Masking: The conscious or unconscious suppression of natural autistic traits and responses, combined with the deliberate imitation of neurotypical behaviors (e.g., faking eye contact, scripting conversations, suppressing sensory discomfort) to pass as neurotypical or avoid negative consequences.
I never force eye contact; I fake it. I look at the part of your face where your eyes are, keeping my eyes unfocused. I cannot tell you what color eyes my wife has, because I have never looked at them with my eyes focused. But to the world, the performance looks real.
In short: Performing normalcy.
Unmasking: The process of stripping away these learned, defensive behaviors to operate according to one’s actual neurological design.
The mission: Go to Camping World and purchase a portable waste tote.
The script: This should be simple. The script for buying something in a store is easy:
– Enter store
– Locate item
– Bring item to register
– Greet cashier
– Pay for item
– Thank cashier
– Exit store
The Breakdown: I drove to the Camping World store and walked through the front door. There was woman at the front reception desk, but she ignored me. No problem; I could see the retail display area over to the right, so I walked that way. I walked around for a couple of minutes and saw an aisle with sewer hoses and attachments and all that stuff that any RVer is familiar with. I walked down that aisle and sure enough, right in the middle of the aisle, there were boxes of totes stacked up.
They had two different models, with two of each stacked on the floor. On the top of each stack of two was one of those plastic sign holders with a sign identifying the model, the price, the discount, and the final price.
Great. So what’s the problem? Well, now what? These things are huge. And they’re heavy. And there’s that sign sitting on top of the boxes. So what, exactly, am I supposed to do now? If this was Home Depot, I’d go get one of those flat-bottom push carts, load the box onto the cart, and push it to the checkout. But this isn’t a home goods warehouse. This is Camping World. I don’t have a script for this.
If an employee had walked up to me at that moment and asked if they could help, I could have said “I’d like to get one of these,” and point to the one I wanted. Then the script in my head forks, and the employee either says “Okay, let me help you get that,” or they say “Sure. Come with me and we’ll get you checked out and I’ll get one from the back.”
But no employee materialized. So now what? Am I supposed to move the sign off the top of the stack, take the top one down and put it on the floor, and push it to the register? Am I going to look stupid pushing that across the floor? Is someone going to come up to me and say “Sir, what are you doing?” And where would I push it to? There’s a cashier counter at the front of the store, but there’s nobody there. There’s a Parts counter at the back of the store, and that’s staffed, but I’m not ordering parts for my RV. I have no script for this situation.
The Number One Rule For Existing In The World is to look “normal.” I can’t stand in the aisle of the store looking panicked. Sure, my chest is tight, my heart-rate is up, every muscle in my body is tensed, but I can’t let it show. So I walk casually up and down the aisles, pretending to look at items on the shelves. I’m still hoping an employee will walk up to me and ask if they can help. If that happens, I’ll pretend I didn’t see the totes in the aisle, and I’ll just tell them what I want to purchase. Meanwhile, my physical symptoms are increasing, and I know I’m approaching the wall.
For most of my life I forced myself to push through the wall and “get it done.” That’s what was expected. My entire childhood was people telling me that I needed to just try harder. I’ve had so many awkward, uncomfortable interactions where I didn’t have a script and therefore didn’t know what to say, and I half mumbled something rather dumb and had to deal with a confused clerk.
Not today. Today I decided to leave. I walked out the front door, got in my truck, and drove home.
The Post-Mortem: Nowadays, I understand why my brain works the way it does. I don’t feel the guilt and frustration I felt for most of my life. I no longer ask “Why can’t I just be normal?” I can’t because I’m not. I’m an Aspie. I’m autistic.
But there’s a cost to being different The world isn’t made for my neurotype. That cost can be internal or external. I can carry it inside myself. That’s masking. Or I can carry it outside myself. I can let myself be more myself inside my head, but present to the world as “more autistic.” That’s unmasking.
Carrying the cost externally means leaving the store empty-handed and letting the system halt when it hits a wall. But a lifetime of conditioning doesn’t just evaporate. I left feeling that I had failed. Unmasking doesn’t make the world easier to navigate; it just changes the nature of the autism tax. I can be more “me” to myself, but that means being more autistic to you.
P.S. I did eventually purchase the needed tote. When I got home I ordered it online, and two days later I drove back to the same Camping World and executed the simple “Hi, I’m picking up an online order” script.