What's masking and why do so many autistic people do it?

Firstly, I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who read my last post and thank you for all the lovely messages you sent. I was genuinely so nervous to post it but I was immediately comforted by the support that everyone gave me. 

People I haven't even really talked to were messaging me and lots of people encouraged me to write more, so here I am. It brings me a lot of comfort to write about these topics because it's helping me to understand myself better after my diagnosis and also the thought that I may be helping other autistics, diagnosed or undiagnosed or giving neurotypicals a better understanding is so encouraging. 

I'm especially grateful to the neurotypicals who read my last post and may be reading this one because it means so much that even by reading this blog, you're taking the time to try and understand us better and my hope is that this will lead to more acceptance from everyone. Thank you. 

Today I'm starting with the topic of masking because in order to understand autism, particularly autism in women, the first step is to understand how we hide it to the point where it can be almost entirely undetectable. 

Masking is a process that is mostly present in autistic girls and usually begins from a young age. It involves observing the behaviour of those around you or even TV/movie characters and then copying that behaviour in order to fit in. This may include body language, facial expressions, eye contact or even developing 'scripts' for certain social situations. 

At the same time as mimicking the behaviour of others we also make note, whether consciously or subconsciously, of our autistic traits such as stimming (explained later on) which might be considered odd or out of the norm by others and masking also involves hiding or disguising those. It's basically like playing a role constantly. 

But, whilst masking can be an effective tool for autistic girls to fit in and be successful socially, it's important to ask ourselves if we even should be masking. How does acting as a different person all the time and hiding our true self affect us, both mentally and physically? 

The mental image that comes to mind and best describes it for me is that scene in Monster's Inc. where Randall (the chameleon bad guy) gets pulled about by Boo and his camouflage flashes into all different patterns. Masking is constantly having to switch and adapt to different situations and it can feel like a massive headache. 

In terms of the emotional/psychological effects of masking, we know that autistic women and girls tend to be more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression and it's thought that this is due to the strain that masking causes. 

In a video I saw, an autistic girl said that masking makes everyone around us comfortable but at the price of making ourselves uncomfortable, which is a perfect way to explain it. 

When I was diagnosed, the psychiatrist said to me that it's similar to if you had to go into a remote tribe in some far away part of the world and try to act like you fit in with the locals - it would be very difficult and very stressful. Also, it drains our battery very quickly and can lead to autistic burnout or meltdowns, which I will explain later. 

So, if masking is bad, why do we do it? 

The biggest reason in favour of masking is that it helps us to be considered 'normal' by society and as sad as this is, it's the truth. Ableism, whether outright or internalised is a huge problem and autistic people have found themselves limited in terms of their job, their social life, relationships etc. Just because people judge and have misconceptions as soon as they find out that someone is autistic. 

The second reason is that we ourselves may suffer from internalised ableism, particularly if we've been diagnosed later in life. The other day I was watching a live stream of a woman on TikTok who shares her experience of being autistic and one of the comments stuck in my mind: "internalised ableism makes you feel bad about doing the things that make you feel good". 

This could not be more true. Many of our autistic traits actually serve as subtle coping mechanisms that help us to navigate the world and reduce the amount of stress that we're experiencing, but we repress them because we feel that they seem odd or single us out. 

Because of these reasons, masking often becomes something which is so ingrained and spreads across all areas of our life, to the point that we find some, if not most of it, is subconscious by the time we reach adulthood. It's basically formed our entire personality and without it, many autistic women say that they don't even know who they are which can be terrifying. 

How can we stop masking?

It's important to firstly take note of the fact that deciding to mask or not mask is entirely up to you. On the one hand, unmasking can be very liberating and reduce the stress that you're under. 

On the other hand, it can provide more stress because you may struggle to find your real identity, you may have to deal with more ableism or the people around you might start to say that you've changed. 

I've even heard that some autistic women are accused of "faking it" after their diagnosis, when in fact, they're just trying to embrace their true selves finally. 

One way to stop masking that I've seen people discuss is to allow ourselves to stim naturally. Stimming is a way that autistic people regulate their emotions at times when they experience an overload, such as when we're excited, nervous, happy or I sometimes even do it when I'm cold! 

It's difficult to give examples of stims because it varies from person to person but hand flapping, rubbing your eyes, cracking knuckles or joints, rubbing hands together, making noises or rocking are all common examples of stimming and I'll go into more detail about this in a later post. 

At first it may be helpful for us to try and allow ourselves to freely stim alone if we've been repressing it completely and then try to gradually move it into interactions with those close to us who we trust. 

If you're with an autistic person and you see them stim PLEASE do not tell them to stop or say that it's weird, or worse, try to restrain them unless it's absolutely necessary (if they're hurting themselves or others, but even then physical restraint should be the absolute last resort). 

Stimming is a natural thing which allows us to regulate our emotions and it makes us feel happier and calmer. On top of this, by allowing ourselves to stim, we can also tell that we're not masking in that moment which makes it easier for us to identify the difference between us being masked or unmasked and perhaps start to manage our masking better. 

How am I unmasking?

As soon as I got diagnosed, I felt that the best route for me personally is to try and limit the masking I do. I know that I put a massive amount of pressure on myself to please those around me and I do this by masking, but the price that I pay with regards to my mental health is huge. 

I'm trying to start by talking about my experiences being autistic more, especially with those close to me and this helps me both to make sense of it myself and for them to understand me better and help me manage with the things I find difficult. 

I've also been hoping I can try to stim more freely in front of close friends but it's really hard because I'm still terrified of being judged or laughed at. I think that the more I try and the more that they encourage me to stim, I'll eventually get there. This is also why it's so important that we are kind to those around us, especially autistic people because we really are trying our best.