6 Does “Masking” Exist? – Topic Presentation
🇬🇷 Ελληνικά
The topic of “masking” is a journey for me, unfolding over time in the blog posts. An initial gathering of the main points and axes of the previous posts was presented in the topic presentation Autistic Camouflage.
As this journey continues, I explore the concepts of “masking” and “camouflage” further, at different levels.
Axes / main points / highlights
In the most recent post Does “Masking” exist? A Wake-Up Call, I outline more specifically the levels at which questions arise around the concepts of “masking” and “camouflage,” which form the main axes of the posts.
• In the post The Ableist Construct of “Camouflage”, “camouflage” is placed on an external level, not as an experience in itself, but as a construct, and its instrumentalization through narratives about it. There is a discernible goal of erasure or invisibility and a direction toward the normalization of behavior rather than support. Through the denial of difference in functioning, “camouflage” is equated with an invisible level of functioning, which is the target of behavioral approaches. Dominant approaches influence socially formed perceptions, the acceptance of the invisible level, and the denial of difference, even by some Autistic people.
If the person themselves “achieves” camouflage, they supposedly do not need anything; they are normal. Or they have mental health issues, trauma, personality disorders, and other diagnoses for which they must seek therapy or “manage” individually.
The Problem with “Autism Levels” – Topic Presentation
“Camouflage” is conveniently charged to us as something we do — a personal act of invisibility that some of us are supposedly “capable” of. A false status that maintains our lack of access and our oppression. And those who are seen as “not capable” are expected to try harder — or to achieve it through conversion therapies.
The Ableist Construct of "Camouflage"
Despite the progress that has been made in our visibility, these notions of a linear spectrum lie at the basis of the medical model and of diagnosis, and that is why this is a wake-up call. These dominant perceptions are still there—perceptions that we too have indirectly accepted (masking as ability/functioning, denial of difference in functioning).
Does “Masking” Exist? A wake-up call
An informal separation of functioning is made on the basis of “behavior,” with one level of pathologized “autism” and the invisible level interpreted as a “personality type.” “Behavior” is separated, while we can perceive a primary construct of “autism” as a behavioral entity.
In contradiction to this, we can discern the informal separation of functioning on the basis of “high intelligence,” which reflects the historical context of diagnosis.
Is “masking” really the cause of the invisibility of Autistic women?
• Another dimension concerns communication through these terms used to describe our experience. The terms exist within a framework that they both reflect and shape. Again, we can discern the separation of behavior and the fundamental primary misunderstanding of “autism” as an entity, and a view of “personality” that does not exactly correspond to our own experience. A different meaning emerges that corresponds to the experience of allistics, while behavioral, psychological, and moral characteristics are projected onto the difference in functioning, and thus it is misunderstood.
The prevailing perception is that camouflage provides some kind of magical access. This is the point that needs to be disconnected. Camouflage or masking is not linked to any kind of access or success, as if on a scale of gain and cost. The performance of allistic functioning is a prerequisite for anything, without any gain, to which we are forced. And while, by suppressing our natural functioning, it reduces or even entirely cancels out our performance and the development of our potential.
Does our oppression truly come from “camouflage” itself? Or is it the way we try to respond to the demands of social and systemic environments that obstruct our natural development and functioning? We call “masking” or “camouflage” every experience of oppression we live through our overall interaction with allistic environments and systems.
My most significant oppression did not come from within as “camouflage,” despite the immeasurable cost it had for me and for my environment. My most significant oppression remains the external conditions that block the development of my potential and my social existence—access, and every hostile social and systemic environment. These things do not magically change with “camouflage.” It is not a balance of cost and gain.
Does “Masking” exist? A Wake-Up Call
When we focus on “masking,” we deal with how our mechanism tries to respond, rather than the condition causing the problem. We deal with how the individual copes with issues such as systemic inaccessibility, exclusion, and being forced into this performance. With the performance itself rather than the coercion into it.
For us, it can function as an “analogy” (mask), but for allistics, it refers to a different experience, which is not truly shared among us. They do not fully understand it. The masks they are asked to wear and the roles they are asked to perform in their lives concern different experiences and do not have the same consequences. They do not involve a real suppression of their potential or lack of access. That is why they only see a “psychological” dimension. They may feel discomfort to some extent, but they are not obstructed. Up to the point of discomfort, some—not even all—understand. Nothing more. We are talking about a different performance that they do not know and cannot comprehend based on their own experience. The analogies we offer them do not work.
We are not talking about “cost.” We are talking about something impossible for us. If they believe that some of us “are able,” that is the end of the matter for them, “we are able” = “we are able.” They do not care.
We are not talking about “cost.” “We are able” = “we are able.” They do not care.
We adopt perceptions and interpretations that are “approximate,” but not accurate, and this is a point of divergence and misunderstanding with allistics, because one does not understand what the other is saying. In a rough way we subsume under “masking” an overall lived experience of oppression that exists in every interaction with the allistic environment. For them, however, it is a general category, and they are not even interested in the experience itself. What interests them is this meaning: “we hide our personality.” Full stop. In this way they think we gain access and success (the balance I mentioned above).
They do not understand what all this means. They do not understand the suppression of our potential, our being ignored, our social and systemic exclusion, or that “camouflage” in reality has no effect on these things. They are not connected. It refers to a more immediate situation; it does not confer any magical property, and it is not sustainable over time.
It does not work, first of all because we do not control what our “behavior” conveys. Not even a professional actor can do that.
Finally, this classification, as a system of perception and communication, contains the fundamental primary misunderstanding of “autism” as an entity—here a behavioral one. “Autistic behavior” is separated out; it can be shaped or eliminated, while we can perform another “behavior.” And it is considered a social skill that we can learn.
In their perception above, this translates as: “we put on an act and everything is fine.”
“We hide our personality,” “we wear a mask,” in exchange for some magical benefit of access and success. That is how they understand it, according to their own experience, and they project such elements onto us, while it has nothing to do with the way we are oppressed and with the demands we are expected to meet. What do we expect them to understand when it is framed this way?
Does “Masking” exist? A Wake-Up Call
How can we expect something different when we ourselves equated the experience of oppression with ability and functionality? When we ourselves gave this experience magical properties of access? When we ourselves perceived it as a matter of personality or etiquette?
Perhaps we accepted it in order to recognize our experience of oppression.
In order to speak about what this oppression means and where it leads from our own perspective — an experience of oppression that can take infinite forms because it is not a specific act and concerns every interaction — to place it within our own framework. Not in order to accept the concept of “masking” or “camouflage” as functionality or magical access, nor as the hiding of negative or unfavorable elements of our personality for some benefit.
Doesn’t that sound a bit predatory and sneaky, by the way? Or opportunistic, as if we were social climbers trying to advance in an unethical way. We don’t do this, or it is not related to this experience—and such elements are projected onto us, morally-characterologically-psychologically-behaviorally, it is part of the misunderstanding.
There may also be a personality dimension, but it is only one dimension, and not the most important according to my experience. We have given this dimension more significance than it has. Or it is behavioralization, psychologization, and moralization of functioning.
“Masking”: an error on our side, and that is why it can change.
The psychological dimension also exists, but even that is not shared; for us it reaches a core of existence that it does not reach for allistics.
• The next axis of reflection concerns the internal experience itself. There is an experience that we place under “masking,” together with every experience of oppression that exists in our interaction with allistic environments and systems. It is a performance of allistic functioning as an image. Or a coercion into performing another kind of functioning that we cannot enact. This experience concerns autistic functioning; no allistic person can have it, and it leads to autistic burnout.
In this dimension of the issue I also place the problem that even we ourselves sometimes say “everyone masks,” because that is not the “masking” we mean. We perceive only superficially the part concerning “personality,” or treat it as if the issue were one of etiquette.Does “Masking” exist? A Wake-Up Call
This is not playing a character, as an actor would. These are not characters. So what exactly is this neurotypical persona? And in terms of systemic access, what does it achieve—and how?
Deconstructing Camouflage / Three Distinct Problematic Points of the Medical Model and the Misinterpretation of “Levels”
The perceptions that we ourselves often hold about “camouflage” reflect a view of “personality”, or the behavioralization and psychologization of functioning. This denial of difference is also reflected in the idea that “everyone masks”.
Common Misconceptions About Autism Levels – What It Really Means
What we ourselves must also understand: they expect, or demand, this “theater” from us because for them it is not theater. It is simply how they function.
There is no comparison with the fact that an allistic person might pay a little more attention to what clothes they wear and to their expressions in a job interview. It is not the same thing.
The lived experience of the suppression of our neurotype exists in every interaction; it does not depend on whether a situation is formal or informal or what demands it has, but on the fact that, first of all, the demands are not even known.
We are not talking about “cost.” “We are able” = “we are able.” They do not care.
This was a key point that had already emerged in the first presentation of the topic. By “masking” we mean the performance of allistic functioning as an image, and we are forced into it.
• Deconstruction does not necessarily mean that something “does not exist,” it means analyzing elements we project onto it, clarifying it, deconstructing a construct that we loosely use.
• In “masking,” we may also place issues concerning more organized mechanisms that anticipate protection and social survival, with very serious consequences, affecting our very identity and personality. We find ourselves in a disoriented struggle to construct an identity and personality that distances us from ourselves.
With “masking,” some of us may indeed recognize that experience as well, but its dimensions and the impact it has on our lives are reduced. It sends the message that, okay, we’re just putting on an act and everything is fine. These are very serious issues to be minimized like this. And then some psychologist comes along and says that we don’t exist and that everything is fine, judging by the fact that we got a degree somewhere or that we managed to survive socially. Yes, we survived — we barely survived. She has no idea how far we were pushed or how we survived, and she doesn’t care. Just as she doesn’t know how our potential has been suppressed, and what that means for us beyond a degree or some other isolated achievement. (I wrote about this in my post Burnout is not caused by the work itself. We are constantly going from 100 to 0.) What the psychologist said therefore shows a profound disrespect toward human experience.
Could what happened with the psychologist be a wake-up call for “masking” (at least)?
Why do we call all of the above — an overall experience that starts from our oppression — “masking”? For me, too, it was an “aha moment.” Important in order to recognize my experience through a new lens. But perhaps it is time to move beyond it.
• In the first presentation, the journey arrived at two key elements of Autistic camouflage: it is camouflage of functioning, and it is a response to the demands of the environment according to our perception of what those demands are.
From there, the continuation concerned the framework of constructs and narratives where these elements are placed. Why these elements constitute an entity or a specific act as “camouflage” or “masking.”
Whether we need a different framework of perception and interpretation for our own experience, because the existing one does not fully reflect it.
Allistics see a separated “autistic behavior,” which can be eliminated or modified, and that is how they perceive “masking.” Is this a suitable framework for our experience of oppression and performance? And this is not a matter of terminology. An initial journey concerned whether the term “camouflage” is preferable to describe it. It does not matter much; it is the same. But why do we need to give it a name, as if it were an act or at least a phenomenon? Is this for us? We give a name to our entire interaction with allistic environments. To our entire social existence, as if separated from us.
It may be necessary up to a point. Up to the point where we recognize our own experience, or become visible by using another framework as a vehicle. What else do we need after that? After that, they can simply appropriate it again on their own terms, turning it into a vehicle for our invalidation: the denial of difference, and the invisible level of functioning on the basis of “behavior.” For us, it should not have more meaning than that. That is why it is a wake-up call.
With this vehicle we showed that we exist, without meaning that it was truly the reason we were not recognized. But we proved it. That is what they seek to negate; that is why they say it is “not scientific.”
We accepted the framework of “autistic traits.” But these are not “traits” that we hide; we can understand the convention we accepted and the fundamental misunderstanding it contains. It approaches experiences that we can recognize, but it does not truly correspond to our own experience.
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Common Misconceptions About Autism Levels – What It Really Means
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