10/24/2025
A friend of mine from many years ago shared this post the other day and I immediately wanted to share it with others.*
Their words are direct, their articulation clear, and their reflection striking.
When it comes to autism, and I will even go further and say humanity, hearing other’s lived experience can help us learn so much.
I encourage you to read their experience in relation to masking and autism.
*shared with consent*
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Masking is a strategy used by some autistic people, consciously or unconsciously, to appear non-autistic. While this strategy can help them get by at school, work and in social situations, it can have a devastating impact on mental health, sense of self and access to an autism diagnosis.
-National Autistic Society(UK)
At some point, during my evaluation, the psychologist asked me “are you masking right now?” and I couldn’t answer.
My initial instinct was to say no. No, I’m not masking. I’m being me and not actively trying to hide bits of me. I don’t do that. So I guess I’m not autistic.
Then a bubble of dread appeared in my stomach and I paused to consider it. It was fear. I had to sell them on my being fine and I had to not be weird and I was afraid that the question had exposed that need to the light. This was a script that was running in the back of my mind on repeat and I suddenly, consciously, realized that it was running. How long it’s been running, I couldn’t say, but that s**t is on repeat in the back of my mind during any social interaction.
So I answered honestly: I don’t know.
I don’t know if I’m masking.
I know that if I am masking, this mask is well worn. It’s an old friend. It’s broken in and fits perfectly and I couldn’t imagine life without it. I don’t put it away when I am home and safe, or when I am alone. At night, it hovers an inch above me, so the act of sitting up in bed with my alarm slaps it on me first thing.
I don’t know if I’m masking.
I know that I am weird, I know that it is bad to be weird because weird people have no friends/lovers and having those things is important. One should not be alone. I know this is a rule, but I do not know, or understand, why it is a rule.
I don’t know if I’m masking.
I know that I ruin things. I know that one deeply, because I have been told a great many times. I know that expressing boundaries ruins other people’s experiences and I shouldn’t do that, or I’ll ruin the thing. I know that I need to do the thing that is the most terrifying thing in the entire world and know that I’ll be teased for sobbing through it on baby mode but it still must be done, because it will be good for me. It ruins less things that way. I know that it is important to override myself, because not being weird and not ruining things is important.
I don’t know if I’m masking… but now that I’ve been told I most certainly am, I am trying to tease the mask apart and learn what it is and why it is and who I might be without it.
I’m working on that in therapy.
They tell me I’m highly self-aware. The psychologist who evaluated. The therapist who helps me now. That I can, and have, made improvement in leaps because I can be frighteningly introspective when asked to be so.
They tell me these things about myself.
But I didn’t know if I was masking.
