Published on 12, July, 2020
A few people have told me in my life that they would never have expected that I was autistic if no one informed them, because I "seem normal". This isn't a post about what constitutes as "normal", though. I'm considered a high functioning autist, so I understand the symptoms might not be as clear as with others. I've heard around and about the term "masking", but don't really know anything about it. All I can say is that I don't feel like I put any special effort into behaving differently around others.
Well, that may not be entirely true. I remember in youth that, whenever I got emotionally carried away, my behaviours would make other people uncomfortable. Embarassment and alienation conditioned me to repress strong feelings like excitement. If that's a kind of masking, then I've gotten so proficient at it that I don't think I could stop if I tried. Feeling things feels wrong.
It troubles me when people who don't understand autism look at me, see me behaving almost like a neuro-typical person, and assuming that I'm using my autism as a crutch to avoid personal growth. I've had people I've felt very close to turn that on me. It hurts.
I don't know if there's any merit in trying to unravel this structure of avoiding strong emotions. To this day, any time I let my guard down and feel something freely, I've come to regret it. I can't think of one single instance where being emotionally uninhibited has done me more good than harm.
But anyway, how does one deal with others doubting the validity of your condition, when explaining only seems to affirm their belief that you're making excuses for yourself?
That is an insult really when people say those things, as if normal is the 'gold standard' to achieve and anything else is failing.
Kieran Rose, an autistic advocate, has been involved in a lot of research on masking. If you want to learn more about masking then his website is a good place to start. Some of his articles and videos explain that most of the masking is not something we do consciously. It usually started very early in life as a result of invalidation or not feeling safe, being made out to be different by others.
https://theautisticadvocate.com/masking-i-am-not-ok/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFCaoFX-pjg&t=2486s
Oran G. Utan said:Embarassment and alienation conditioned me to repress strong feelings like excitement. If that's a kind of masking, then I've gotten so proficient at it that I don't think I could stop if I tried. Feeling things feels wrong.
Yes that's masking and you've identified how hard it is to unmask when we actually want to. People who are not diagnosed until later in life often feel as if there is nothing there underneath the masks, we don't know who we are.
As a child I learned to internally suppress so much after I was repeatedly punished for having meltdowns. However those bottled emotions will come out one way or another eventually and not in a good way.
Table 2 of this document contains a list of some of the main types of masking behaviours. I imagine you'll recognise quite a few.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13623613211026754