The Anatomy of Autistic Masking
What masking looks like to me
As an autistic individual, I often read about other autistics exhausting themselves daily out of bare necessity to survive. To say I relate to the concept of masking and what autistics collectively go through is an understatement.
As the reader probably knows, masking involves losing a piece of your soul to fit in. It’s endlessly exhausting. When I mask, I feel utterly detached from myself and start questioning who the real “I” is in what I am doing.
People think masking is a real performance art. Well, it is. But it involves deep concentration at almost all times during a social encounter. I am monotropic. My executive functioning skills are like a cluttered desk in my mind or a “splinter in my mind,” the phrase made famous in The Matrix. Each social situation has its share of unpredictability, so the need for improvisation, like a complicated jazz solo in an avant-garde piece where the time signature constantly changes, and you don’t know how many choruses you are supposed to keep going for, must always be employed. I reach in my mind for a grabbag of phrases that I’ve memorized, but half of the time, they do not apply to the chat.
So, every autistic reading this probably knows what it is like to mask, even though we all mask differently. For me, it’s always about trying to say “what’s appropriate” to the point where I probably come off a bit dull.
But here’s what it is like for me internally. Now, remember everything I put in parenthesis is something I think about in real time without uttering the words out loud. This means that not only am I thinking these thoughts during the interaction, but they multiply exponentially after we say goodbye.
Smith: Hey man, how’s it going?
Me: Hey. Not bad, not bad. (Really, I’m doing shitty. But I sound cool repeating myself, and the emphasis helps to get my point across). How about you? (I’m really melting down because my garage door won’t open, and I have a doctor’s appointment today. But I think I did a good job asking this question. I was informal, and I am looking interested in how Smith is doing.)
Smith: See that guy over there. He’s always doing that shit with others.
Me: (I asked how he was doing, and he didn’t even answer my question. And what shit? What guy? I don’t even know what he’s talking about. I’d like to ask him, but then I’ll give myself away as being totally clueless. And I’m still angry he didn’t answer my question!) I know, right, man? (People seem to like it when you make a statement by asking a question. So I think I did good there.)
Smith: Totally. I mean, he’s like that character from Season 5 of Madam Secretary. You know who I’m referring to.
Me: (No, actually, I don’t. Nor do I watch Madam Secretary.) It’s been a while since I’ve seen that show.
Smith: Shit, he’s such an entitled brat. I can’t even tell you the number of times blah, blah, blah.
Me: (Right now, I’m seeing something else in the corner of my eye that is really upsetting me. Meantime, you’re telling me something and talking so fast that I am neither interested in what you’re saying nor can I keep up with you.) Yeah, really? Man, he sounds horrible to deal with. Wow.
Smith: And on top of that, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Me: (What’s he talking about?) That’s rough. I hope you don’t have to interact with him that much.
Smith: I just told you, I’ve never met the guy.
Me: (You did? Oh. I must have been trying to keep up with you and missed that part.)
Smith: But I will next week when I’m scheduled to take him to dinner as a potential client.
Me: (Finally, something I understood.) Gotcha, gotcha. (Once again, I repeated myself for emphasis. I sound like a neurotypical doing that, don’t I?) Well, hopefully, it’s the only time you ever have to see him.
Smith: Dude, I want him to be a client. So, hopefully, I’ll see him more than once. I’ve just heard he’s a major a-hole.
Me: (Great, so I missed the entire point of what he was trying to tell me.) Well, I’m sure you have other clients who are less obnoxious.
Smith: F*ck, I’m a money manager. They're all obnoxious.
Me: (How do I console him when he’s told me that? I can’t make a joke about it. I wouldn’t know what to joke about. I don’t even know how to respond. What does he want from me? What the hell does he want from me? I’m panicking!!) Well, I bet you can’t wait until 5 pm, and you can punch the clock.
Smith: Yeah, right. So what’s new with you?
Me: (Yeah, right? What is that supposed to mean? Ah, what’s new with me? Let’s see. I have an MRI this week, I have to take my parents to the doctor and take myself to the doctor, I have to fix a flat tire, my iPhone needs to be repaired, and someone is coming over to fix my garage door. But he doesn’t want to know all that, does he? Jesus, what should I say.) Oh, just busy. Catching up on a lot of things.
Many readers probably go through the same kind of mental exhaustion if they have similar chatty voices in their heads. But the chatty voices are like antibodies: I’ve made so many social mistakes in the past that the voices are coaching me in the masking process to protect me from making ones in the present. Or, put more accurately, they *think* they are protecting me from future mistakes based on past performance. And they only multiply after the conversation ends, and I have a chance to analyze it. But what if I dropped the chatty helpers in my head?
Well, I don’t think these kinds of dialogues, or internal monologues, will entirely go away, at least for me. But I do use a technique called desensitization. I’m so used to the voices urging me to mask that paradoxically; sometimes, I don’t notice them because they are everpresent. For example, for some neurotypicals who don’t mind sensory sensitivities, hearing a lot of traffic outside of one’s window for the first minute is loud and jarring. But after 5 or 10 minutes, the person begins to tune out the traffic as they’ve already adjusted to it. Similarly, me, myself and I are well acquainted with one another. I am used to the voices: They haven’t just been blaring in my mind for the past 5 or 10 minutes. They are like an internalized shadow. I know exactly what they will tell me to do to mask better, and because of their predictability, I can tell them to “shut up.” Sometimes it works.
But be careful. Telling yourself to “shut up” can actually not end up being the greatest thing for one’s self-esteem or confidence. My advice would be to say…” Not now,” knowing that the mask coach in your mind will be back but that you don’t want their advice now. Keep repeating “not now” as if it was a Buddhist mantra. Firm but respectful toward yourself. Setting boundaries with your protective antibodies who disguise themselves as a mask coach that only wants to protect you from rejection but gently nudging them back to prevent a cytokine storm.
This advice hasn’t eliminated my own masking. I still mask plenty. But sometimes, it keeps my cerebral and emotional immune system from becoming toxic. And by doing so, I can be proud of whatever autistic self I present to the world. Because, in truth, it is who I am.
