What is Masking?
Note off that bat: Masking is common across several mental health diagnoses including anxiety and depressive disorders, but it has gained more attention recently in discussions around autism. That’s where we’ll focus, primarily, in this post, but know that much of this can be seen across diagnoses and among neurotypical individuals, though the presentation and consequences differ. As discussed later, camouflaging among autistic individuals can be extremely effortful and, therefore, more draining than the camouflaging neurotypical folks may do in order to maintain appearances among friends, fit into a group, or impress in a job interview.
Masking is a subtype of “camouflaging” strategies as identified by Hall, et al. (2017) with the intention of “Hiding behind what I want people to see.” The other subtypes include assimilation (attempting to fit in within society by fitting societal standards) and compensation (forcing nonverbal behaviors in social interactions to compensate for perceived deficits). Both of these can have overlap with masking, especially in casual use of the terminology.
While all three of these can occur among autistic individuals, masking has gotten a great deal of attention as it directly pertains to attempting to cover up, or “mask,” autistic traits in order to seem as neurotypical as possible among others. This is consequential because:
It causes many individuals to go undiagnosed because they cover up their “autistic” behaviors so effectively that others may deem them to not seem “autistic enough.” The ability to blend in thus becomes a barrier to diagnosis.
It represents an internalized ableism among autistic individuals that is not only exhausting to maintain, but can result in increased levels of burnout and a negative self-image. Masking can then result in a lack of challenges to stereotypes because people aren’t exposed to different presentations of autism.
It keeps people from being who they are for fear of being ostracized by others. This is a painful experience and blunts all of the wonderful differences that each of us bring to the world.
All of this together takes a toll on autistic individuals.
Masking during a social interaction can be an exhausting process that requires a great deal of recovery. When masking, an individual may be constantly attuned to the facial expressions, sounds, intonations, movements, memorized scripts and interests of others, etc. in order to have a casual conversation. A great deal of effort may also occur before the interactions even occur wherein people need to not just energize themselves enough to get into the interaction, but may put a great deal of effort into preparing socially.
To relate this to a common experience, it can be like preparing for an extremely important job interview and then enduring what could be an hours long interview following said preparation. If that sounds exhausting and stressful, that’s because it is, and autistic individuals may go through this every day at work/school and through every social gathering.
Masking necessitates a great deal of recovery and when this recovery isn’t allowed individuals can “burn out,” experiencing symptoms similar to depression wherein they can be fatigued, have a flatter affect and lose interest in preferred activities.
So what do we do about masking? One of the biggest things we need to do is improve acceptance of autistic folks and behaviors deemed to be inappropriate or strange when they are harmless. Stimming (repetitive movements engaged in, primarily, with the purpose of regulating the nervous system), for example, is often discouraged starting at a young age and teaches autistic folks that their natural state of being is not acceptable. This is an area where we can all be more accepting and understanding. Meeting these behaviors with curiosity about their functions instead of writing them off can do wonders.
It’s also important for autistic individuals to get support from their communities where possible and, when necessary, for them to seek autism-informed therapy with a provider that can help them to understand their own flavor of autism and increase their self-compassion. Too often, we jump to trying to “fix” ourselves before we work to understand ourselves.
If you’re curious about your own camouflaging behaviors, you can self administer a version of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (Hall et al., 2017, 2018) at https://embrace-autism.com/cat-q/
If you would like to pursue autism-informed therapy, Comeback Counseling is here to help. Click below to reach out to us!
Reference:
Hull, L., Petrides, K. V., Allison, C., Smith, P., Baron-Cohen, S., Lai, M. C., & Mandy, W. (2017). "Putting on My Best Normal": Social Camouflaging in Adults with Autism Spectrum Conditions. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 47(8), 2519–2534. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3166-5