ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), like mentioned before, is characterized by difficulties in social communication & interaction, as well as occurrence of repetitive behaviors & interests/activities, which made them seem abnormal to other people around them.
This is why people with this spectrum experience name-calling, bullying, being taken advantage of, feeling isolated & rejected & invalidated by their families & friend, which makes them feel not good enough, stupid & worthless. The way they cope with this problem is by masking in which he/she performs neurotypical social behaviors & hides their behaviors associated with ASD in order to protect themselves from being harassed & isolated at school/work.
Masking also makes them feel safe & avoid stigmas associated with autism, succeed at their work, attract romantic partner & avoid mistreatment, bullying & ostracization. Masking is usually done when a neurodiverse person (including the ones with autism) feels something wrong with them and they need to be perceived normal, so they hide their differences that make them autistic and change the way they act. This is done because their living/working environment doesn’t tolerate, support & respect them.
Like I mentioned before as well, autism is also divided into 2 types of functioning, which are low & high functioning. The ones with the higher functioning end of the spectrum almost resemble neurotypicals but still have difficulties in communication, understanding social cues, reading facial expression, fixating on certain objects/topics, & resist changes, and they’ll be more likely to mask their autistic traits & mimic neurotypical people in a social setting.
Behaviors revealed when they’re masking include forcing/faking eye contact, imitating smiles & other facial expressions, mimicking gestures, hide/minimize social interest, develop rehearsed responses to questions, script conversations, push through sensory experiences that they’re uncomfortable with, and disguising their stimming (doing weird movements) behavior. They learned how to mask through learning social cues from various forms of media, observing social interactions between people around them, monitoring his/her facial expression and body language, researching social norms & cues, practice themselves to appear interested/relaxed, and adjusting their tone of voice to match others’ vocal patterns.
Masking also enables someone within this spectrum to get a job and maintain relationships with others, and it’s an obligation for them in order to be accepted by others. This method also manages the mismatch between who they are and the demand of their surrounding social environment. Unfortunately, masking takes toll on their mental & physical health.
Masking also causes stress & anxiety, depression in which they feel unaccepted by others, exhaustion due to the energy used to mask, delayed identification of autism that causes mental health issues due to lack of support/understanding, loss of identity due to deceiving others & cause them not knowing who they are, autistic burnout in which they feel upset, angry, distressed & cause aggressive repetitive stimming & tantrums, as well as shutdown that requires them to have a time for themselves to calm down. Pressure to change someone to fit into his/her surrounding environment also causes identity confusion & increased risk of committing suicide.
Speaking of experience, I masked throughout my entire school life since I didn’t go to school with my shadow teacher, and I wasn’t accepted as I should be. I was pretending to be as a jock-wannabe, pretend to like the things they like, as well as avoiding my autistic friends to prevent being associated with them for acceptance.
I also faced bullying, ostracization, hostility from friends, even in my own family, and loneliness, which is why I decided to mask & distance any association of myself as an autistic person due to the fact that barely anyone accepted me for who I am without feeling embarrassed or discriminated. Unfortunately, it didn’t help much to my social life, that is, until I went to the US that saved & changed my life.
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