A simple definition of masking, is a set of behaviours that we developed to camouflage ourselves as neurotypical people. It often begins at a very young age, when we have experiences that communicate our differences as not ok, as weird, confusing or unacceptable to others. That might be our peers, other kids, family members or teachers. It can also come from the cultural, societal and generational norms, communicated to us from the wider world, books, films, TV, social media.
These behaviours can be simple, like fixing ourselves to do more eye contact, or complex and layered like altering our body language, syntax, social and relational styles, likes and dislikes.
Masking is such a useful term, because in the neurodivergent community we all know what we mean. We have this word that captures our experience and we can use it to speak it.
I have found it really useful to also look at this adaptive behaviour through a nervous system lens. It helps me make a broader sense of what’s happening.
Firstly, we can look at when this starts to understand what it is, why it’s taken place and what’s happening in our bodies.
When we’re between two and four years old we enter into the social world. We become aware of ourselves in relation to others. As neurodivergent people it is very like that we will have been received as different, as doing things in a different way. That can range from the way we speak, play, learn and move, to how we connect, relate and communicate. We are social animals and a drive to belong is a string biological force for survival. If we don’t belong when we a little, we don’t survive.
So if we arrive into our social worlds, family, kindergarten, friends, strangers, and our ways of engaging are really different from those that others, we may not always be too well received.
We might be received with confusion, a pulling away, derision, bullying, shaming, a push from others for us to alter how we engage in the world, so as to align more with accepted dominant norms of behaviour.
These early experiences often happen before we even remember and they bring about the beginnings of masking.
This masking can also be seen as a nervous system response called please and appease, or feign.
A part of the brain called the amagdala, our threat sensor, picks up this experience of not belonging as a threat to our survival. The subtle or not so subtle suggestions that we are not accepted will feel really anxiety provoking. This is received by our brains and quick and automotic, non-conscious decisions are made.
Our back brain takes this threat and makes super fast decisions about what if the, very few options available, might be the best one.
Most of us have heard if fight or flight, we also have a less active threat response called freeze, this is very much what it sounds like. One other option that lives inside this freeze response, is known as feign or please and appease.
It can be useful to note that these threat responses are sent as messages via the autonomic nervous system, down into our bodies, causing changes to our heart and breathing rates, our muscle tone and posture amongst other things.
Please and appease shows up as a very vigilant, watchful response. Our perspective becomes quite narrowed and we are looking to quite literally, please and appease the people around us.
We watch out for suggestions of what is expected of us, in okay, connection and communication. We attempt to mimic and copy dominant norms.
We may play the clown, or hide in the periphery, it can show up in widely differing ways for different people, but the main take aways here are these:
- Your natural and authentic ways of being were met with responses that didn’t welcome you.
- Your brain and nervous system did what it needed to try and become safe, to attempt to belong, to fit in, to sustain connection with the other people in your life.
- The please and appease response is automatic, it isn’t chosen consciously, your brain was just doing what it had to to try and keep you safe.
- There was never anything wrong with you, how you play, move, learn or connect. The world has dominant norms and if acceptance and a welcoming if difference isn’t embedded in that dominant group, we are likely to be met in ways that cause this threat response.
- Threat responses are trauma responses. Not belonging, having to use a threat response to be able to sustain connections is traumatic.
As we age, the please and appease response continues to be in use. The behaviours get more complex as our world and relations get more complex. How we mimic and mask at age three might look like trying to do facial expressions, jump, laugh or talk like other kids, or like the adults in our life suggest it bully us into. As we move through childhood, adolescence and into adult life, our masking behaviour ever more intricate, adaptive and threaded through almost aspects of our lives.
These changes in how we behave also create changes in our thinking, our beliefs, how we perceived ourselves and the world.
The changes can appear at lunch a young age, and/or be used so repeatedly that our, repetition loving brains so of take them on as part of who we are.
I’ll give you a personal example of this. When I was little I had quite a flat vocal tone, I don’t think this was very well received, people generally like modulated speech patterns, with lots of ups and downs and expressiveness.
Alongside this experience, I watched a lot of old black and white movies and liked an actor called James Stewart. He had a really expressive, confident communication style which I felt was wonderful and I began to emulate. I did this for sin many years and so well, that today age 50, my general communication style (unless super fatigued or overwhelmed when it gets pretty flat again!) can seem incredibly passionate and confident. I do feel like this sometimes, but also, often don’t, however this way of speaking is pretty consistent.
I don’t think of this as something I can or even necessarily want, to put down. It just feels like it’s stuck as part of who I am now.
There will be lots of aspects of masking behaviour that feels like this, there will also be lots that can be untangled and can be put down, but I felt it was important to mention how complex this can be and feel. It isn’t like we put on a mask and can just, take it off!
We may not always know what feels authentic!
Not knowing who we are, what we like or don’t like, need or don’t need, is one of the incredibly difficult impacts of having used this threat response for such a long time.
Our outward vigilant stance, means our focus has been out there, on others, trying to record what’s done, whats expected, what the dominant social norms are and attempting (not always successfully, remember this isn’t actually an authentic, natural or possible way for you,/your brain to function!) to mimic them.
That consistent outward focus often leaves us not looking inward much of the time. So we don’t have a lot of experience noticing or paying attention to how we feel, what we like or don’t like, what we need or don’t need.
Learning how to shift our focus from out there, to inside, is a really big part of ‘unmasking’. We may need to take time to find ways to ask questions of who we feel and what we need, and keep asking even when the answer may be “I don’t know”, for a long time.
It’s also worth noting, our threat responses, including please and appease, aren’t really built to be used in this consistent way. It’s ok to use them, they’re there for when we really need them, but they use up a lot of energy, and consistent over use can result in lot of other really rubbish stuff showing up – fatigue, shut downs and burn outs being just a few. I will write more about this impact elsewhere.
Other impacts of masking that I’ll get into elsewhere are shame, as we feel experience our authentic selves as rejected, maybe deeply harmed. As well as anxiety, as our cognition becomes tuned into, what can feel like, a constant checking and rechecking what we should do, what we said, how we behaved, criticising and seeing fault in every aspect of how we connect and relate and who we are.
Moving out of please and appease, for me, is all about seeking experiences of safety, of creating, seeking and finding moments where being our authentic selves feels safe. We don’t need to push or force unmasking, this can often cause more anxiety and stress. Leaning into gentle enquiry, a focus turned towards our inner experience is often a good place to start.
Unmasking inside our own minds, then with great care and kindness, welcoming in experiences where we feel safe, or safe enough to explore being us.