Unmasking Autism: The Power of Embracing Our Hidden Neurodiversity (Unmasking Autism Series)

by Devon Price

I was “too much” in so many ways. To other people, my tears were immature tantrums and my opinions were condescending diatribes.

Our first experience of ourselves as a person in the world, therefore, is one of being othered and confused. We only get the opportunity to take our masks off when we realize other ways of being exist.

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.

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. So they push the label away, and tell their child to stop making such a fuss. Believing they are helping their child “rise above” a limitation and be tough, they encourage the child not to be visibly odd, or to ever ask for assistance.

Though a masked Autistic child has no way of explaining why they find life so difficult, they suffer all the same. Peers detect there’s something unnameably “off” about them, and exclude them despite their best attempts at friendliness. When the child makes themselves small and inobtrusive, they’re granted some of the affection they desperately crave and never get enough of. So they do it more and more, quieting the voice inside themselves that says how they’re being treated isn’t fair. They work hard, demand little, and play by society’s rules as closely as possible. They grow into an adult who is even more self-effacing, and even less capable of voicing how they feel. Then, after decades of forcing themselves into a restrictive neurotypical box, they have some kind of breakdown that finally makes all the turmoil bubbling beneath the surface impossible to ignore.

When the child makes themselves small and inobtrusive, they’re granted some of the affection they desperately crave and never get enough of. So they do it more and more, quieting the voice inside them...

They work hard, demand little, and play by society’s rules as closely as possible. They grow into an adult who is even more self-effacing, and even less capable of voicing how they feel. Then, after decades of forcing themselves into a restrictive neurotypical box, they have some kind of breakdown that finally makes all the turmoil bubbling be...

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.