When people encourage me to be myself, not to Autistic mask, or as one Autistic said to me after my diagnosis at age 45 “Just don’t mask!” they make it totally about me, and totally my responsibility, but it’s not just about me, and it never was.
I have Autistic masked my being Autistic for 47 years. I started masking at the age of 3.
What is Autistic masking?
Autistic masking is mimicking Allistic (non-Autistic people) behaviour to fit in, or to hide in plain sight, camouflaging. It is never an illusion for me, but rather an illusion for others. I always know I am different. Some Autistics will become very adept at it, to the extent that it plays its own part in them being missed altogether, or late diagnosed, as was my own experience. These may well be the Autistic people who hear “But you don’t look Autistic”. We do not have just one ‘other’ mask, we may well have several. Masking operates at a deep level. In my experience, it is so automatic and unconscious that I am known to do it in my dreams. It is now a central feature of the person I am and have become. To some extent, we become the masks we wear, but I find that my masks are also intrinsically linked to my values, so at times, having felt the pressure to wear a mask that does not fit with my values – a dirty mask – I will quickly remove myself from the people with whom I am masking so I can remove it. Autistics who mask to survive must be careful of the company they keep.
What do we mimic?
I have been known to mimic anything and everything, someone’s mannerisms, clothing, handwriting, the way they speak (I pick up accents very easily, as do many Autistics), the way someone dances, walks, talks, phrases they use, interests they have, choices (good and bad), anything.
Why do Autistics mask?
Autistic masking is not a coping mechanism, it is a survival strategy. We use it to survive in a community with the rest of the ‘social herd’. It helps us to stay alive. However, Autistic masking comes at its own cost… When we have been overloaded with situations where we need to mask we will be totally and utterly exhausted. It is one of the reasons I need a lot of solitude – to decompress and unmask – it takes a great deal of self-control to mask, and self-control takes energy, so my tolerance levels or as I like to call them ‘control stocks’ for other things can become low e.g. tolerance for noise, impatience, temperature. If I am forced to switch masks quickly, or I am forced to mask in a situation I wasn’t expecting e.g. I bump into someone I know at the supermarket, I don’t always have the energy to mask. Having to don a mask quickly has a cognitive whip-lash effect on me. Ultimately, Autistic masking over a long period of time increases the likelihood of illness and suicidality in those who use it to survive. It is dangerous. I have recognised that my co-morbid anxiety which started at the age of 3 did so because this was when I started pre-school and needed to start masking to survive as an Autistic in and amongst a predominantly Allistic herd. The chronic gastrointestinal problems which followed did so as the Autistic masking had to step up to meet the social demands of adolescence. The day I get to wake up without these illnesses is the day I do not need to mask to survive. I describe my anxiety as living with a permanent sense that I am about to fall down stairs, and it never goes away. Both conditions are cyclic, constantly feeding one another.
The motivation for me to start Autistic masking came about because I recognised my own social deficits early on, at the age of 3, and because the Allistic tribe quickly showed me that it is was not acceptable or safe for me to be my authentic Autistic self. It wasn’t safe in 1978 when I was three, and it’s still not safe now. Autistics are often viewed as weird and different (in negative ways), criticised, rejected, and treated negatively in the forms of bullying, control, coercion, discrimination, and other forms of direct and indirect abuse. I witness this happening to other unmasked Autistics, and it becomes an additional warning that it is still not safe to unmask. Experiences such as this happen when we do Autistic mask, but can be more frequent and worse when we don’t. So, if I am to remove my masks, and be totally authentic, I need to know it’s safe for me to do so, and as I see it, 46 years on, it is still not safe to do so. I have simply learned to play the game of life for an Autistic person.
I am likely to be able to unmask when I can believe wholeheartedly that I will be accepted, supported, and not rejected for who I really am, and until that day arrives (or I am able not to care about those things) then I don’t see how I can unmask. Not only do I have to change, but society must change also. If we want Autistics to unmask, society needs to take responsibility for its ill treatment of Autistic people and make it safe for us to be ourselves.
Autistics ask for the same acceptance as any other minority group e.g. LGBTQ+ and BAME, amongst others (and yes, there is much work to be done there too), but for the Autistic community we have further to go. You would never hear the phrase “If you have met one black person, you have met one black person”, yet we regularly hear the equivalent statement said about Autistic people. This shouldn’t need to be said, but society is so lacking in understanding of Autistic people that such statements are still needed.
Most people are much more themselves when they feel safe to be themselves. One of the very challenges is that I make it very convenient for society by masking my Autism. I adapt therefore you don’t have too. Why would Allistic people challenge a status quo that serves them so well and doesn’t compromise their existence?
If someone is hiding their identity or true self, there is a reason for it, and the reason may not just be them.