Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

by Devon Price

I truly believed I did not need other people.

I pretended all the rest was a meaningless distraction.

My solitude had somehow become imprisoning, but

How was I

supposed to know I needed friends, and a life?

How could I go about connecting with others, when every effort ...

relying on romantic partners for social contact and a sense of worthiness, and googling things like “how to make friends” in the middle of the night.

and remaining independent and invulnerable was chief among them.

with—how hard it was to relate to classmates, how adrift and overstimulated he felt. A therapist had floated Autism as a likely explanation. Then my cousin pointed out all the Autistic traits he’d noticed were common in our family. We didn’t like change. None of us could handle talking about our emotions and mostly interacted using a surface-level script. Some of us had hang-ups about food textures and strong flavors.

I didn’t want any of it to be true because in my mind, Autism was a shameful, life-ruining condition.

and were viewed as objects rather than people. Though I was a psychologist, all I knew about Autism was the broadest and most dehumanizing of stereotypes. Being Autistic would mean I was broken.

Already I was thinking about Autism in terms like we and us; I saw myself clearly reflected in the community, a fact that scared and exhilarated me.

As I grew up, I learned to be less intense, less embarrassing—less me.

we should view the disability as a perfectly normal form of human difference.

came to recognize that many disabilities are created or worsened by social exclusion.

Autistic women, transgender people, and people of color often had their traits ignored when they were young, or have symptoms of distress interpreted as “manipulative” or “aggressive.”

Every Autistic person is hurt by this narrow conception of the disorder, even the white, rich, cisgender boys who are most likely to be reflected by it.

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.

Autistic people are born with the mask of neurotypicality pressed against our faces.

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.

On good days, I don’t think any of these things make me childish, or cringey, or bad. I love myself as I am, and others can see and love the real me.

Before I started unmasking, I felt cursed, and almost dead inside.

Existence seemed like one long slog of faked enthusiasm.

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]

allistics (non-Autistics) never hear our needs voiced, and never see our struggle, they have no reason to adapt to include us.

Refusing to perform neurotypicality is a revolutionary act of disability justice. It’s also a radical act of self-love. But in order for Autistic people to take our masks off and show our real, authentically disabled selves to the world, we first have to feel safe enough to get reacquainted with who we really are. Developing self-trust and self-compassion is a whole journey unto itself.

Almost every person with a mental illness or disability has been crushed under the weight of neurotypical expectations, and has repeatedly tried and failed to earn acceptance by playing the rules of a game that was designed to harm us.

you might not yet believe there’s a worthwhile version of you waiting on the other side.

You might associate authenticity with being unsafe for incredibly rational reasons, and not be sure how and when unmasking could be worth it for you. So,

Let your memories serve as a reminder that you are not broken, and that the blueprint for building a worthwhile, authentic life already exists within you.

(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.

didn’t find out I was Autistic until many years after his death, but he was the first person who demonstrated to me just how painful and self-destructive hiding your disability can be.

Though Crystal’s grandfather intended to protect her from bigotry, and from being infantilized, he also denied her important self-knowledge, educational resources, and a place in the Autistic community.

Without consulting Crystal, her family determined it would be better for her to suffer and hide her neurodiversity than to have a name for her marginalized position in the world.

“Now I know I’m Autistic, but I kinda found out about it too late,” she says. “If I tell people, they don’t want to believe me. I have my life together too much for them to realize how hard it all is.

Everyone in the child’s life views disability not as an explanation of how a person functions (and what help they need in order to function), but a sign of damage.

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]

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. In addition

horrible condition that renders you freakish and helpless, your life only as valuable as your savant-like skills are to other people.

Autistic people have differences in the development of their anterior cingulate cortex,[14]

14] a part of the brain that helps regulate attention, decision making, impulse control, and emotional processing.

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). This means we can both be easily distracted by a small stimulus and miss a large meaningful one.

We are hyperreactive to even small stimuli in our environment We have trouble distinguishing between information or sensory data that should be ignored versus data that should be carefully considered We are highly focused on details rather than “big picture” concepts We’re deeply and deliberatively analytical

Our decision-making process is methodical rather than efficient; we don’t rely on mental shortcuts or “gut feelings” Processing a situation takes us more time and energy than it does for a neurotypical person

neurotypical (which means lacking any mental illness or cognitive disability).

smelling scented candles, staring at lava lamps, listening to recordings of rain and thunder—all of these activities can be stims.

Or if I walk around and fidget with toys, police or certain people in the neighborhood will think I’m strange or doing something illegal and I might get arrested, killed, or beat up.”

We’re at an elevated risk of eating disorders,[32] alcoholism and