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+---
+title: "To mask, or not to mask"
+date: 2025-04-05T00:00:00Z
+tags: ['autism']
+draft: false
+---
+For anyone who is unfamiliar, masking is when an autistic person pretends to be neurotypical (normal). We mainly do it for social survival because many normal people won't treat us with basic human dignity unless we pretend to be like them. We can't mask continuously however, because pretending to be someone you're not is exhausting and causes a lot of stress and anxiety.
+
+So in my high-masking autistic experience, one of the most difficult decisions I have to make is *when* to mask. I've recently come to the conclusion that I've been masking too much, due to sheer number of times I've had the following happen:
+
+I meet someone. I'm masking. We're getting along. Things seem to be going well. Over time, they start noticing that I have some quirks, that I'm a little bit different. I disclose that I'm autistic, thinking it will clear up their confusion. They either deny it or insist I'm "not *that* autistic" thinking they're giving me a compliment. They start to critique my differences. Over time, the criticisms become harsher, hateful even. I try to explain to them how what they're criticizing are actually traits of autism. They deny it, and insist that I'm making excuses. This continues until I make the decision to cut them off, because they're just not listening and there doesn't seem to be any other option available.
+
+This exact story has played out in my life *countless* times. And I've wasted years of my time and energy, and sacrificed my mental health, trying to build and maintain relationships with bigots who didn't *want* to get it. Obviously I can't control that other people are bigoted, nor that they disbelieve me because I don't fit the stereotypes. But looking back, I've begun to realize that much of the suffering I endured was probably avoidable had I masked *less* around the person from the beginning.
+
+The trouble is this: Bigots don't carry around a neon sign saying they're bigots. One doesn't find out who the bigots are until they have something to be bigoted against.
+
+When I'm masking, bigots see me as "mostly normal", so they treat me like they treat everybody else. Meanwhile, I'm not aware that they would be treating me differently if I were being genuine. When they start to see through the masking months or years into the relationship, they don't see an autistic person trying to be normal. They see a normal person intentionally being "difficult". I learn that they're only friends with who I can pretend to be, and they hate the *real* me. I don't want to believe that I've wasted so much time and energy on this person, so I try to educate them, but they don't *want* to learn. They just want to hate.
+
+If I had been genuine and not masked around them from the very beginning, and set a clear boundary at being disrespected, those relationships never even would've gotten off the ground, and I would've saved myself the trouble. I thought that masking would allow me to make friends and avoid being a target. But in the end, I only made fake friends, and I was bullied and taken advantage of anyway. Had I not masked so much, I may have found people who liked me for who I really was, and I could've put energy into those relationships instead.
+
+This is not to say that there aren't moments where masking is the best option. I think that telling high-masking autistic people to never mask, or to always mask, are both terrible and unrealistic pieces of advice. Always masking can backfire in ways I've already illuminated. Never masking can keep you from getting past the job interview stage. There's no easy answer here. In an ideal world, we would never have to mask, but that's just not the world we live in.
+
+I think that deciding when to mask, with whom, and how much, is one of the most difficult things about being high-masking autistic. There's no one-size-fits-all answer for everybody. Making good choices with respect to masking takes a lot of trial and error, and actually implementing those choices is at least equally difficult.
+
+Masking is a social survival strategy that has been reinforced in us our whole lives. For most of us, the mask is not just a switch we can turn on or off. It's part of us. It can be very subtle — we may not even be aware that we're wearing the mask. Sometimes it's difficult to know when it ends and where we begin.
+
+To summarize, masking is complicated.
+
+That's all I have to say about it for now. If you have any stories you'd like to share about how masking did or didn't work out for you in some situation, I'd love to hear them. You can find my contact info on [the about page](/about/ "About Page"). If you're a neurotypical reading this, I hope I've given you some idea of the challenges autistic people go through related to masking.