Reflections on Unmasking Autism Traits
Unmasking Autism Traits
I'm about six months into this whole unmasking autism thing. I still remember the first TikTok video I watched about masking. My initial thought was, "well yeah, but doesn't everyone do this." Doesn't everyone direct their bodies through the appropriate movements—nod here, smile now, uncross your arms — doesn't everyone rehearse conversations ahead of time, have prepared blocks of scripts they re-use? As I watched more videos, my questions shifted from "doesn't everyone do this?" to "how does a person start the process of unmasking?" Where are the rules, steps, and instructions? Where is the guidebook for this? I cannot articulate how the processes started, but I sense I have changed in profound ways over the last six months. I will try to capture these shifts and changes into words and categories. At the same time the internal shifts that have taken place are bigger than any words can capture.
What is Masking? What Did it Look Like on Me?
Within the first week of post-enlightenment, I told my spouse, "I feel at peace in my body for the first time in my life." It's a hard thing to describe. For the first time, I understood my body. So much of my life has been spent "bracing for impact." If I am walking to get mail, I am sprint-walking, head down, shoulders tense, and actively working to block out the sensory world around me.
If someone approaches me, I feel the tension in my body build as I brace for social contact. Once I realized I was Autistic, I stopped bracing for impact. I let myself feel the impact of the sensory world. I let the sensory inputs come, roll through me (sometimes thunder through me), and be released. I needed to understand my body and what was happening before I could tolerate letting down the hypervigilant guard. Before I could stop fighting my body, I needed to understand it. After 37 years of being at war with my body, I finally made peace with it.
Masking is a survival strategy that many Autistic people unconsciously do. This is where they hide their Autistic traits and mimic allistic behavior in order to present as non-Autistic to others.
I don't know how to describe the process of unmasking, but I think the whole "stop being at war with my body" was a big piece of it. Once I stopped fighting my body, and began attending to its needs, wants, and desires unmasking naturally started happening. And it all started with underwear, an admittedly odd place to start!
It seems like a rather silly place to start re-orienting my whole being, but what can I say? It is what it is. Throwing out uncomfortable, lace, feminine undergarments was the first concrete action I took. I knew it was symbolic, but I don't think I knew just how symbolic. Looking back, I don't know why I owned it in the first place; I don't understand why anyone owns this stuff! Then again, apparently, it's not wildly uncomfortable for everyone (I'm still getting used to that idea that things my body finds obnoxious are non-issues for other people). I guess I owned it because this is what a woman is supposed to wear. I wanted to be the kind of woman who wears feminine things. But it's uncomfortable AF, and I'm not feminine; my mask is, but I'm not.
I moved from underwear to getting rid of all my uncomfortable clothes, which led to getting rid of most of my feminine clothes, which led to authentic gender exploration and changing of my pronouns (using she/her feels akin to trying to fit into scratchy, lace undergarments, she/they feels like putting on a warm, comfy hoodie that fits just right). My social mask and feminine performance are intricately intertwined. I now have a new appreciation for why I started with feminine undergarments. At the time, I thought I was simply starting with something small.
What Did Unmasking Autism Look Like for Me?
Attending to the Sensory
Beyond deconstructing the feminine, it also strikes me as significant that I started with the sensory. I started unmasking by first attending to my sensory world. I began attending to my needs and honoring them. I no longer felt apologetic when I opted to remove myself from the family to concentrate, focus, or simply have a sensory break. Attending to the sensory has been the foundation of my unmasking. This feels poignant. I've spent my life disconnected and dissociated from my body. So naturally, it was through healing my connecting with my body that led to authenticity. It was in connecting with my body that I was able to attend to my likes and dislikes, and this was foundational for me to dig beneath the performer to find the person underneath it all.
Social Unmasking
Unmasking has involved social shifts. I recently learned that Autistics experience social conversation as sensory demand. I felt the resonance deep within. Social questions (especially context-free questions) irritate and agitate me. Before I had the language of autism, I would talk about how as a therapist, I feel like I "take people in" with more intensity than other therapists, as in, "I take in their whole stories and personhood into my body." I now understand that I was describing my sensory experience of taking in another person’s entire being. There is a heavy lift when I take in new person after new person. I used to work in a setting where I saw clients as if it was a revolving door and could have up to 4 intakes a day. This was a situation that didn't work out well for me. Part of unmasking for me involves honoring the fact I do take people in with intensity and I now have more intentional ways of buffering myself from this.
Some things I do now that are different:
I perform less. If it doesn't feel natural to make specific facial expressions (such as smiling, nodding, etc.) I don't.
I no longer force myself to make eye contact. Autistic amygdalas are more active than those of neurotypicals when we make eye contact with others. In the past, I had always found ways to avoid eye contact, but now I give myself more intentional permission to do this.
I let myself be a loner without guilt. Before learning about my autism, I would force myself to make small talk or sit near others. When I'm at a conference or group setting, the most natural thing is to find a seat on the edge of the room away from others (a seat that allows for easy and accessible escape and that is less surrounded by bodies). I now do this without guilt.
I speak in a manner that is more natural for me. Professional language was part of my mask. Naturally, I speak more casually and less polished. So now, in professional as well as casual situations, I use more language that is comfortable for me, regardless of how casual it sounds.
I use more of my own words and phrases. Previously, I would intentionally listen for phrases/wording that I liked and would then add it to my imaginary "social dictionary." I no longer do this—I use more of my words. It means I can be more clumsy with the way I speak. Sometimes, I re-start sentences if I realize what I am saying is not what I mean to be saying. It’s clumsy but authentic.
I no longer chitchat. People likely experience me as less friendly (at least casually so), and that’s ok with me. Now, I more quickly walk by people without engaging in small talk. I honor that these are encounters I don't enjoy and take precious energy from me. I may stop to make small talk if I see the meaning to it or want to connect with the person. Otherwise, I just walk on by.
I release many of my people-pleasing tendencies. I moved through the world by tuning into others and adapting to their wants. I nearly always said yes (and then resented it) and only rarely asked others for help. I have slowly begun to rewire these tendencies. I am learning to hold onto myself and be okay even when those around me aren't okay. I'm learning to disappoint others and survive it.
I say no more. I honor my no. I am finally acknowledging my limits, which means I find it easier to honor my no and prize my yeses.
A lot of this goes back to my sensory experience—I now appreciate the sensory demands small talk places on me. I am also aware that while neurotypicals get dopamine from these encounters, for me, they are depleting. I am more intentional before I subject myself to that experience. I protect my energy.
A Side-Effect of Social Unmasking
One side effect of unmasking I’ve noticed is that I am no longer very good at neurotypical communication. Perhaps I was never as good at it as I thought I was, or perhaps my ability to do neurotypical communication has declined. Now, I notice the awkwardness when I'm first meeting someone, and we're figuring out where in the conversation we're going to dive in. I struggle when my brain is simultaneously gathering context for the person and figuring out what the conversation will be about. Again, maybe I was always awkward with these things and just chose to repress this in the dark hole of everything else I was repressing, or maybe I am getting worse at this the more I unmask. I am out of practice and so a bit rusty. However, I am also generally okay with this. Sometimes it can cause me to become self-conscious and insecure; other times, I am amused and entertained by the whole process.
Releasing Guilt
Unmasking has helped me to release a lot of guilt. Guilt for not having friends. Guilt for not taking my kids to more exciting things or involving them in more activities. Guilt for not going to this thing or that thing. I used to experience so much guilt for not doing what I perceived other women and moms my age doing. I released myself from neurotypical standards and am discovering freedom on the other side.
Value-Consistency
I have become more aware of and consistent with my values. I put my spoons (energy units) where my values are. I used to push myself until exhaustion, and chronic fatigue set in. I am in the process of acknowledging, accepting, and, yes, grieving my limits. I own that I do have more limits than others. I can't work a typical job out in the world and be okay. If I agree to a speaking event or a conference, I need to factor in the recovery days as well as the speaking days. I often need to budget double or triple the time that another person may need to.
There is grief in this and I am still in the process of grieving the limits of my body. And as I grieve this, I am also released to new freedoms—the freedom to choose where I put my spoons with more intentionality. My energy is precious, particularly my physical and social energy. Unless I'm burned out, I almost always have cerebral energy. It's the body energy that is hard for me. I am protective of this like you'd be protective of a scarce resource. I put it where my values are. This makes it easier to say no to people (and release guilt for saying no).
Aligning my “Yes”es with my Special Interests
It is in this arena that I notice my privilege the most. I have an advanced degree and work for myself. This has given me a lot of freedom and privilege to re-construct my life in a way that works for me. I changed my career plans after discovering my autism and instead of joining a group practice started my own private practice where I get to specialize in working with neurodivergent clients. This has allowed me to align my work with my special interests. This enables me to go with the flow of my neurodivergent energy vs. attempting to "swim upstream" from my energy flow. I often describe neurodivergent energy as energy that ebbs and flows. When I am swimming upstream and going against my energy, it's a mess and everyone is miserable. I've learned that if I ride the current of my neurodivergent energy, I can get a great deal done with relative ease. One of the things that helps me ride my energy current (and thus get more done) is by aligning my yeses to my special interests.
I also limit the writing projects I take on. In the past, I never turned down writing projects. As an aspiring academic, it just felt wrong. I now turn down speaking, writing, and peer-reviewing requests if it doesn't align with my special interests.
Trusting My Body
I recently started working through a curriculum for self-advocacy for neurodivergent people. The curriculum starts with building awareness of the sensory experience. At first, I found this a strange place to start. The more I reflected on it; I realized the brilliance in this. Advocacy starts with the sensory. Advocacy starts with attending to and wrapping words around our bodily experience of the world. Then, it moves to honoring our experiences and making requests of the world. Essentially, this has been my pathway of unmasking. Increasing my awareness of my sensory experience moment to moment and honoring my body's needs. I also balance my body's needs with my values. Because realistically, they are not always aligned. The difference is, I am now making informed decisions about when to place myself in taxing and uncomfortable situations.
Where Does a Person Start Unmasking?
So, where does a person start unmasking? I suspect it starts with paying attention. Paying attention to one's experience of themselves in this wild world. And little by little, honoring it. Unmasking likely often starts with something small—perhaps throwing away some uncomfortable undergarments. Once my body realized I was willing to listen to it, it didn’t stop talking, and once I started trusting my body, it became my guide.
Conclusion
Once I began learning about my autism and the needs of my Autistic body, I naturally began taking down my mask in these areas of my life. Although a lot of this work has come naturally to me, there are still parts that take work, especially around destigmatizing my autistic tendencies. And of course, the work isn’t over yet. However, now that I am stepping into my authentic self, I am experiencing freedom and relaxation in ways I haven’t before.
If you are an Autistic adult looking to begin taking down your mask, know that it’s possible for you. Although there may be some social repercussions, the benefits really outweigh the consequences. If you’re looking for a place to begin, getting in touch with your body and it’s needs is the best place. From there, you will easily start understanding how to advocate for yourself and move through your life authentically.
