran Rose and Jade Farrington describing the costs to both masking and unmasking. It more closely describes my experience than anything else I’ve ever read about autistic masking. I’ve copied a few paragraphs below in italics, but I recommend the whole article if you have time, it’s quite long.

Delving into the Complexities of Autistic Masking & Unmasking Safely

They describe how autistic masking is much more than intentionally acting a certain way so people can’t tell you’re autistic. “Whether someone knows you’re Autistic or not, they’re still recognising differences in your behaviour. These include how you communicate, sleep, learn, behave, perceive the world, play, move, and more. …

As an Autistic person, every facet of who you are is potentially up for correction or invalidation or pathologisation in some way because of the history, the cultural belief system, and the idea that there is a ‘normal’.”

“Environments we enter and interactions we have with other people are soaked in stigma. And that’s not just happening in social situations. Our families, our support networks, and the systems we engage in are all soaked in a stigma about Autistic people and Autistic behaviours, whether they know that we are Autistic or not.”

For me masking started many many years before I’d ever heard of autism and includes how we’re taught how to behave as children. From learning to respond ‘I am fine, thank you, how are you?’ instead of how I really felt, continuing on with seeing a negative reaction on someone’s face and adapting my behaviour to not get that reaction in the future (what they call in the article ‘projecting acceptability’) and including not wanting to be on the receiving end of abusive behaviour, mental, emotional, or physical. So for me when I diagnosed myself it wasn’t a light bulb coming on that now I have an explanation for my life, it was the realization that I had lived my life with no understanding of who I really am, no understanding of the way I really think or feel about anything. Mistakenly trying to adapt myself to something that would be acceptable to others and never getting it quite right. Developing my frozen mask face so at least I wasn’t criticized for being too happy, sad, or excited, etc. But then no one ever knew what I was feeling inside.

“There’s a common narrative among late identified Autistic adults where all of a sudden you don’t know who you are. This new information may have hit you like a truck, and you’re left wondering what’s really you and experiencing an unstable identity.

You’re probably carrying around boatloads of trauma, while still being further traumatised in lots of ways, and you still have unmet needs. But on top of it all, you all have an unstable identity wrapped up with internalised stigma, or what we might see as internalised ableism.”

It always bothers me when autistic people are accused of being difficult or troublemakers when in reality we’re trying so hard to read the room, behave appropriately, do what’s expected, and get along with others. This behaviour alone results in autistic people being abused, exploited and taken advantage of because we’re trying so hard to get along, we’re scared to set boundaries, and we give up too much of ourselves.

Most autistic people understand the cost of masking – anxiety, social anxiety, depression, leading to feeling unsafe, overwhelmed, burnt out, etc. which are unfortunately normal occurrences for most autistic people. No one should be further traumatized by being attacked or harshly criticized for experiencing these things especially not by other autistic people. We need to find ways to accept ourselves and other autistic people.

"Whatever our privilege, or lack of, when we start to unmask we might find that those around us may respond in threatening, abusive, or even violent ways. Family or friends may view being Autistic as wrong or have little understanding and think someone is putting it on. It’s sadly common for people to start to unmask and receive hurtful comments, pushback and worse from those around them. This is particularly the case where people have benefited from, or got used to, a compliant mask.”

“At its core, masking is about projecting acceptability, and rejection sensitivity is about feeling we’re in some way unacceptable, so they feed off one another.”

“Studies have demonstrated that Autistic people communicate more effectively with each other than with non-Autistics…This doesn’t mean all Autistics will automatically get on and be friends or will agree on everything, just as not all neurotypicals get on. Everyone’s an individual with their own likes, dislikes and personality.”

Personally I think double empathy requires a level of understanding that’s difficult for autistic people to achieve. I think all the variations caused by the autistic spectrum plus our different co occurring conditions plus different ages ensuring we’ve had very different experiences, create differences in neurodivergent people that must be understood to be accepted. I mean, we all have different interests and communication styles as well as seemingly less ability (I don’t know if ability is the right word) to tolerate or develop interest in things we’re not personally invested in. That is to say hyper focus on some things and no interest whatsoever in other things.

I’ve experienced a lot of rejection with regard to this group and how I expected other autistic people to accept each other. Especially whenever I attempted to unmask. And unfortunately, I’ve caused others to feel rejected by not behaving as they expected. I’ve tried to explain myself as best I could in the descriptions about the website, the agendas, and posts but not everyone takes in information that way. It’s difficult to maintain the mask when you’re feeling anxious and overwhelmed.

I think if we could be more open with each other and openly discuss our needs or challenges, we would get closer to mutual acceptance. I know I’d really like to be participating in some kind of gathering or meeting of neurodivergent people but so far I’m hesitant to try and put something together for fear of failing again.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the article. I could go on and on 😊There’s lots more to the article including the high cost of masking that actually results in shorter lives for autistic people, and much more. I recommend the article if you have time. And I'd love to hear other people's opinions, comments, etc. Please add them to the comments below.

Here’s the full article  Delving into the Complexities of Autistic Masking & Unmasking Safely