Masking

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I mask during the majority of social interactions. A mask is a set of rules to follow so that you are accepted by a group. Acceptance gains you resources that you would otherwise not have. I have created different sets of rules for different situations over the last two decades through trial-and-error and through observing others and "borrowing" their mannerisms and ways of speaking. Sometimes the mask doesn't quite fit the situation or it slips, but mostly I blend in.

Masking is tiring and anxiety-provoking, so with nuclear family and significant others I try to minimize it as much as possible.

I wanted to add to my earlier comments:

One tip that could be useful for someone with ASD who wants to mask for social utility is to realize that almost everyone expects everyone else to experience social interaction (and the emotional communication that comes with it) similarly.

It might help to overcome social anxiety to understand that the average person is going to project this expectation onto your behavior. For instance, if you loosen your face and try to smile a bit in the right contexts, people will assume you are feeling this genuinely. You don't have to worry if they see through it because they probably don't and will just think you might be a bit awkward, shy, or introverted.

I've had situations where I am faux smiling during a group interaction and feeling dreadfully internally because I'm struggling to enjoy and participate in the social event, but people will often not realize you are "below water" until you start scowling and not reacting. They'll just say you are "quiet" which is better than "aloof."

Jesus! There are currently 3 threads about this topic on page 1 of the GAD board atm. Wow!

Incidentally if anyone feels like posting here since I find this the most interesting of the 3 threads, if anyone knows or does it what does masking in ND men look like? I'd just be curious to hear either people's own experiences, those of people they know or anything they've read, heard about, etc.

I've never been much of a masker.

To this day, I can't do NT eye contact rhythms. I have to admit I never tried very hard, because to me it has always seemed more important to pay attention to the actual content of what the person is saying; and for me it's hard to pay attention to both a person's words and the person's eyes at the same time (unless the topic of conversation just happens to be the physical appearance of the other person's eyes). Indeed it's hard for me to pay attention to a conversation while at the same time paying attention to any visual stimulus not directly relevant to the topic of conversation. So I can't do the trick of looking at someone's forehead instead of their eyes, either. So I usually just make brief eye contact at the very beginning of a conversation and only very occasionally thereafter, if at all.

I've been told that the way I talk is odd. Among other things I've been told that I have a "flat affect." It never seemed terribly important to me to try to change this. After all, here in NYC, there are a lot of people who aren't even native English speakers, and who come from a variety of different cultures with a variety of different traditional mannerisms.

Also my voice tends to be unusually loud.

Also I've never liked fussing around with my appearance. I don't wear makeup, nor do I get my hair styled.

So, in a lot of ways, I guess I come across as pretty obviously autistic, or at least weird.

Luckily I've worked in professions (e.g. electronic engineering and computer programming) in which -- until recently at least -- there was relatively little pressure to conform to superficial norms.

Is Autistic Camouflaging Really Bad for Your Health?
Claire Jack, Ph.D., is a therapist and training provider who specialises in working with women with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Claire obtained her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of the Highlands and Islands, having spent three glorious years in the tiny island of Shetland, Scotland. In addition to one-to-one client work by Skype, Claire provides a range of training and personal development courses covering issues such as narcissistic abuse, inner child therapy and hypnotherapy.

Masking... (I certainly mask!)...
Masking is where you feel inside "If only they knew the real "Me"." It is not that I am not the real me, but what you see is a me that is altered in my ways be it in body language or speech or the timing and ways I speak so that I can "Appear normal".
Masking feels like one has to continually speak in another language in all ones ways to be able to communicate. (I do not speak in other human languages, but I give this as an analagy (Is that the right word to use?) of what it feels like).

Ok. Example of masking that goes wrong to show what masking is. One that I guess many people have done and not known that it is masking as (I am guessing here as I don't know) most people have done this.
You are with a group of people trying to "Fit in" and one person says a joke you don't get. You hear everyone else laugh around you so you laugh, but by the time you laugh it is after everyone else which makes them realize that either your brain works slowly, or you did not get the joke.
Others realize there is something wrong so someone will ask you details about the joke and you get caught out, and the group then rejects you as they feel like you are lying to them in your ways.
I have had things like this happen all my life. Anxiety comes with asking because one is terrified at being found out. Being exposed... Because when it happens the "Group bullying" starts, as they naturally feel like you are decieving them and that you are a fraud.
I learnt something I call "Double masking" done in a manual way to protect myself from being exposed from this type of event. While the first type of masking is an automatic reaction that you may have learned without thinking about it... In other words at some point in your life you have gradually adapted your ways to try to fit in (Still am a bit of a square peg in a round hole... "Ouch!").
But this secondary mask is very much a manual mask where I am continually having to think two steps ahead, and having to bring in not only masking, then a purpouseful "Act" on top of it, but I have to make it look and seem funny to make the mask work, and this is exhausting as it has to be done day in, day out, every hour of the day, as once I have started this masking,that is who they expect me to be... So if I drop this mask the "Group think bullying begins" and boy have I been on the recieving end of this! 20 to 1 or 25 to 1 has been common... In that situation it is not a fight or flight response, but rather a flight response because no way can one fight so many! If I am in any group setting with the exemption of a close family group, I will always check I have a clear means to make an exit before anyone can block it, as through my lifes experiences, I need to be near a door so I can get out of there when things go wrong. I hate being sandwiched in between other people or asked to be at the front or back (Which ever is furthest from the door) and I will try to be at an outer edge which is the best place to make my escape... My mind is thinking and assessing this regularly when I think or detect that I am, or could be at risk.
Now this manual masking I use I developed when I was about 13 or 14 years old.. Maybe younger? I know of an event that started it which was about the age of 13 or 14... And what it is is I started acting thick, and making people laugh bu acting thick in what I said and subtly did, because I found it was a way to bridge my communication between being this wierd quiet withdrawn kid that no one much liked, to being a kid that people went to and were drawn to to have some fun.... Even though it was fun at my expense, I felt accepted.
Think of it. Here am I, above the average intelligence acting as if I am like "Frank Spencer" (If you don't know who he is you need to look him up! You will love Frank!) and having to keep this up for years, as if I drop the mask, people will discover it and believe I have decieved them... So once I started this mask, I would have to keep going.
I found that masking in this way not only allowed me to fit in like some sort of adapter between the real me ad the other people, and made people laugh and enjoy my presence, but it also had the added benefit in that if there was something that I did not know... Example being a social situation or term that I did not understand etc, that acting thick meant I could directly ask from behind the mask and the mask protected me from the hurt of being rejected because I did not know.. People pitied me because I did not know rather then me being exposed as different by not knowing. So acting thick protected me.

There is a third type of masking I do, but I class the acting thick mask as being the third as it is manually done and constantly being adjusted in each situation. (You can imagine the fun I have had with this masking!)... But the other masking I do is to surpress all stimming. I have spent years in school, collage or a work enviroment... and even at home on occasions supressing stimms. I was known as a figit! I was told off by teachers...I would have to constantly sit dead still examining my every move that my body did to work out if my movements were "Acceptable" or not. Sometimes in school after being told off I daren't move a muscle! No way was the school work going in my brain and I increasingly became even more quiet and withdrawn as I was doing all I could to "Act" normal in classes where the teachers picked up on my stimms. My schoolwork suffered as a result of it.
My college work (I say collage as to me life at the time was like that) seriously suffered when I ended up having the entire class bullying me when my manual masking was exposed, a month or two befoee the exams, but my stimms were being exposed by the lecturers who did not like it, and so mywork suffered before that... Along with prosopragnosia (Faceblindness) issues where for months and months and months I never knew that two teachers were not the same man! So sometimes my homework was marked with a zero as I handed it in to the wrong college lecturer. (Totally puzzled me! I kind of gave up trying to do well whenI had zero on my marks and the excercize while in collage was to make myself look and fit in like a pupil, but without putting in much effort in my work (I did not see the point and had given up with anything other then self preservation which was trying to fit in. Also my maths was failing because what I did not know then but I do know now, is that my mind works in picture form so when it came to the complicated equasions based on algebra where one uses letters instead of numbers, I did not find a way to prepare for this, as when I worked in numbers I was thinking in visual patterns of dots which did not work with the many equasions needed in the collage enviroment. I could do them but my methos was to try to convert everything to numerical form with a numerical value as soon as possible which had its limits to how things are worked out. Strangely I resat my GCSE maths exam after leaving collage and I had a 100% exam result!)).

But anyway. Masking, masking, masking.... Yes. I mask!

Last year I had added this video upload to my autistic YouTube creator channel "Aspie With Attitude" discussing what it means to mask your autism.