May 21, 2025
For a long time I didn’t realise I was masking. Not really. I didn’t even know what autism was, aside from what I’d seen on TV. I’d never been taught about it. I didn’t see myself in it.
I grew up in a small country town where everyone looked the same, thought the same, acted the same. There wasn’t much diversity at all. Not in culture, race, religion or ability.
What I did have was this deep, constant feeling that I didn’t fit in. I remember trying so hard to look like the other kids, to talk like them, to copy their way of being. I knew something was different about me, but I didn’t have the language for it. Just this ache of never really belonging.
It wasn’t until I was 26, after my eldest son received his autism diagnosis, that someone gently suggested that maybe I might be autistic too. It hit me like a freight train. I started to learn everything I could about autism. Real autism, not the stereotypes I’d grown up with. And suddenly, so many parts of my life began to make sense.
The meltdowns. The shutdowns. The black and white thinking. The people pleasing. The emotional intensity. The need for control. The deep discomfort in group settings. The excessive talking when I felt safe enough to speak. The constant drive to fight for what’s fair, even when it made things harder. The exhaustion after trying to be on all day. And the eye contact. Which for me was one of the most core shockingly uncomfortable, physically painful things I’ve ever experienced. It didn’t just feel awkward. It felt unbearable. Like forcing my brain to hold still while my skin was on fire.
It was all masking. And I’d been doing it my whole life.
I’ve heard this so many times from other neurodivergent people, and I’ve lived it too. The smiling through overwhelm. The sitting still when your whole body wants to stim. The pretending to understand. The saying yes when you desperately need to say no.
Some of our support workers at Alyv shared their own experiences of masking. One of them said:
“I thought masking helped me function. But all it really did was wear me down.”
Another shared:
“I used to think I was lazy… now I’m a lot nicer to myself.”
Same.
For years I thought I was lazy too. I’d crash after work and beat myself up for not having the energy to cook dinner or clean. I’d spiral into guilt over the most basic tasks. But the truth was, I was burnt out. Not from doing too little, but from doing too much pretending.
It wasn’t a single moment. It was a sequence of events that took years before I could see the pattern.
When I left school, I had to take off the school mask and build a brand new one for adult life. The real world was absolutely nothing like school, and most of my masking skills no longer worked. There were new environments, new expectations, and entirely new social rules. I had to adapt fast, and that meant creating a whole new set of masks.
Over the years, those masks kept evolving. By the time I was 26, I had developed what I thought was a skill. I could camouflage. I could fit in almost anywhere, given enough time to observe, analyse and plan my mask. I was ambitious. I didn’t feel like I fit in, but I had this really strong sense that I was meant to do something. I just had no idea what that something was.
I got my autism diagnosis, but it still didn’t quite make sense. No one mentioned masking. Not in the assessments. Not in the literature I was given. Not for me. Not for my son. So I kept going.
I made some truly impressive masks over the years. My call centre mask was a good one. I spoke nicely to customers, handled complaints and enquiries like a total pro, even though I didn’t want to answer the phone and still don’t. But I had a mask that could do it 300 times a day.
One of our Alyv support workers described something similar:
“I could be anyone people needed me to be. But at the end of the day, I didn’t know who I was when I got home.”
Then I found a uni mask. I figured maybe I just needed to study. Psychology sounded like a good idea. But within 12 months, that mask got so bored it almost fell off. I went back to work.
Then came my real estate mask. Honestly, that one was my finest work. It had everything. Corporate dresses. High heels. Contract negotiation. Scripts and dialogues for every possible situation. I could talk the talk, walk the walk, and look the part. I never felt like I belonged, but I wore that mask for 15 years.
It was in year 12 of that career that I finally realised what I’d been doing all that time wasn’t a superpower. It was destroying me.
That’s why we created the Behind the Mask campaign.
Because so many of us, myself included, spent years thinking we were the problem. We weren’t. We were just unsupported. Misunderstood. And trying our best in environments that didn’t make space for who we really are.
Now that I run a team of neurodivergent and neuroaffirming humans, I see just how powerful it is when people are allowed to show up without the mask. And it doesn’t always look big or loud or dramatic. Sometimes it’s a team member who finally says I need a break. Sometimes it’s someone choosing not to make eye contact, or stim freely during a meeting, or admit they’re overwhelmed instead of pushing through.
That’s what trust looks like. That’s what safety feels like.
If you’ve just started to realise you’ve been masking, I want you to know there’s nothing wrong with you.
You weren’t being dramatic. Or difficult. Or lazy. You were just trying to make yourself feel safe in a world that didn’t see you clearly yet.
And you’re allowed to start unmasking, slowly, in the places that feel right.
You deserve that.
We all do.
And this gem from one of our Alyv support workers really stuck with me:
“I used to think I was broken. Now I know I was just in the wrong environment.”
We’re collecting real stories from our team members who’ve experienced masking. In school. At work. At home. In relationships. And what it’s been like to slowly let it go.
The aim is to open conversations and provide insight and resources for not only the ND community, but for our allies, our supporters and to give them options. Asking us to mask makes their lives easier but not ours, so lets find another way.
Send us a message or reach out to the team if you have any contributions or would like some more information about our resources. You’re safe here.
Sarah
Founder of Alyv
Autistic | ADHD | PDA Profile | Still unmasking and always learning
