I was 4 when I first of the concept of a haircut. As a girl born in the late 60’s I’d never experienced one that I could remember. My hair was down past my shoulders and just something that had always been there. It was a warm day late in the year, possibly November and a family I had always known as cousins had arrived for the day. One of the boys, about 3 years old had just had his first haircut. I was mesmerised by how different he looked, how neat it was. I asked if I could have my haircut and was told no.
After a few hours of socialising, we all stood out the front saying good bye when an idea struck me. I slipped inside unnoticed, grabbed some scissors and went to my room, making sure I sat right up against the closed door and proceeded to cut my own hair. I can’t have been there for more than a few minutes when I felt the door being pushed open (as if my puny weight was going to stop an adult). Next thing I knew I was sitting on the kitchen table with my mother trying to fix the botch I’d made of my attempt. My mother seemed angry and commented about not being able to stick it back on. I was not upset about my hair at all but I didn’t want to be in trouble. At the mention of sticking it back, I distinctly remember thinking I was expected to be upset here so I faked crying and asked for my hair to be stuck back on with sticky tape. My mother’s laugh broke the tension and I knew crisis (of me being in trouble) was averted.
What sticks out most to me in this is my response. I knew ‘something’ was expected of me that I didn’t feel. I also somehow knew if I played the game I wouldn’t get in trouble. I consciously, deliberately chose to roleplay ‘being upset’ rather than be true to how I was feeling about the situation which was, not really bothered at all. This is masking, roleplaying behaviours or responses that are considered social expectations in an attempt to ‘fit in’ and not gather too much attention.
I can’t explain why this memory has stuck with me so strongly, I think it might be the first time I was aware of masking as a deliberate choice. The next experience I remember where I was choosing to perform social expectation was a year later, my grandmother had just picked me up from school on a hot day and said she would give me a spider to drink when we got home. I had no clue what this ‘spider’ was but wasn’t fazed by it because I trusted my grandmother. However, I also was aware my grandmother was excited about introducing me to this amazing, new experience so I chose to roleplay exaggerated disgust at the thought of drinking a spider ‘A spider? ewww’ I performed. I had guessed right, my response had caused her to laugh and she proceeded to give me a drink of lemonade and ice cream when I got home.
I don’t know for sure why both of these memories stick with me but they both are times when I was aware I had a choice in how to respond in the situation and I chose to ‘do what was expected’ to satisfy the other person’s script of how all this should go. There was no malicious intent here, no desire to manipulate or deceive just a sense of wanting to give the other person what I felt was wanted (or expected) in the moment.
And that is all masking is. I don’t have too many memories of standing out because I didn’t perform the expected response (aka didn’t mask), as I was fairly quick to pick up on what was expected and just give people that. It’s that aversion to being perceived most autists have because for most of us the experience of being perceived is usually an experience of being judged and found wanting. The downside of being able to ‘respond appropriately’ in any given situation is no one picks up on the disconnect you’re experiencing, the gap between what you feel in that moment and what is expected of you. For most the expected response is natural to them, they absorb the social lessons which fuse and become a part of them. They are able to take in the layers of nuance to ‘know’ how much of any response is needed in any situation so it reads as ‘appropriate’ to others around them. For me, the difference feels like they got a phone with all the apps, bells and whistles pre-installed while I have the basic model and have to install each app one at a time, then the upgrades.
One time when I didn’t choose the mask was when I was 8. My mother had come to pick me up from school with my new baby sister in her pram and she told me there was a surprise at home. When i got home I discovered we had just got a brand new colour TV. Colour transmission had only started about 6 months before so there was really no need to have a colour TV. I loved watching TV and it was expected I’d be really excited about this new purchase. I remember looking at it over my shoulder, shrugging and then turning back to play with my sister which is what I was actually excited about. Instead of playroling fake interest in the new object, I chose to go with my genuine interest and excitement over my sister. I think my mother was a little disappointed that I wasn’t more thrilled over the TV but my (lack of) response was chalked up to that being just like me and everyone got on with other things.
Masking is not lying, it’s survival. Neuro-Typical people say ‘be your authentic self’ but they don’t mean it. The moment we are our authentic selves we are judged as wrong, not good enough, odd, self-centred, strange, lacking, dense, unfeeling or any other label that means we have not be found acceptable. Being constantly judged and criticised is not a good feeling, it’s very shitty actually. To avoid that experience, we mask. We give you the socially expected response to by-pass the judging and get on with things. Unfortunately, this takes up massive amounts of energy that we don’t have available to do other things, so we end up drained. As a teen, I would lock myself in my room for an entire weekend about every 6 weeks to help me recharge. I also often cried myself to sleep, berating myself for not being good enough and this somehow discharged the toxic energy I’d been accumulating and allowed me to restore batteries while I slept.