*As always, names are changed to protect people's privacy.
How are these two photos of me different? How are they alike?
In one, I'm on an airplane; in another, I'm in a restaurant.
In both, I'm not masking.
Yes, you read that correctly: I'm not masking in either of these photos. Unless you're autistic or know someone who is, you're probably confused, since in the photo on the left I'm clearly wearing a mask. That picture was taken during the height of the COVID pandemic when we were expected to wear masks on airplanes to protect ourselves and others from infection. Like everyone else, I had to adjust significantly throughout 2020 and beyond. For a little over a year-- at least in the state of Massachusetts, where I live-- we were required to wear a mask when entering stores and other businesses. Remembering to grab my mask on the way out the door took some getting used to. Sometimes I forgot, not realizing it until I got to my destination, and I had to bite the bullet and walk back home (I don't have a car; you don't need one in Boston or the immediate suburbs). Inconvenient? A little. Annoying? You betcha. But I accepted it as a necessary precaution to reduce the risk of transmitting a potentially deadly virus while waiting for a vaccine to be developed: that is, I adapted.
Then there's the kind of masking that has nothing to do with COVID or even adaptation: it has to do with suppressing one's natural inclinations in order to make others comfortable, frequently at the expense of their own. The phenomenon of masking is frequently discussed in autistic spaces, and is often adopted as the result of significant social trauma. In children, said trauma tends to manifest in bullying, exclusion, and ostracization. For many adults, it is largely due to getting fired from one job after another-- not due to poor performance, but because of their atypical social interactions which, while innocent in intent, are often misread as rude and defiant. They have been repeatedly punished by society and ultimately internalized the message that who they are is simply wrong and they must change everything about who they are to be accepted.
Many autistic people-- particularly women-- have come forward in recent years to talk about how longterm masking has added to their trauma. Many report having developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to constant self-monitoring and the fear of social punishment.
Right now I can hear people saying, "Well, like it or not, everyone has to adapt to different situations. You can't just go around doing whatever you want. Get over it." Yes, everyone does have to adapt. That's why you tell your child, "You can tell poop jokes with your cousins because that's something all of you laugh about together. But you shouldn't tell them to Grandma and Grandpa because that kind of humor grosses them out." Or you might advise a friend, "Don't talk about religion and politics at work, because that's the best way to create unnecessary conflict in the office." These are all minor adaptations in behavior that are context-dependent and respect others' boundaries.
And they have nothing to do with masking.
Masking involves significant, fine-tuned alterations to behavior, to the point where you have to be hypervigilant to maintain the façade. In my late twenties, before "masking" was even named, I wrote about this in a piece in which I recalled navigating social interactions during my middle school years. Borrowing slightly from the song "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, I wrote, "Every move I make, every action I take, and every word I say must be preceded by a meticulously calculated thought. Otherwise, I will mess up. I will make unforgivable social mistakes that I will never hear the end of. I must not slip, or I will be cast out by friends and punished by other students."
Unfortunately-- or fortunately, depending on your point of view-- I was terrible at masking and, to be fair, I did not attempt it nearly as much as most autistic women report themselves doing. Still, I accepted without question that I would have to give my personality a major overhaul in order to be accepted, particularly in terms of my gallows sense of humor. It didn't help that my parents regularly told me things like, "You make a joke out of everything," "This constant joking needs to stop" and "Your jokes are bizarre and inappropriate!" A lot of my journal entries during that time period contained declarations of, "Everything about me is wrong, and I want to change it by [insert date here]." Such feelings, of course, were borne out by the loss of multiple friends during that time period. A couple years ago, when I told my parents about my self-deprecating journal entries, my mother said, "It breaks my heart to learn that you wrote those things."
As I mentioned before, it is mostly women who have come forward about how chronic masking takes a toll on their mental health. Why more women than men?* Because it's been well documented that women mask more. For reasons that are not completely understood, autistic girls and women tend to be more aware that they are different and how they are perceived. Even if it turns out that there is a significant biological component for this increased self-awareness, it also doesn't help that eccentricities and idiosyncrasies are more accepted in boys and men. Boys are allowed to be loud in groups, to be class clowns, to have a twisted and morbid sense of humor, and to talk about their favorite topic ad nauseam. Girls are routinely called out and chastised for these things.
Other ways that my parents unwittingly pressured me to mask were to implore me to stop dressing like a tomboy and present more feminine; to talk about what the other kids were interested in even if these things bored me (and meanwhile not expect them to talk with me about my own idiosyncratic interests); and to lie and say, "Nobody right now" instead of "I'm not interested in boys yet" when other girls would ask, "Who do you like?" To be clear, I am not gay, and my parents wouldn't have had a problem with it if I was. But in the '90s, being perceived as gay in middle school was a social death sentence. And back then, the possibility of being asexual or demisexual-- the latter of which I turned out to be-- wasn't even on the table.
And yes, hiding your sexual orientation is a form of masking, one which I refused to do, even though "demisexual" was not yet in the lexicon. I feel for the closeted adolescent gay girl at a sleepover playing Truth or Dare who, when asked, "Who do you have a crush on?" answers with the name of a popular boy in her class so that she's not ostracized. I feel for the closeted gay boy in the locker room after high school gym class who won't look anywhere other than the floor while changing because he's scared to death the other boys might think that he's leering at them.
Masking behaviors aren't adaptations. They're performances to prevent people's lives from being made a living hell. And people who mask are usually not happier-- they're miserable. They're not living; they're merely surviving. When I did occasionally attempt to mask, it felt inauthentic. I recall at the beginning of eighth grade, my mom advised me, "Don't talk about cartoons with your friends. Talk about your new teachers. Say something like, 'And what do you think of this teacher? Isn't he funny?'" At lunch I did just that. I said, "How about Mr. Henn? Isn't he funny? It was so funny when he said, 'You can chew gum in class, but don't crack it' and then he made this funny cracking noise." I remember very clearly feeling like I was reading off a script and performing, and I'm certain it came across that way. It felt unnatural and awkward, and I'd bet money that the other kids saw right through me.
What really frustrates the hell out of me is the practically cliché idea that autistic people are defined as "rigid," all while many of them-- especially girls and women-- contort themselves into pretzels to become more palatable to neurotypical people. And yet, you rarely hear comments that neurotypical people are rigid when they don't try to understand their autistic peers, simply because they're the majority. If they're uncomfortable with something an autistic person says or does-- even when it's not harming anybody-- that alone is treated as proof that the autistic person was in the wrong.
If there's any lingering doubt that neurotypical people can be every bit as rigid as autistic people are accused of being, let's return to the topic of COVID masking. After public mask mandates were implemented, a huge portion of the American population-- presumably mostly neurotypical people-- raised indignant hell about their liberties being violated. It didn't matter that the science indicated that masking reduced the risk of infection. Nor did it matter that hospitals were becoming overwhelmed with death and that countless bodies were being shipped out in refrigerated trucks. Even assurances that mask mandates were temporary until a vaccine could get the spread under control did not assure these people who were convinced they were being oppressed. The way they reacted, an outsider might have thought that governments were requiring people to get major surgery instead of covering their noses and mouths.
In fact, one time early in the pandemic, when I was getting a sandwich at Dunkin' Donuts, I noticed one guy's nose was hanging over his mask. Despite knowing I was stepping in a minefield, I told the man that he should cover his nose. I was very careful to keep my tone diplomatic, but it didn't matter. He started yelling and screaming at me, and he ended his tirade by telling me to go fuck myself. And, yes, I know I shouldn't have stooped to his level, but I responded in kind (hey, I spent the first half of my adult life in Brooklyn, so why not?). Imagine if autistic people reacted this way when being told to perform social masking.
As you might have surmised, even as an adult I don't mask. I still have a twisted sense of humor, and my parents have learned to live with it. And as you can see in the pictures that opened this post, I'm every bit as tomboyish as the teenager that I described. In both photos, I have short hair, don't wear makeup, and sport androgynous shirts. The photo on the right was taken when my parents were visiting for my birthday this past October. I'm not really smiling there-- I was a little annoyed that my mom insisted on taking a picture while I was trying to eat. And that's why I posted it.
It's a lot more authentic than a staged photo with a forced smile, isn't it?
*I realize that this has a cis-normative bias and doesn't account for trans and nonbinary people. Trans and nonbinary people certainly have been pressured to mask, in the form of pretending to be a gender that feels wrong to them. It would probably be more accurate to say "cis boys and men and people perceived as cis boys and men" and "cis girls and women and people perceived as cis girls and women."
