Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

by Devon Price

Autism is not something I need to apologize for. Other people don’t need to understand me, or understand everything about Autism, in order to treat me with respect. I am [coming out/asking for accommodations] for me, not for anyone else.

By and large, Autistic people don’t operate by social intuition the way neurotypicals do. Every notification we receive tends to be given equal weight, no matter how well we know a person or how we feel about them. This is particularly true for maskers, who can be so terrified of upsetting anyone that they seek to be equally friendly and responsive to everyone.

Developmental psychology research has observed that Autistic people often have insecure attachments to other people, beginning from a very young age.[8] A person’s attachment patterns are shaped by their early relationships, particularly the stability of their bond with their primary caregiver.

Autistics have been observed to exhibit what’s called an anxious-ambivalent attachment style at rates that are elevated compared to the neurotypical population. People with an anxious-ambivalent attachment are difficult to soothe and reassure, and don’t see close loved ones as a safe, “secure base” they can find comfort in when lost or threatened.

They yearn to be accepted yet doubt that they can be. When other people try to connect with us, we rebuff them without even realizing it.

Our attempts at connection, such as playing next to another person but not making eye contact with them (sometimes called parallel play), may be mistaken as a lack of social interest. An intense Autistic meltdown may be mistaken for us being incapable of being soothed, and

taken as a sign of an anxious attachment pattern.

One way that an insecure attachment style sometimes manifests in Autistic adults is feeling discomfort when receiving praise or attention. You may not even recognize the positive attention you’re getting is socially appropriate, because you’re so used to being mocked or picked apart, or else being swallowed up in intense or abusive relationships.

I figured every compliment I received was me being “negged”—a tactic where people highlight your difference or offer a backhanded compliment in order to make you feel insecure.

It’s challenging for Autistic people to tell the difference between friends who genuinely like us, and superficial acquaintances who are responding favorably to our masks.

Often, the people who fall into this category are outgoing and do give me a lot of attention, but only in a surface-level way.

young Autistic people experienced far less activity than allistics in the inferior frontal gyrus (an area of the frontal lobe involved in interpreting facial expressions), by age thirty no differences between non-Autistics and Autistic people were evident.

As an Autistic person, you may never escape social anxiety entirely, and you might always be a bit reactive to the threat of abandonment. You also don’t have to learn to express yourself or connect with others in a neurotypical-approved way. If eye contact is painful and overwhelming for you, unmasking by refusing to perform eye contact is more important than getting comfortable with it.

Autistic people usually prefer explicit, clear messages that don’t rely on tone or nonverbal cues. We like having specific expectations laid out for us,

and being given many opportunities to ask questions and clarify meaning.

Clear Expectations • Specific plans with details about time, place, and what is likely to happen • A clear “yes” or “no,” no euphemisms like “I’ll think about it” • Meeting agendas that are handed out in advance, and then adhered to • Reading materials, questions, and discussion topics being provided in advance of

a panel, interview, or other high-stress public event • Step-by-step, detailed instructions on how to complete a task • Specific, measurable outcomes or goals. Explicit Messaging • Not assuming people can use facial expression, tone of voice, posture, breathing, or tears as indicators of emotion • Giving direct explanations of feelings: “I am disappointed right now because…”

• Recognition and respect of boundaries: “It doesn’t sound like Sherry wants to talk about that right now.” • Not punishing or judging people for failing to read between the lines. • Using clarifying questions: “What would you like me to do about this?” Reduced Sensory/Social Load • Having no expectation of ...

topics while driving, taking a walk, or doing something with one’s hands • Allowing people to express emotions and opinions via text, email, or handwritten note • Giving people time alone to reflect on their feelings and beliefs • Learning to recognize fawning, and signs of an upcoming meltdown • Pr...

Throughout our lives, masked Autistics are punished for requesting clarity, being blunt, or saying directly the things others would rather imply. Over time we learn to filter our self-expression.

My overly analytic Autistic brain yearns for structure, and my social anxiety and sensory issues mean I want most meetings to end as quickly as humanly possible. So, when the conversation seems to have lost the plot and people are talking in circles, I tend to jump into an unofficial facilitator role.

the “social deficits” of Autism aren’t really deficits at all; they’re just differences in our communication style that neurotypicals don’t adjust to.

Keeping the world at bay was the most exhausting part of masking for her. Looking like a functional “adult” required a ton of concealment and panicked apologies.

Sometimes Autistic people believe that the end goal of unmasking is to overcome all internalized stigma and live completely free of shame. I don’t think that’s a realistic standard to hold ourselves to. Ableism is a pervasive social force, and one we can’t entirely escape; what we can do, however, is learn to observe it as a cultural values system that exists outside of us, and that often runs counter to our personal values.

I can also take time to remind myself that I live in a world that exalts hyperindependence to a ridiculous, isolating degree. Throughout history and across many different cultures, most individuals did not cook for themselves.[13] Food was prepared communally, or by specialized workers, because it was a labor-intensive, time-intensive task.

It’s perfectly okay that I need help staying fed. If I were living in a time and place where individuals weren’t held responsible for all their own food prep, my struggles with such things wouldn’t be disabling at all.

Exercises like these can really highlight the ways in which we’re “throwing” time away meeting the expectations of neurotypical people in our lives, or just trying to conform to a vague idea of what we think society wants from us.

For many masked Autistics, learning in adulthood that you have been secretly nursing a disability all your life is quite the world-shattering experience. Adjusting your self-concept is a long process.

“I am not the math-minded type of Autistic,” Tisa says. “I am the kind who thinks about people obsessively.

When Autistic people are at the reins of event planning, we can craft environments that are tailored to our sensory and social needs, In small, mask-free subcultures that are created and maintained by Autistic people, we get a glimpse of what a society that truly accepts neurodiversity might look like. It turns out, an Autism-accepting world is broadly accessible to a wide array of people, not just Autistics.

Most countries’ legal systems, health care systems, and educational institutions approach disability using what is called the medical model of disability. The medical model understands disability as a condition that exists inside an individual person’s body or mind. If you’re disabled, you personally have a problem that must be identified, diagnosed, and then either treated or cured.

Sometimes what society (and the psychiatric establishment) considers to be an individual defect is in fact a perfectly benign difference that needs accommodation and acceptance instead.

As long as Autistic people exist in a culture and a political system that constantly creates and re-creates our disabled status, we aren’t fully free to unmask ourselves and live with authenticity and ease.

our current definition of mental health is tied to the state and employers’ desire for productive, inoffensive conformity.[6] Emotions that are too large, passions that are too childish and not profitable, habits that are too repetitive, and bodies and minds that require daily assistance all challenge this incredibly narrow definition of health.

Many people who are categorized today as disabled or mentally ill might have functioned just fine outside of an industrialized capitalist economy.

In fact, some genomic evidence suggests that when humans moved away from hunter-gatherer-based societies and toward agrarian (and later, industrial) ones, alleles that predict neurodivergence became a disadvantage.[7] For example, in societies where daily life offered less stimulation and novelty than a life of hunting and gathering did, ADHD traits turned disadvantageous.

Ending most states’ at-will employment status would also improve life considerably for disabled adults. At present, it’s easy for managers to fire an Autistic person (or a person with depression, schizophrenia, or Tourette’s) once they discover we are disabled, so long as they lie and say they’re terminating us for some reason other than our disabilities.

Since anyone can be fired at any time for nearly any reason, there’s almost always an acceptable shield for ableism.

Historically, people with mental illnesses and disabilities were institutionalized and locked away because they were viewed as unsightly and a threat to public order.

Merely observing a disabled person as an outsider or a pitiable curiosity won’t do much to reduce neurotypical people’s biases. Instead, research suggests that collaborative,[19] extended[20] contact shared between equals is what’s necessary to really change attitudes.[21]

Only when neurotypicals are required to work and collaborate with us as their peers will the social script be flipped, replacing the pressure to mask with the obligation to accommodate. Notably, getting to this place requires justice be attained for all marginalized people—it’s not enough for white Autistic people to be treated as equal to white neurotypical coworkers; Black people, women, trans people, immigrants, and other oppressed groups must be at equal footing as well.

Being visible as a marginalized person is a double-edged sword, as any out transgender person will tell you. Public awareness can put a target on your back just as easily as it can liberate.

In a truly just world, I wouldn’t have to educate neurotypical people about how I think and process information, and I wouldn’t have to slowly warm people up to tolerating me, worrying the entire time that I might be mocked or attacked if I challenge neurotypical expectations too dramatically.

It’s important that all people—neurodiverse and neurotypical alike—come to realize how narrow definitions of sanity and “functioning” are used to harm and dehumanize.

For a lot of care providers, the belief in disability as a medical defect to be cured is absolute and unflinching. Because they have been trained to approach difference through a medical lens, and have never learned about alternatives, they routinely pathologize completely neutral, harmless Autistic traits and behaviors.

When a masked Autistic person lacks self-knowledge or any kind of broad social acceptance, they are often forced to conceive of themselves as compartmentalized, inconsistent parts. Here is the person I have to be at work, and the person I must be at home. These are the things I fantasize about doing but can’t tell anybody about. Here are the drugs that keep my energy levels up, and the lies I tell to be entertaining at parties. These are the tension-defusing distractions I’ll deploy when someone begins to suspect there’s something off about me.

In the transgender community, we have a term for the fragile, confused state many of us inhabit before we recognize our gender identity and decide to come out: it’s called being in “egg mode.” An egg is a trans person who is either too isolated from the trans community or too enveloped in denial to be able to acknowledge who they are.

In my experience, being a masked Autistic is eerily similar to being in the closet about being gay or trans. It’s a painful state of self-loathing and denial that warps your inner experience.