Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

by Devon Price

Though Autistic people tend to be hypersensitive to sensory input, most are relatively numb to physical pain.

However, many Autistic people (myself included) still need time alone to reflect on how we’re feeling, because the social information given off by other people is so distracting.

Digital work and gaming are incredibly appealing to Autistic people’s brains. Online and in games, cause and effect are clearer than in “real” life.[41] It’s easy to ignore subtext or nonverbal cues and focus only on shared tasks and clear, measurable outcomes.

In digital communication, Autistic people get the time we need to carefully process a message, google any terms that are unfamiliar, and carefully reflect on how we might want to respond.

However, recent research by Griffiths and colleagues (2019) does describe Autistic adults as having an elevated vulnerability to financial exploitation, domestic violence, relational abuse, and emotional manipulation.[43] These are the precise qualities that define cults—and they’re part of what makes such spaces alluring to us.

Other Autistic people I interviewed became adherents to rigid belief systems of their own making, without the influence of anyone else. They wanted to make their own worlds predictable, easy to make sense of, small. It began as a way to take charge of their lives, until the number of self-imposed rules they followed spiraled out of control.

In a 2016 survey of college students’ attitudes toward Autistics, psychologists found that people associated the neurotype with introversion, social withdrawal, and having a “difficult” personality.[52]

In the average person’s mind, there is a singular image of how Autism presents in adults: a genius, almost always a man, who is blunt and direct to the point of cruelty.

“Fawn types avoid emotional investment and potential disappointment by barely showing themselves,” Walker writes, “by hiding behind their helpful personas, over-listening, over-eliciting or overdoing for the other.”[54]

The connections we do form may never feel satisfying or authentic to who we truly are, because they rely on us meeting people’s needs reflexively and always telling them what we think they want to hear.

Autistic people are at an increased risk of domestic abuse, in part because we tend to be a bit gullible or overly trusting, and are quick to alter ourselves to placate others.[58]

It’s also easy for us to feel responsible for serving as an intermediary or peacekeeper when any tension arises between other people, because for us, conflict can be very dangerous.

One common fawning tactic among Autistics is mirroring: lightly mimicking the actions and emotions of another person, trying to meet the energy they are giving off so that they view us as normal and similar to themselves.

Autistic sex educator and writer Stevie Lang has observed that Autistic people sometimes find it challenging to negotiate sexual consent as well, because we can’t always tell the difference between wanting something, and wanting to want it in order to make someone else happy:

Ultimately, all masking is about setting our feelings aside so we can focus on pleasing others or conforming to social norms. This is always going to be a self-destructive values system to live by,

regardless of the coping mechanisms we use to prop it up. Whether we use alcohol, excessive exercise, overwork, social isolation, codependency, or some other self-destructive strategies to help us blend in, it’s always going to be damaging to put social approval and “passing” as neurotypical above our actual needs.

Hand flapping is one of the most common Autistic stims. It’s such a well-known, visible sign of Autism that training children to have “quiet hands” is one of the foremost goals of ABA therapy.[1] Though hand flapping is harmless and not disruptive, neurotypical people recognize it instantly as a sign of disability—and therefore punish it harshly.

“noncompliance is a social skill.”[7] It’s only “bad” if you’re looking at it from the outside, from the perspective of someone who seeks to control or restrict.

When many of us were growing up, adults saw us as loud, stubborn, uncaring, overly reactive, and burdensome. We’ve grown up believing we truly are hard to be around, and to love.

When a person from a highly stigmatized group absorbs and believes some of the negative stereotypes applied to their group, they’re suffering from what researchers call self-stigma.

Self-stigma is heavy; people high in it experience reduced self-esteem and see themselves as less capable than other people, an...

there is essentially no research into how to reduce self-stigma in Autistics. What little data does exist is on helping the abled family members of Autistic children to feel less shame about being related to someone disabled.[9]

In general, most research does show that proudly owning one’s disability can have a big impact on how people feel—and it can change the attitudes of the neurotypical people around us.

There is some research suggesting that people who are used to being disliked and going against the social grain are more likely to speak out and blow the whistle on injustice.[12]

By happily delving into our special interests and reveling in our Autistic capacity to hyperfocus, we can help retrain our brains to see our neurotype as a source of beauty rather than a mark of shame.

When it comes to special interests, Autistic brains are total sponges, absorbing facts and figures at a rate that seems kind of inhuman to neurotypical people. We can develop a special interest in nearly anything.

Autistic people find it rejuvenating and stimulating to spend time learning about our special interests. In studies that examine the lives of Autistic adults, engaging with special interests is positively associated with subjective well-being.

But for a long time, neurotypical researchers viewed special interests as an impediment to having a “regular” life. ABA therapists penalize Autistic children for speaking about them,[14] withdrawing attention and affection when the subjects come up.

Online, Autistic adults are commonly expected to educate non-Autistic people about what our neurotype really is like, and to debunk all the misinformation allistics have passively absorbed (and projected onto us) all our lives.

I can see exactly where my values lie, and how my mask blocks me from being my authentic self. When I let the fear of seeming “weird” or “rude” drive me, I fail others as well as myself.

You might find yourself looking back on all the years you “wasted” masking and regret how you let shame and social judgment shape you.

Being Autistic in a neurotypical world is often traumatizing,[21] and being forced to mask is essentially an experience of society-driven abuse. Though you may sometimes wish that life had been different or that you hadn’t been made to suffer, your disability isn’t to blame for what happened, and neither are you.

Quite often, people who have coped with trauma in imperfect ways experience a fragmentation of selfhood. They see different feelings and behaviors as almost distinct parts of themselves, rather than an integrated whole they can make sense of and have control over.

Autism cannot be “cured,” and most people in the Autism self-advocacy community eventually come to see that fact as a blessing, because Autism is so core to their existence, and integral to becoming the wonderful people that they are.

Self-stigma is a liar; you’re not cringey, “too much,” a baby, or a cold-blooded creep. You’re a marginalized person with many beautiful and unique qualities. Your needs are value-neutral, and your emotions are helpful signals to respond to that don’t merit any shame.

Unmasking doesn’t happen in one big burst of confidence; it’s a gradual process of relaxing your inhibitions, trusting your feelings, and letting go of compensatory strategies that no longer suit you.

To trust and unconditionally accept ourselves enough that we can accept the rejections and losses that sometimes come by living as we really are. We can’t please everyone. Unmasking means we stop trying to be an appealing “brand.”

Recall that masking consists of both camouflage and compensation. It’s a complex system of behaviors, performances, and even life decisions. It follows then that unmasking Autism goes a lot further than just lowering our inhibitions. It means rethinking the entire shape of our lives. When we trust ourselves and get in touch with our values, everything from how we dress, to how we lay out our homes, to how we conceive of time itself may change.

the concept of divergent design—the idea that the physical spaces we inhabit as Autistic people ought to prioritize our sensory health, and work with the actual patterns of our lives.

“When designing an interior space,” Marta writes,[1] “design for how you actually live, not how you aspire to live…your space must be designed to accommodate the reality of your life, without shame or judgement.”

Marta Rose writes that divergent design should honor the unique relationships Autistic people have to objects. Some of us are very stressed out by visual clutter, because it creates sensory “noise,” and that means home décor and staying organized can be very challenging for us.

Sometimes I throw necessary things away on impulse, because looking at them makes me so stressed.

Experimental research shows that many Autistic people have trouble ignoring visual “noise,” to the degree it really disrupts our processing.[2] Clutter can erode our focus, making it hard for us to think clearly or regulate our emotions.

Lots of neurodiverse people crave spare or even Spartan surroundings. It’s less to keep track of, less to clean every week, and less to pack up when it comes time to move.

That said, not all Autistic people are well suited to minimalism. Marta Rose observes that objects carry a very strong significance for Autistic people, so tidying our living spaces up and throwing things away can be very difficult.[5] Many of us identify with the items we love, and even feel a degree of empathy for them, as if they were alive. Psychologists call this phenomenon object personification, and Autistics exhibit it at an elevated rate compared to the neurotypical population.[6] We also tend to connect emotionally with animals more readily than people, which can also influence how our home environments should be arranged.

First, you can display one item that represents a larger collection that’s become unwieldy.

You can also take photos of the objects to catalog them and throw some actual items away.

Sometimes, old junk can be repurposed: old makeup and jewelry can be used to make visual art; holey T-shirts can be sewn together into a quilt.

If you want to hold on to an entire collection but find it distracting to look at every day, you can hang a curtain over your shelves, or place things into closed bins.

stick to clean lines and muted colors, such as pastels and earth tones; avoid loud patterns, bright lights, or ornate details. If you self-stimulate in ways that might cause physical harm (for example, swinging your arms around), avoid furniture with sharp corners. If your body craves movement, you can lay down a soft mat to flop onto. Algedra also recommends using insulation, rugs, and decorative soundproofing panels to dampen noise in an inobtrusive way.