Masking: The Hidden Cost of Fitting In

Masking is the conscious or unconscious effort to suppress autistic traits in order to appear neurotypical. It can look like scripting small talk, forcing eye contact, mirroring expressions, hiding sensory discomfort, rehearsing entire conversations before they happen, and replaying them critically after they end. In the research literature it's often called 'camouflaging' or 'compensation', and it's now one of the most actively studied phenomena in adult autism.

For many late-identified autistic adults, masking has been a survival strategy from childhood. It often works well enough to pass — but the long-term cost is high. Chronic masking is associated with elevated rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and a specific exhaustion pattern that the autistic community calls autistic burnout. A 2019 study by Hull and colleagues found that the majority of autistic adults surveyed reported feeling 'mentally exhausted' after social interactions specifically because of the effort of camouflaging.

What makes masking insidious is that the person doing it usually can't tell how much energy it's costing in the moment. It's like running with a small weight tied to each ankle — you don't notice until you take them off, and only then do you realise how much of your day was spent compensating. People often describe the first few weeks of unmasking as exhausting and clarifying in equal measure.

Recognising masking is often a turning point. It opens the door to designing environments and relationships where less of it is required. The first practical step is usually inventory — for one week, notice and write down the small acts of suppression and performance that happen without your conscious consent. Forced eye contact in a meeting. Modulating your voice to sound 'normal'. Saying 'I'm fine' when you are not, because the alternative would require explaining.

Unmasking is not all-or-nothing. Very few people can or should unmask in every environment. The work is identifying the specific contexts (with which people, in which places, doing which things) where you can safely let more of yourself through, and gradually expanding that perimeter. Therapy with a clinician familiar with adult autism is one accelerator; peer support with other late-identified adults is another. Many people find the latter more powerful than the former, particularly early on.

If you scored higher on emotional processing items related to suppressing or hiding feelings, masking may be part of your story. You don't have to unmask everywhere all at once — but knowing the pattern exists is the first step. The second step is granting yourself permission to drop the weights, one ankle at a time, in the places where it is safe to do so.