to not understand the concept of masking

[tattooedteagal]

I'm trying to understand better due to my son's autism, but the notion of masking ADHD or autism doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Surely if you understand social cues enough to put on a convincing facade throughout your childhood or adulthood, it contradicts one of the core definitions of autism. Feel free to correct me. I'm not saying I'm right (I'm probably wrong) I'm just struggling to understand.

I have ADHD and it was picked up on when I was 14 so I'm obviously crap at masking. It's caused me a lot of issues and I don't want to gatekeep ADHD, but it annoys me when people think they might have it because they get irritated at slow drivers or have a clutter drawer in their house.

It was very unusual for a girl to be diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 14 in the UK until quite recently. So unless you are quite young, or didn't grow up in the UK, I think you must have quite a severe case or a more visible cluster of symptoms. I was showing very clear signs by around 16/17 causing me to struggle massively at school (college), lots of meetings around this but nobody considered ADHD, it just was not on anyone's radar. This was almost 20 years ago. The only person I knew with diagnosed ADHD back then was extremely hyperactive.

I agree that having a messy drawer or two doesn't define ADHD and the tiktok crowd earnestly insisting that it does, and if you don't have symptoms in another area "you might be masking" is a way off the mark.

But the other way people use it is when a child "seems fine at school" but has massive meltdowns constantly at home - they may well be exhausted.

Masking is exhausting, most people with ND conditions are burning out by the time they are in their 20s or 30s and have multiple stress symptoms. That is a very specific thing and not just an explanation for why symptoms appear in one context and not in another.

So true! great examples!

I wonder if we’re all on the spectrum to some degree. I and many NT people I know are always ‘overthinking’ social situations.

Please don't say things like this, it's incredibly offensive to those of us who actually are autistic.

Like PP have said it's a question of degree though isn't it. I am NEVER my true self unless I'm in my own house with my husband and children.

I strongly suspect I have autism. My DH is certain of it too.
I spend my whole day pretending to be a 'normal' person. So I mimic other people's behaviours and facial expressions, and laugh when others are laughing, and frown when they're frowning, and fake emotions like empathy because I know that I should. I'm actually an Account Manager and deal with clients and im good at my job, but I do so by implementing a 'system' that I've worked out over the years.
The only person in the world that I'm truly myself around is my husband, and when I'm around anyone else, including my own mum, I'm exhausted keeping up this charade.

If you were diagnosed with ADHD at 14, it means you’re an excellent masker. If you were unable to mask, you’d have been diagnosed wayyyyyy before that. 14 is classic ‘all falls apart’ age for girls, and we see an uptick in school refusal behaviours in ND girls (I’m a teacher).

My masters dissertation was around masking in autistic girls in school, and I identified that masking presents in various ways, but is strongly correlated with people-pleasing and inability to articulate one’s needs, which means that girls’ basic needs are going unmet in school (less so at home).

@ChopperC110P the white lies thing is probably the most difficult area for me. The concept of lying is alien and the thought of lying provokes a ‘nails on blackboard’ feeling.

I then spend most of my time trying to work out if the person is telling white social lies or being honest. And I say nothing at all because I would rather do that than say something that was not true.

I started learning eye contact in my 30s and 20 years later can fake it pretty well.

I find it an odd term too because autistic people can be really straightforward, whereas neurotypicals seem to have all these layers and you can see they’re thinking more than they’re saying, or saying things but meaning something else. Which to me seems like a mask.

But my understanding of the term, as it’s used, is that we have to work harder at social things because it doesn’t come instinctively to us. It includes things like rehearsing conversations, being more upbeat or “on”, deciphering the possible meanings of what is said, needing to make more eye contact than feels comfortable, self monitoring not to stim or finish people’s sentences or blurt out thoughts or talk too much about your passions.

And in some environments there’s the added imperative that you can get beaten up for being weird.

I don’t know anyone who is their ‘true self’ all the time around others

There is a massive difference between behaving differently in different environments and masking all day, every day.

Of course people behave differently in different situations - that's completely normal.

I can only do eye contact very fleetingly, like I will sweep my gaze from one side of the room to the other and momentarily 'catch' the eyes of the person I'm conversing with, or I'll make a long-winded point about something without even looking in the general direction of the person I'm talking "to", end it with a question, and very briefly look them in the eye as a way of inviting them to agree or respond. I can't hold eye contact with anyone for any length of time, with the one exception of if I'm being intimate with a partner.

The one thing I can not do is look at portrait photographs of people I know. If I try to it immediately sends me into a panic state and I have to put the photo down and leave. I can't do typical social media because of the preponderance of people posting photos of themselves. It totally freaks me out.

Imagine you speak basic French then you go to France and everyone else is speaking French, all day. You might be able to get by but your brain is on overdrive, you’re having to consciously think about every single thing you say, it doesn’t come naturally. By the end of the day you’re shattered.

I don’t understand why you think this.
So many women in their forties are being diagnosed with ADHD because the resources and and understanding are here now.
In the 80s me and my ADHD female friends were just ‘rebels/ thick/ failures/ drop-outs’ etc.

I also know that the knowledge and understanding of autism and ADHD in schools amongst both teachers and parents is incredibly poor/ non-existent.

For me masking is that I'm doing things on manual while others are driving an automatic.
For example, if I'm talking to someone I sometimes will be manually counting in my head to make sure I'm leaving the appropriate gap so there's room for them to talk but not an awkward silence (and I tend to have a set number that I count to), my NT DP inputs that gap naturally and can sense how long to leave it without thinking about it and gauge it based on human factors rather than a set definition like me. That sort of talking to someone from work in a non work setting, sets of a flow chart from me of a ticklist of whst I know is politeness eg i have to check which what way my feet are pointing etc, but also a lot of deliberate choice of responses eg when this happens you must respond with eg if they are walking, you should keep walking, if they say "anyway then" you should stop the conversation

Sometimes this means my interactions may not look that different to my DP, but she just has a natural feel for these things, she can sense when a conversation is dying out and her body naturally does the right "I'm interested cues"

My other explanation is that for me, I often feel "foreign'. In my head, my thoughts or what I want to do pops up, and I have to translate that into other people's language all the time. In the same way I would do as a clunky gcse German speaker. I can speak some German, but you might guess I wasn't fluent. It's not my natural language, it's not what I think in, and it's not my knee jerk automatic eg if you bash your knee you'll shout in English. To constantly have to translate your thought into another language is really tiring, but also sometimes it means that it's easier to withdraw rather than put lots of effort into every interaction.

When my Dp lived abroad and was suddenly in a different culture where the rules were different, eye contact was different she struggled more than I did because she's used to being fluent. She wasn't used to having to think about the level of eye contact etc.

Oooh outlaws that's really interesting (are you a teacher/what do you do now?)

My second is almost definitely autistic but like many girls people pleases at school, good grades and never breaks a rule so looks like they're fine. So can't proceed for diagnosis. They have to demonstrate it in A school setting for school to refer....

Many social "rules" come naturally or instinctively to NT. They learn the more complex rules by experience. Some of the most complex rules may need more explicit teaching /learning but not the vast majority. Generally it's not a process of conscious identification and practice.
Most people respond to someone smiling at them by smiling back. It's an instinctively reaction.

Some autistic people may not have that instinctive reaction but have learned that a smile is the socially appropriate response. So in order to facilitate smoother interactions they choose to adopt this pattern of behaviour. But they have to notice the smile, process that information and consciously smile back. All whilst listening to what's being said, processing that information, and possibly dealing with the sensory stimulation of the environment etc. etc. It's utterly exhausting.
And please don't think I'm saying all autistic people don't understand smiling I was just trying to give a simplistic example

Autism is genetic - you may well find out that you are autistic after your son. I was diagnosed after both of my children.

Things that you think everyone does are highly likely to be your normal, but not everyone's normal.

My 10 year old austistc DD does this all the time and is exhausts her. She copies the way her friends act all grown up and says that she wants to play but feels she can’t because she doesn’t want them to see her as a baby and “a freak” (her words). She desperately wants to fit in and “be normal” ( again, her words) and is breaks my heart because she is fabulous as she is 😢

Psst, asking “isn’t that what we all do?” when my son was being assessed for autism is how I discovered I am, in fact, also autistic. Just something to think about :)

it is an act
putting on an act, copying other's behaviours

@Imdrivinginmygetawaycar if the school dont see it, can't the GP refer?

You can't see that NT people think more than they say but autistic people are straightforward. Autistic people have a very small range of facial expressions, and even then have to consciously make those facial expressions. All the same having to think about the extent their face is performing. Too much? Too little? And their face not doing what they think it is.

@Stripeymum11

I’m a teacher with 20 years experience in secondary schools. I have spent the last 10 years advocating for greater awareness of autism in girls, and I recently wrote my MSc research on it.

Knowledge in schools is improving all the time. At my current school, we don’t require a diagnosis to put in place autism-friendly strategies. I have recently supported a child in my class through an Emotionally-Based School Non-Attendance period, and she is now successfully back in lessons.

My eldest is AuDHD, which made me reflect that my horrendous anxiety and general feeling of not fitting in during the 1990s might be the same thing. But things have changed - this is now recognised by professionals (if not parents).

@Littlefidget2

As per PP’s comment, have you considered that you might be autistic and your DS has inherited your neurodivergence?

I deal with parents on a daily basis who don’t recognise their children’s neurodivergence, because it’s the same as theirs!

I have ADHD, and also have a role working with neurodivergent people in my job.

I know myself that I learned to do certain things to fit in e.g. not fidgeting, sitting still, holding my arms a certain way, not constantly interrupting people, asking people about themselves. I have to put a certain amount of effort into these things and they add to my stress. That's masking.

Also important to keep in mind that neurodivergent people each have a different set of social skills. They don't generally have zero social awareness or ability.

I work with a man who paces and swims the whole time as he knows it is "safe" to do so with me. But in many situations he suppresses this as he has learned it gets a negative reaction. But he has also found this suppression very distressing and exhausting.

I think the thing for my DD and me to some extent is that, she understands there are rules and works so hard at getting it right, but doesn't quite hit the mark.

She (we) over shares, she can be tactless. Joins in conversations, but goes too far with the facts on a topic.

It is easy to see the mask. I can't really explain those that are better at masking though. DS is probably ND (there are more physical/health clues but he seems so sociable and popular, although doesn't have many good friends. I don't have much insight into what DS might be hiding socially.