Autistic Masking And How To Stop Doing It

How the idea of "unmasking" became just as harmful as the masking itself

Autistic people develop an instinct for when it is and isn't safe to be openly Autistic. Unfortunately, this instinct often results in us concealing our Autistic nature to a degree that it becomes harmful to our wellbeing. Because of this, a topic of much discussion in community spaces centres around the concept of “unmasking” and being more authentically Autistic. What has become clear to me, however, is that the discourse surrounding unmasking has itself become somewhat detrimental, and in order to fully unpack what I means, we have to dig a little deeper into the nature of masking itself. The video below briefly explores my own experience with masking.