Masking and Code-Switching

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about masking. I previously felt that I don’t mask much, but on reflection I think I do. I don’t stim much, but I try not to do it in public. I avoid talking about my interests for fear of the response it will get. I don’t show my social anxiety, I try to consciously control my eye contact and body language, and I use social scripts a lot to manage conversations with people.

It occurred to me that I deal with another layer on top of this because of my intersecting identities. Code-switching is the linguistic term from changing from one language or dialect to another. It can happen in an oppressive way (between classes and with regional dialects as well as between races), but it can also be a fairly inevitable product of cross-cultural contact. As a Jew, even more so as an Orthodox Jew, I code-switch all the time. I have a certain amount of Hebrew or Yiddish in my internal monologue. In situations with non-Jews, I would use no Hebrew or Yiddish, even if that meant using weird (to me) English translations. With my family, I would probably use language similar to my internal monologue, although perhaps with slightly less Hebrew and Yiddish, but with very religious Jews, I would use more Hebrew and Yiddish. It’s a balancing act and one that I feel quite conscious of, like most spoken communication.

I feel like I’m masking and code-switching all the time and it feels really hard to cope at the moment. It’s hard masking autism and social anxiety at work, because it’s uncomfortable and probably contributes to my feelings of exhaustion and some of my stupid errors in the workplace. It’s hard masking autism and code-switching in the Jewish world, because that feels like a more conformist community generally. I hide other aspects of my personality and interests too, in different situations. I got so used to being mocked, judged and silenced as a child that it became second-nature to hide myself and my interests. I do it automatically.

That said, I don’t know how much I want to unmask. The assumption in the autism world is that masking is bad, but I feel that everyone masks to some extent. We don’t go around telling everyone our deepest feelings or talking/singing to ourselves in public even if we might in private. But I do feel that I need to mask less even if I still mask a bit. I’m just not sure how to do it.

Mariusz over 2 years ago

I've never heard that term code-switching before, but being multilinguistic like you I use 3 languages on daily basis. Switching to particular language just happen, usually triggered by someone starting conversation with me in that language. I've never thought of it as part of masking, because using any spoken language happens in order to communicate.

yoiu can solve problem with weird sounding translations by not possesing overlapping vocabularies. E.g. I can talk about math only in polish, about welding only in slovak, about accountancy only in english

I gave up on full unmasking shortly before christmas. I decided that stress caused by trying to talk some sense to an ableist is pointless, until then full unmasking won't be possible for all those reasons you've stated.

But because I decided that I want to live my life alone from now on, I could stop doing one massive part of my masking, which was overtalkativeness in order to cover up my anxiety in social situations, I'm not planning on making more friends or partners so I can be relaxed about how they see me, and stop covering it partialy, because simply put I remain silent

I was never really good at masking or commited to improve it anyway. I only developed 'hidden' stims and overtalkativeness, and 0.1sec lasting eye contact and the begining of conversation. I suppose being alexithymic helps a lot, I can just put feelings on hold
JuniperFromGallifrey over 2 years ago

I think it's important to not confuse Masking with being intentionally disciplined, responsible or kind. The mask is essentially Jungian. And I actually think Autistics don't mask. Or at least they don't do it well.

I see it as a catchphrase right now on Twitter, which just seems at odds with being autistic in general. While we all want to feel approved of and understood, it's a bit of a tiresome Allistic/Neurotic manoeuvre to use a word as a virtue hail. I just want to relieve everyone of this task some how!

The Mask is actually part of how Allistics/Neurotics mature. It's an internalised socially coded piece of theatre to play-act society.

Jung talked about the collective unconscious as a Persona, this mask in front of the individual fading into a collective, and I believe this is also responsible for driving the desperation for 'Authenticity' in society, Neurotic masking is sub/unconscious and they’re rewarded for it, so the brain then continues to strengthen those neural-connexions. They continue this dance of collective-solidarity-dissolving individual into the collective. What gets lost here is the authentic self. Thus the overwhelming constant need for ‘authentic individual’ which isn’t actually authentic or individual, but just another beautifully shaped mask.

My version of 'masking' always looked like a bit of a lopsided glued and taped together construction, like something from primary school, while holding a trunk of possible scene changes just in case I got it wrong - as if no one noticed. I recall genuinely believing I was doing it right. I look back on this and smile a little, but am quite pleased I just turned out to be: just me.

I actually think we can be too vulnerable and too raw, which I don't think is good. Our skin is a nice construction to keep our human organs safe. This being too 'raw' is how we experience the world for the most part, without too much filtering. So there isn't a natural inclination to create a facade, some how we seem to miss the smoke and mirrors and just see the smoke machine and the stagehand running it (if I stick with the theatre analogy). But I think once we learn a little art of diplomacy, we can have our own social 'persona' - one that affords kindness, appreciates manners even if it accidentally appears a little too 'creative' or 'odd'.

Code-switching! I haven't thought about this too much. But as I've gotten older I realised that integrating my intentions or deeper values with what I said and how I acted made life a little easier. I'm just me, though if you ask for a bio, it'll be either a few hours of an info-dump monologue or just a blur I won't be able to communicate.
🐝 Bees 🐝 (they/them) Autism resources in bio #stoptheshock #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs over 2 years ago

People need to hear this more often but yeah actually everybody masks, even allists and neurotypicals. It's just some people have multiple masks going on silmutaneously, other people have different masks for different occasions, some choose to mask for their own reasons while others are forced to for safety or acceptance. But for some reason it's us autists that are "doomed if we do and doomed if we don't": If we don't mask we can get ostracised, called "weird" or "playing it up", if we do mask we can be accused of "faking it all along," "not autistic enough", or "not being authentic*."

* (Which is just as problematic as being accused of masking because of "internalised ableism" as if it's not the reaction to external ableism it really is. And the accusation is also a huge pile of rubbish because it's just putting another set of expectations on the autistic person at their cost for the accusers own arrogant and selfish comfort.)

If you want to remove all the masks and go full radical acceptance that's fine. But if you find you've been masking so long that it's now an intrinsic part of you that dropping it at all, or too quickly or unselectively would create uncertaintly and a feeling of being unsafe and the anxiety and other issues that go with it for you then keep the mask, that's fine too.
The world is a beautiful but harsh place to live in and there's no shame in doing what you have to to survive it.

I think bottom line is you have to do what works for you, what you are happy and comfortable with, and to heck with what anyone else thinks.

(edit for typo fix)