Masking and unmasking is not binary

"To ‘unmask’ means ‘to reveal the true nature of’. Does that mean that I have been hiding my true nature? Does that mean that my masked self is not my true self?"

Hello fellow human,

I’ve been thinking about unmasking this week. To ‘unmask’ means ‘to reveal the true nature of’. Does that mean that I have been hiding my true nature? Does that mean that my masked self is not my true self?

Naturally, being autistic, I like definitions. I like clarity. But the more I delve into this unmasking journey the more I think that taking the word ‘unmasking’ too literally can contribute to low self-esteem.

Everyone masks to some degree. My husband, who is neurotypical, masks in his office job. The difference is that neurodivergent people who mask tend to mask to a greater extent and more frequently, with the negative impact on our health being greater. In fact, other than when I was home alone in my room I was very rarely ‘unmasked’ anywhere else until after I burned out, discovered I am autistic, and went through a period of being physically unable to mask.

But when we talk about ‘unmasking’ it’s easy to picture someone literally taking off a mask and choosing to put it down. In reality, it’s not that simple. When you lead your life believing that your masked self is your ‘true nature’ (even if flawed, as I know many of us came to believe), and then one day you see everything from a different perspective, the process of shifting between the mask and the unmasked versions of ourselves is not simple.

For example, I find it near impossible to know where the mask ends and my ‘true nature’ begins. In certain situations it’s hard to take the mask off despite conscious effort. And, often, I don’t feel safe without it given I know from previous experience that it often helps me blend in and go relatively unnoticed.

I would love for unmasking to be binary: I am either masked, or I am not. But the truth is it is a deeply complex and nuanced process that is often subconscious. In fact, I don’t truly believe there is an end point at which I could be completely ‘unmasked’ because of my constant and ever-changing interactions with the social world, and my long and complicated history with masking.

This week I made a couple of reels on Instagram about how I have realised that I have been masking in my short-form video content. It was a subconscious process of, once again, trying to fit in with other video content one tends to see online. It was exhausting for me, which was the main catalyst for me to analyse my behaviour. A lightbulb moment during my daily processing time in the bath allowed me to see that, for me personally, masking online is not something that I can do all of the time. It is too exhausting.

I was nervous to share this realisation because not only was I sharing more of my unmasked self, but I was doing so on a platform where how ‘well’ you do is judged by engagement: likes, comments, and shares. And, I assumed, a person speaking more slowly, with less eye contact, and more fidgeting would be less engaging. It’s not that I was worried about the videos not doing ‘well’, but more-so that by them not doing ‘well’ my brain would somehow subconsciously interpret that as ‘people don’t like the unmasked you’.

To my surprise, I received overwhelmingly positive responses to my video sharing this realisation. In fact I think there was a 100% response rate of ‘we love the more unmasked version of you, it helps us to be ourselves too’. That’s incredible, and I am so glad that there seems to be a place on social media for slower-paced content with less eye-contact and more fidgeting.

But what I did notice was a tendency (myself included) to want to talk about unmasking as a binary thing: one is either masked, or unmasked. Many interpreted me making a video about wanting to experiment with being more unmasked in short-form video content as me never masking on video again. I totally understand this desire to categorise. I think it’s a common trait for autistic people, at least it is for me regardless of subject matter.

There were also comments that talked about how ‘genuine’ I seemed when unmasked. Again, this makes a lot of sense because it’s relatable to see someone act in ways that you do when you yourself are less inhibited. But, it got me thinking - to my mind, my masked self in the videos where I didn’t realise I was masking wasn’t any less ‘genuine’. I didn’t know I was masking, so that was the ‘real me’ in that moment in time. For me, detangling ‘masking’ and ‘unmasking’ from words like ‘genuine’ and ‘authentic’ feels important because I consider both my masked and unmasked self to be sincere (perhaps just in different ways).

When I think about my unmasked self being the ‘real’, ‘authentic’, ‘genuine’ version of myself, it makes it easier to be critical, hard, and unaccepting of myself when I am masking (or when after the event I realise I have been masking). Whilst I appreciate we are using words as best we can to explain an endless internal experience, and I do feel emotionally like the unmasked version of me is the ‘real’ me - cognitively, I am trying to be conscious of how the words I use may affect how I feel about myself. I can’t deny that when I correlate words like ‘real', ‘authentic’, and ‘genuine’ with my unmasked self, I feel self-conscious that my masked self is the exact opposite. Given the complexity and nuance involved with the often subconscious process that is masking, I’d rather not feel like I am being forced to choose between authenticity or insincerity.

I prefer to think of masking and unmasking as a spectrum that can change from day to day, a little like the autistic spectrum itself. Some days I mask more, some days I mask less, some days I can mask, some days I can’t, some days I choose to mask, some days I mask without thinking, some days I feel safe unmasking, some days I don’t. In my experience, there’s no linear path from ‘masked’ to ‘unmasked’, from ‘fake’ to ‘authentic’. All of these facets of myself are ‘me’ in those moments, and there is self-compassion to be found in accepting this.

I’m not sure if this makes any sense to you, and I’m certain that this is an incredibly personal experience, so you may feel completely differently about it. Either way, I’d love to hear your experiences and thoughts. I also am aware that some autistic people can’t mask (I hope this is appropriate phraseology), and would love to hear more from you if this is your lived experience.

Sending you so much love,

Charlie ♡