Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

by Devon Price

Usually it’s white boys with conventionally “masculine” interests and hobbies that are flagged as potentially Autistic when they are young. Even within that relatively privileged class, it’s almost exclusively wealthy and upper-middle-class Autistic kids who get identified.[1]

All the diagnostic criteria for Autism are based on how it presents in this group.

For far too long, we have been defined only by the “hassle” that white Autistic boys caused their well-off parents.

We were defined only by what we seemed to lack, and only insofar that our disabilities presented a challenge to our caregivers, teachers, doctors, and other people who held power over our lives.

To call the stealthy, more socially camouflaged form of Autism a “female” version of the disorder is to indicate that masking is a phenomenon of gender, or even of assigned sex at birth, rather than a much broader phenomenon of social exclusion. Women don’t have “milder” Autism because of their biology; people who are marginalized have their Autism ignored because of their peripheral status in society.

Maintaining that neurotypical mask feels deeply inauthentic and it’s extremely exhausting to maintain.

Those of us who need alternate tools for self-expression and self-understanding are denied them. Our first experience of ourselves as a person in the world, therefore, is one of being othered and confused.

My eating disorder was a way to punish my body for its unusual, Autistic mannerisms, and a means of making it conform to conventional beauty standards, protecting me from negative attention. My social isolation was a way of rejecting other people before they could reject me. My workaholism was a sign of Autistic hyperfixation, as well as an acceptable excuse to withdraw from public places that caused me sensory overwhelm. I got into unhealthy, codependent relationships because I needed approval and didn’t know how to get it, so I just molded myself into whatever my partner at the time was looking for.

being Autistic was a source of uniqueness and beauty. But the ableism around them had been a fount of incredible alienation and pain.

I’ve also worked on unmasking myself, getting in touch with the vulnerable, erratic, odd version of me I’d been socially conditioned to hide.

Unmasking has the potential to radically improve an Autistic person’s quality of life. Research has repeatedly shown that keeping our true selves locked away is emotionally and physically devastating.[7] Conforming to neurotypical standards can earn us tentative acceptance, but it comes at a heavy existential cost. Masking is an exhausting performance that contributes to physical exhaustion, psychological burnout, depression, anxiety,[8] and even suicide ideation.[9] Masking also obscures the fact that the world is massively inaccessible to us.

When we think about why we started masking in the first place, it tends to bring up a lot of old pain.

before we examine our masks and learn to take them off, we must first recognize that the version of ourselves we’ve been hiding from the world is somebody we can trust.

Label avoidance (taking steps to evade diagnosis) is a very common consequence of disability and mental health stigma.[1] Publicly identifying as disabled does mean being viewed as less competent—and less human—by many people.

Autistic burnout is a state of chronic exhaustion where an Autistic person’s skills begin to degrade, and their tolerance to stress is greatly reduced.[5]

Regular life actually did require more willpower out of her; Autistic people frequently experience inertia in starting a task,[6] and challenges in breaking complex activities down into small steps that follow a logical sequence.[7] This can make everything from basic household chores to applying to jobs and filing taxes incredibly challenging, or even impossible without help.

Autism is neurological. Autism is a developmental disability that runs in families[9] and appears to be largely genetically heritable.[10] However, it is also multiply determined,

Autism is associated with specific and pervasive differences in the brain, which result in us diverging from neurotypical standards, in terms of how our brains filter and make sense of information. Autistic people have differences in the development of their anterior cingulate cortex,[14] a part of the brain that helps regulate attention, decision making, impulse control, and emotional processing. Throughout our brains, Autistic people have delayed and reduced development of Von Economo neurons (or VENs), brain cells that help with rapid, intuitive processing of complex situations.[15]

To put it in very simple terms, our neurons activate easily, and don’t discriminate as readily between a “nuisance variable” that our brains might wish to ignore (for example, a dripping faucet in another room) and a crucial piece of data that deserves a ton of our attention (for example, a loved one beginning to quietly cry in the other room).

The idea that a disabled group can’t help being the way they are is dehumanizing and restrictive, even though some also find it liberating and validating.

Autistic people process the world from the bottom up.

we process in a careful, systematic, bottom-up way. Allistic folks, in contrast, make sense of the world in a very top-down fashion. They’ll enter a new environment, such as an unfamiliar restaurant, take a quick look around, and jump to reasonable conclusions about how to order, where to sit, what kind of service to expect, and even how loudly they should talk. Their brains will immediately begin to filter through sounds, lights, and other stimuli, and adjust accordingly.

Autistic people, on the flip side, don’t rely on knee-jerk assumptions or quick mental shortcuts to make our decisions. We process each element of our environment separately, and intentionally, taking very little for granted.

Autism touches every part of the Autistic person’s life.

Because the neural and cognitive features of Autism are so pervasive, it affects almost every aspect of a person’s body and brain. It’s related to coordination and muscle tone, the ability to read emotions on people’s faces, communication skills, reaction time, and even how a person recognizes feelings of pain or hunger.

Autism can influence how intensely we focus on an activity, and how we perceive textures, tastes, and sounds.[29] Autism can predispose a person to having fanatical interests (often referred to as special interests)[30] and to following rules very rigidly. Many of us have trouble identifying sarcasm or reading nonverbal signals. Disruptions to our routines or expectations can make us panic.

Autism is behavioral. Autism is associated with repetitive self-stimulatory behavior (“stimming”),[31] which can be something as benign as hand-flapping, or as severe as chewing one’s fingers until they bleed. Stimming is an important means of self-regulation.

Some of us stim using echolalia, the repeating of words, sounds, or phrases that feel good vibrating in our throats.

Repetitiveness is a key feature of Autistic behavior, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM).

Because we find the external social world so unpredictable, most of us prefer consistent routines. We often eat the same meals over and over again, or only enjoy a limited range of foods (sometimes called samefoods in the community).

We hyperfixate on activities that we enjoy and can get so engrossed in them that we forget to eat or tak...

Autistic people are at a high risk of violence, as well as negative mental health outcomes.

some masked Autistic people reach for flawed coping strategies to help manage stress. We’re at an elevated risk of eating disorders,[32] alcoholism and drug addiction,[33] and insecure attachments to others.[34] We tend to maintain shallow relationships, out of fear that people would hate getting to know our “real selves.” We may withdraw from other people, leading to negative emotional and psychological outcomes. And the more isolated we are, the less practice we get socializing, leading to a feedback loop of social disempowerment and shame.

Autism is a neurodivergence. Autism is a type of functioning (or a neurotype) that differs from what psychology defines as normative or neurotypical (NT).

What unites us, generally speaking, is a bottom-up processing style that impacts every aspect of our lives and how we move through the world, and the myriad practical and social challenges that come with being different.

The term neurodiverse refers to the wide spectrum of individuals whose thoughts, emotions, or behaviors have been stigmatized as unhealthy, abnormal, or dangerous.

the overexcitability of Autistic people’s neurons and the inconsistent way that we filter stimuli (at least compared to allistics).

An Autistic shutdown happens when an Autistic person gets so overstimulated and stressed, they can no longer process their surroundings.

It’s the quieter, more interior counterpart to an Autistic meltdown, which tends to involve more crying, self-harm, or outward aggression. Shutdowns are essentially a way of dissociating from one’s surroundings.

Because girls are held to a much more restrictive social standard than boys are, they learn to hide any troublesome, “violent,” or disruptive Autism features much earlier. Similar dynamics are at play for Autistic people of color and trans Autistic people of a variety of identities, as well as other maskers.[53]

In fact, the developer of the first therapeutic “treatment” for Autism, Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy, was Ole Ivar Lovaas, who also invented anti-gay conversion therapy.[58]

Most of us are haunted by the sense there’s something “wrong” or “missing” in our lives—that we’re sacrificing far more of ourselves than other people in order to get by and receiving far less in return.

To this day, a majority of Autism assessment tools are based on the decades-old ones developed for white male children from wealthy and middle-class families.

Most therapists are not trained to work with Autistic adults, and many of them harbor very shallow, outdated understandings of what the neurotype is. Even those who do specialize in Autism are usually trained primarily in working with Autistic kids, “helping” them to behave in a more agreeable, passive fashion.

There is no medication for Autism, no cure for it, and no way of changing one’s neurotype. As a community, most Autistics oppose attempts to “fix” us.

Diagnosis is a gatekeeping process, and it slams its heavy bars in the face of anyone who is too poor, too busy, too Black, too feminine, too queer, and too gender nonconforming, among others.

For many Autistic parents, it’s the diagnosis of their children that kicks off their own exploration of an Autistic identity. Having a recognized diagnosis of Autism in the family can also ensure that professionals take your suspicion you’re Autistic more seriously (that certainly has been true in my case).

Unfortunately, Autistic people are frequently put in the position of having to educate our own health care providers. Autistic children in particular need strong advocates in their corner, fighting to make sure their boundaries are respected and that any treatment they are given is actually in their best interest.

“Differently abled,” “handi-capable,” and similar euphemisms were created in the 1980s by the abled parents of disabled children, who wished to minimize their children’s marginalized status.

The world actively dis-ables people by failing to provide accommodations they need. Naming the reality of disability shows respect for disabled people and awareness of how we are oppressed. “Differently abled” attempts to erase that behind a cutesy euphemism, and many of us find the term offensive.