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The masking paradox
- Mary Pasciak
- Apr 13
- 2 min read
What a lot of people don't understand about masking is that while it presumably throws you a lifeline, it's quietly dragging you under.
Those of us who are autistic, ADHD or AuDHD have been trained to believe that to succeed, we have to do it as somebody else.
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Because the world does not take well to people who blurt out what they honestly think.
Your boss does not appreciate the fact that on some days, you'll be able to churn out a week's worth of work – but on other days, you'll be lucky to squeeze out an hour of work.
People do not react kindly when you ask them to dim the lights or lower the volume.
Your coworkers stop inviting you to lunch when you spend several hours a day with headphones on to block them out.
So we create a version of ourselves that's more palatable to the people around us.
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We make small talk that feels like torture; force ourselves to smile when we want to run away; and forego the alone time that we actually need to keep ourselves sane.
We sit at our desk eight or 10 hours a day because we're expected to, even though we know that it has no correlation to productivity.
We tolerate the fluorescent lights that feel nearly physical painful.
And we fight the urge to put those headphones on, choosing instead to appear "normal" even though it means having to wage an internal battle to stay focused.
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The more we master the art of masking, the more we blend in.
The more comfortable it is for the people around us.
The more likely it is that we will be accepted.
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Also true: the more we master the art of masking, the more we abandon ourselves.
The more we sacrifice our own needs.
The more distance we put between our true self and our masked self.
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This is what fries our nervous system.
The constant self-censoring.
Endless rumination over conversations, looking for ways we might have inadvertently let the mask slip.
Tolerating sensory input that keeps us in a never-ending state of overwhelm.
Ignoring our natural energy patterns to force something that isn't ours.
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Eventually your nervous system will let you know: this is not sustainable.
The irony is that when you mask too hard for too long, eventually you hit burnout. And you actually lose the ability to mask. You simply run out of capacity to maintain the effort that masking requires.
The way to prevent that?
Start taking tiny steps toward unmasking every day.
Understand what you need and provide it. Dim the lights at home. Let yourself put on the headphones a little while each day. Take lunch by yourself sometimes.
Gradually reclaim the energy you've been putting into masking and start reinvesting it in your authentic self.
If this resonates, you might want to check these out:
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