Does “Masking” Exist? – Summary

🇬🇷 Ελληνικά

The concept of “masking” or “camouflaging” is shaped within a framework of ideas surrounding dominant notions of the linear spectrum of functioning and the denial of difference in functioning, which influence the interpretation of our lived experience.

Dominant frameworks that have shaped the interpretation of our lived experience:

• Denial of difference in functioning

• A linear spectrum of “functioning”

Within the same framework, the contradictions are not resolved; on the contrary, they are cynically revealed in their true dimension. The contradictions exist within a framework that denies a simple fact — the difference in functioning — and instead constructs “autism” as an entity. Anything that does not begin by acknowledging this difference cannot resolve them.

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. These dominant perceptions are still there—perceptions that we too have indirectly accepted (masking as ability/functioning, denial of difference in functioning).

Ideas embedded in this framework, shaping and reinforcing a coherent narrative:

• “Autism” as an entity: a) nosological and b) behavioral.

• Pathologization of Autistic existence. Anything an Autistic person experiences is attributed to the pathology of “autism,” without any benefit.

• Projection of every situation onto an inherent pathologization, and dismissal of the impact of external conditions, which are therefore not seen as needing any adjustment to support the individual.

• A goal of eliminating or rendering invisible the nosological or behavioral entity, rather than providing support.

• Negative stereotypes projected onto the nosological or behavioral entity.

• Division into levels of “functioning” based on “high intelligence” or “normal behavior,” romanticized stereotypes, or denial of difference and of any systemic issues in access and support. Normalization and enabling of social and systemic exclusion.

The concept of “masking” or “camouflaging” is formed within this dominant framework:

• Masking as an ability/functionality and a capacity to overcome Autistic functioning.

• Construction of an invisible level of functioning, which becomes the target of behavioral interventions.

• Camouflaging as an act of invisibility attributed to Autistic individuals.

• Camouflaging as a social skill or art.

• The assumption that behavior can be separated and shaped as an independent entity. A direction toward normalization of behavior rather than support. Camouflaging as the hiding of “autistic traits.”

Allistics see a separated “autistic behavior,” which can be eliminated or modified, and that is how they perceive “masking.”

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.

• Perceiving masking as a matter of “personality,” which does not align with our experience.

• Behavioral, psychological, and moral characteristics are projected onto the difference in functioning.

• Camouflaging is seen as granting some kind of magical access or success, as if it exists on a scale of cost and benefit.

• Camouflaging as a psychological problem. The idea that our oppression comes from “camouflaging” itself, framed as a form of distress.

We call “masking” or “camouflage” every experience of oppression we live through our overall interaction with allistic environments and systems. 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.

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. We gain nothing.

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. 

The masks allistics are asked to wear and the roles they are asked to perform in their lives do not involve a real suppression of their potential or lack of access. 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 put on an act.” “We hide our personality,” “we wear a mask,” in exchange for some magical benefit of access and success.

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.

Experiences we situate within the framework of “masking” or “camouflaging”:

• The demand to perform allistic functioning as an image.

Even we ourselves sometimes say “everyone masks,” which 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. 

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.

• A traumatic response to external coercion; suppression of neurological responses and emotional expression; a freeze state within trauma theory.

• More structured mechanisms that anticipate protection and social survival, with very serious consequences, affecting our very identity and personality. We find ourselves in a disoriented attempt to construct an identity and personality that distances us from ourselves. Dissociation. 

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Does “Masking” Exist? – A Series of Posts

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