Autism Explained: Finding Yourself Behind the Mask

You may have masked so often and for so long that you have forgotten who you really are. But you can find the true you and bring them back.

Photo by Finan Akbar on Unsplash

Like many autistic people, I have spent most of my life pretending to be somebody else. More specifically, pretending to be some mythical neurotypical version of myself that meets the myriad of unwritten expectations firmly embedded in society. I am not a good actor, and I have never been very good at masking, but that has not stopped me from trying to do it, or indeed feeling obliged to do it, pretty much any time I am with other people. And until the unexpected silver lining of Covid opening up more work-from-home opportunities, that was most of the time, most days.

Even now, living alone and working from home, my mask comes out every time I join a call, every time I send an email, every time I start to feel enraged by the latest nonsense we all regularly encounter in our working lives. Being my true autistic self is still not acceptable in almost every situation, except when I am on my own, doing things that only affect me.

This constant act has many consequences, none of them good. But perhaps the most innerving is that after a while, you become the part you are playing. Much as an actor putting on an accent may choose to keep using it between takes because it is easier than turning it on and off, so autistic people often find it easier to mask by default, even in situations where it would be fine to be ourselves.

Do this for long enough (and long enough is not a terribly long time, in my experience) and you start to forget who your true self really is. Let’s take a moment to consider how horrendous it is that this happens. The world is so dangerous and unwelcoming to the true self that you end up playing a role until you turn into the person you are pretending to be. Yet that is where we are.

So, how do you find yourself again behind the ever-present mask? It is not easy. Firstly, there is probably a natural and learned reluctance to do so. Most autistic people probably have a whole list of times when they were mocked, ridiculed, or worse for being their true selves in the past. When you have those scars, it takes a big effort to put yourself at risk again, even when you are on your own. So start small. Identify one part of your personality that you know you have been suppressing and let it out, just for a moment. I know it feels scary, but you have to start somewhere. Being on your own should always feel like a safe place, but if it doesn’t, be kind to yourself until it does.

But what do you do if you cannot even find yourself any more? If you have completely forgotten how you would be and live if left to your own devices? It can feel like the whole of the original operating system you were born with has been overwritten by neurotypical impersonator 2.0!

I think a good place to start is with things that you enjoy doing. If you had a day to yourself, there were genuinely no important tasks that you really should be doing, and you had lots of energy, what would you choose to do? We all have those favourite activities deep inside us. They may get buried at times, but when you really enjoy something, it never really goes away. So let yourself do that thing, or at least take steps towards doing it. I appreciate that if your favourite activity is skydiving, just doing it at a moment’s notice can be hard, so at least find out how you could start doing it again. Take that first step. Then notice that the world does not collapse and that nobody admonishes you for doing so. This may be a new or long-forgotten feeling! But you are just as entitled to follow your dreams as anyone else, and you have every right to do it your way, as long as that does not hurt anyone else.

If you go back to when you were young, you probably first started masking without even realising it. You copied the other children at nursery or school so that people would stop laughing at you or bullying you. But you did not go from fully yourself to fully masked overnight. Like a creeping menace, the masking gradually became your whole public self.

Masks that heavy and long-standing do not get displaced overnight. The way to take it off is the way you put it on — a little at a time. Be yourself in one place or situation where you feel safe. Do one thing purely because you enjoy it, regardless of what others think. Do not admonish yourself if something changes and the mask snaps back into place instantly. That happens to all of us. But take it one step at a time. The person behind the mask is still there. They just need a bit of time and encouragement to come back out into the world. I can’t wait to meet them.