Masking and Me: Why Girls Are More Likely to Be Dismissed When It Comes to Autism
By Sophie Holcroft
For as far back as my memory goes, deep into the recesses of my childhood, I remember feeling like an outsider. It seemed that all my classmates had received a rule book on how to be a human being and, somehow, I hadn’t been given a copy. I yearned for absolute silence and would hide from my noisy peers. I rarely spoke, not because I couldn’t, but simply because I didn’t want to. Sometimes, I would click my fingers to match the rhythms that I could hear in my mind. The only time I came alive was when I was immersed in my daydreams, pretending that I could wield magic or slay dragons.
As you can imagine, my oddball behaviour didn’t win me many friends. As I grew older, the other kids began to single me out and my teachers grew increasingly concerned. My parents, however, were adamant that I was fine. To them, I was simply shy. Mom encouraged me to make friends and be more outgoing by signing me up for various clubs and activities. These ranged from karate to dance to after-school clubs. You don’t need to be a psychic to know that I didn’t last long doing any of these things.
As the pressure to fit in intensified in school, I began to do what’s commonly referred to as masking. Masking is a term often used to describe how people with autism adopt certain behaviours and suppress others to fit in. Instead of behaving in ways that were natural and comforting to me, I started to change my behaviour to fit in. I observed the popular kids and the kids on TV to gauge what behaviour was acceptable and what wasn’t.
I started to emulate the behaviours that were deemed normal. I would force myself to maintain eye contact. I would go out of my way to start conversations with classmates that I’d rehearsed alone beforehand. Slowly, I started making friends. Teachers commented on how I was improving. My parents breathed a sigh of relief – I finally appeared ‘normal’.
Before I began masking, I was exhibiting many signs of being autistic. My parents weren’t concerned, however, because they thought that autism only occurred in boys. It’s easy to see what led them to this mistaken belief: boys are diagnosed with autism far more than girls, but this is not because autism is less likely to occur in girls.
Girls are often overlooked when it comes being diagnosed with autism as they are more able to mask from an early age. If they have an intense interest, it’s more likely to be in something socially acceptable and stereotypically ‘girly’, like makeup or horses. This can lead to doctors being more likely to dismiss their behaviour as normal, leading to autistic girls not getting the help they need with their neurodivergence.
Masking is something that I’ve carried into adulthood. It’s exhausting. It takes a great deal of energy to keep up appearances, and sometimes I end up getting things just plain wrong. Misinterpreting social cues, even now, can result in falling out with friends or being the butt of jokes that I don’t understand. After a day of masking, I feel drained; I’m just a husk of a person. For many, masking inevitably causes burnout, which prompts them to seek out a diagnosis for what they are going through that they missed out on when they were younger. This was the case for me.
Undiagnosed autistic women are more likely to have endured unnecessary suffering by not getting the support and understanding that we need from an early age. Many like me have found that there is great relief to be found in receiving a diagnosis and in speaking to others who experience the world as we do.
Like many autistic women, masking has both helped and hindered me. I can see how it’s enabled me to achieve things like my master's degree, meet incredible people, and travel. Yet, it has also exhausted me to the point where I couldn't function properly. I’m slowly learning to take the mask off so that I can be my authentic self around others who are safe and encouraging. I'm learning that living an authentic life is not just a beautiful thing – it is also necessary.