What is masking with autism? Why do you do it?

So Many Closets

I remember when I came out as queer. It was 1997, and I was still in the military. I was home on leave, and walking with my girlfriend around Boston for First Night. I remember the deep sense of freedom I felt holding her hand while we walked down the street to where we were going to ring in the new year amidst the crowds later that chilly evening.

It was the joy of not masking anymore, as I was enlisted during the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” era, which had required a different kind of masking, that leads to a similar, exhaustingly crappy feeling.

Life is precious and it is so very short, and I ain’t got time for masking anymore.

So you know what being in the closet means. Shall I tell you about masking autism, by sharing a few examples from my experience?

Masking Example – Executive Dysfunction/Scripts

I cannot negotiate phone calls, even little ones, because I get the sequence of things shuffled, hashtag executive dysfunction. What I need to do is script out the entire call, and I do mean every single word and possible pathway for the adventure, before it happens. I will need to write it out before the call happens, like this:

• Yes, hi. This is Erika and I would like to schedule a dental cleaning.
• (if they ask me to hold) Yes I can hold.
• (if they ask me what day or time is good) Any day is good, midday times are better.
  (if they ask me which dentist I see) I see Dr. [name of my dentist].
• (if they ask whether I have insurance) No, I’m a disabled veteran, no dental insurance, so I’ll just be cash pay.
• (after they suggest a date ad time) Sure, that’s fine. (note to self: write it down right now)
• (they will say we’ll see you then) Thank you – have a great day. Good bye.

For more complex conversations? I need to rehearse the script.

But if I never told you that, it would seem like I just made a regular phone call, right? That’s masking for you. It’s a behind the scenes sort of thing that makes us kinda look normal on the outside, hence the nomenclature of a mask, yeah?

Masking Example – Zip Codes, Prepositions

Another quick example is that I really, and I do mean really, love zip codes. I worked for UPS when I was young, and they made me memorize them, which I always found soothing. And I still know thousands of them today, decades later. (Incidentally, the internet has rendered the related party trick far less catchy than I feel that it once was when it was just me and a phone book.)

I love my zip codes, I really do. I still recite them to myself. I blurt them out on occasion when someone says a city. Oh, did someone just say Watertown? Mass? 02472. New York? 13601. I also love to recite the 76 prepositions in alphabetical order that Mrs. McGovern had us memorize in 1986 for some reason. It is so soothing.

This is stimming, by the way, which will be a separate write-up. But supressing it, not calling out the zip code when I hear the city? That is masking.

My Masking at Age Seven

I certainly did some masking as a child in elementary school. I had a lot going on in the second grade, but two things stood out: I got in trouble for my “bad conduct”, and I was pretty good at math.

One day, they showed me a little game called Around the World, and after I had said the answer to the flash card problems quicker than everyone in class, in sequence, I had gone Around the World and got to put a sticker next to my name on the bulletin board.

This was thrilling to me, the highlight of my week! What I didn’t realize (because seven years old) was that nobody else could play this game if I played, because I always won, like it wasn’t even close, like nobody could ever do the math quicker than I could. This was combined with the fact that the teacher didn’t like me too much, due to all the acting out.

How that went down was that Mrs. Ginsberg let me go Around the World three times, and then she sent me out into the hall, where the bad kids got sent back in the day.

So I had my fun with math, then I got put out in the hall, where I proceeded to get into trouble with the other hallway kids, because why not. I remember not necessarily wanting to do what the hallway kids were doing actually, but I went along with them. Yeah… we did some stuff…

I’d like to think school is different for little kids now than it was in 1981…

But back on point (this article is supposed to be on masking), here’s what I did. I started faking that I couldn’t do the math anymore! I copied the failure rate of my classmates. I tried to slow it down, to stumble over the computations at the rate that they did, and basically to blend in. Why? I didn’t want to get sent out into the hall, and I wanted the teacher to be nice to me like I thought she was to the other kids. That’s masking.

(It’s also what kids do who are forced into ABA for literally the same reasons, with all of the same negative mental health outcomes and strains all for the sake of trying to please an authority figure in order to avoid punishment or regain positive social interactions.)

And so all of this and much more, unmentioned here, meant that in elementary school the only thing my teachers ended up responding to was my bad behavior, never my giftedness. And to try to get my teachers to like me, I stifled my math ability, so that I would not be sent out into the hall so often, and hopefully I’d get in trouble less often.

My Masking at Age 49

The masking I do today is much less than what I did, say, a decade ago, and that comes from some acceptance, and age, really. I don’t have the energy to give anymore for what it takes to do all the extra for this.

I am more myself now. I am also less stressed, and it is as much a relief as that cold New Year’s Eve walk in Boston all those years ago. Wherever I can skip masking, I do so. And I am grateful for the people and places who welcome and accept me as I am.

Autistic Masking in Particular

By the way, what we’re talking about here as masking with autistic people can sound like the sort of stigma management things anybody might do. But researchers find that masking for autistic people differs categorically.

In particular, autistic people mask in ways that include things like sensory suppression, and it is associated with increased suicidal ideation not found in folks who are not autistic doing similar things (Pearson & Rose, 2021). In other words, I understand you might think it’s the same for you (if you are not autistic), but this is something different with autism.

How about you? Autistic friends, what is your experience with masking, either past or present?

Reference

Pearson, A., & Rose, K. (2021, 2021/03/01). A Conceptual Analysis of Autistic Masking: Understanding the Narrative of Stigma and the Illusion of Choice. Autism in Adulthood, 3(1), 52-60. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2020.0043

Want to discuss this topic? There is a thread about it on the facebook page.