Authistic: Authism and Unmasking (illustrated by a passage from one of my books)

Greetings all

Today I wish to look at unmasking in autism and then explore this in relation to one of my books.

I didn't learn about masking in autism until I was thinking about exploring my own diagnosis. Now, post/diagnosis, I hear about it everywhere. Women and girls, particularly, are said to mask because there's more expectation on girls to 'fit in' socially. But I went to a webinar where the speaker also mentioned the fact that a lot of men mask too.

Here are a couple of examples of masking in autism I found via a quick look on Google homepage:

Examples of masking can include, but are not limited to: "Mimicking the social behaviour of others, including gestures or facial expressions. Deliberately forcing or faking eye contact during conversations. Hiding or underplaying their own intense interests." 23 May 2022

'...(Autistics) may ... also adopt rehearsed catchphrases, such as “good grief”, “interesting” or “that's amazing' 27 Jun 2023

"If you notice that you tend to look to others before deciding what to do in various situations, you might be masking by mimicking their behavior. If you do not feel like these choices come naturally to you, and you instead try to copy what you see, you might be masking your social behavior." 22 Dec 2022

Now I remember acutely an incident when I was a child and finding it hard to make a choice on my own. This of course may have been inexperience and deference to an older sister who to me seemed assured and confident and knew how to made the right choices. But she called my bluff one time asking me which of two items I preferred (I've long forgotten what the items were). But she said she preferred A. And I said 'so do I'. Then she said she preferred B and I agreed. Then she changed her preference back to A again and guess what? So did I! Now it was fairly transparent to her, several years my senior, what I was doing. But I hadn't known. Of course it was a valuable lesson to me.

As for facial expressions and other catchphrases, I'm guessing all people - allistic and autistic - have caught themselves doing this. After all, everyone is an imitator to some extent and very few people are creators of new catch phrases. But I guess it's the extent to which we do it. And also the consciousness and confidence with which we utter them. They can soon become our own. We may master them so well, we can't remember whose catchphrases we adopted in the first place.

As for unmasking, as I was only diagnosed with autism in my sixties, I think I gradually began unmasking as a natural ageing thing. I began doing it both consciously and unconsciously probably from my thirties onwards. There are of course areas I no doubt still mask: because such characteristics and idiosyncrasies have become such an ingrained part of myself and I've claimed them. I do remember though consciously trying to be less of a people-pleaser and speaking my mind a bit more, from my thirties. There was someone I'd been a good friend with since my teens, let's call her Penny. She had very distinctive quirks and used her hands a lot as she spoke (she may well have been undiagnosed autistic too). I unconsciously waved my hands around a login her presence. But years into our friendship she said I was the only friend she'd not fallen out with or argued with. I instinctively knew why. It's because I avoided anything contentious and—like people pleasers everywhere—I wished to be liked. But by my thirties I gradually voiced my own views to Penny and like other friends of hers who'd gone before, she didn't like it. It disturbed the equilibrium of our friendship.

In my first novel 'Did You Whisper Back?' I drew on my own experience as a young woman to describe Amanda's feelings. Amanda is schizophrenic (the parallels between autism and schizophrenia is for another time) but here are some passages from the book when Amands has just gone to work in a hotel and is battling with the social expectations from the other workers her age:

"Their arguing and swearing embarrasses Amanda, not through any offence it has caused her...but because she is herself incapable of partaking in such a row...She has never quarrelled with anyone here, or they with her. Arguments are for family and friends; it is only acquaintances that are always agreeable and polite with one another...She takes such care to fit in with their every move. She thinks how every personality has a thousand different sculptors working on it year in year out, fashioning, molding, and shaping, to make it what it is. She too can feel her own being carved and chiselled at every day by her friends, and the worst thing about it is that Marjie has left her odious stamp. In Marjie's presence, Amanda feels her voice drifting into that self-assured sing-song. Here and there she catches herself swaggering along the corridor, smiling that sweet-and-sour smile.

She feels she is little more than a conglomeration of them all, though they don't seem to notice. They have no need to argue with her because it would be like arguing with themselves: she is just a mirror for their reflections. She doesn't know how to delete them from herself and decides it is simplest to keep up the pretence."

Did You Whisper Back

There's just one other thing I want to say here about unmasking. I never ever used to 'lose my rag' in public. It seems strange that as a child I kept a lid on it but then it just burst out in middle age. I have had so many meltdowns since my forties I've lost count. They're usually very public too and when my comfort is threatened eg when I used to travel in trains or the train was late. Also being kept waiting to see the doctor or the dentist or anyone like that.