Masking in Autistic Women: Finding Safe Ways to Be Yourself
What does masking in autistic women really mean, and why does it matter? This blog explores why autistic women feel pressure to mask and the different ways they camouflage their autistic traits. It examines the emotional and physical costs of neurodivergent masking for women. It also offers practical ideas in the form of an unmasking framework to begin unmasking safely and at your own pace.
What Does Masking in Autistic Women Mean?
Masking in autistic women is widely recognised in the literature as a way to compensate for and conceal autistic ways of being. Otherwise known as ‘camouflaging,’ masking is comprised of many rather effortful attempts for autistic women to cope, fit in, and keep safe.
Masking isn't about pretending or deceiving. It's about surviving. It's about trying to keep ourselves safe in contexts that don’t meet our needs; needs, of which, we’re often unaware we have as a result of high masking.
From an occupational therapy perspective, masking can somewhat be considered to be an adaptive response to environments and contexts that are incompatible with neurodivergent needs. It’s a survival strategy that, in my view as an autistic woman and clinician, is ideally used with intention and only sparingly. In order to apply the strategy of masking sparingly (and therefore, sustainably), late identified autistic women need to primarily be in neuroaffirming circumstances where they are safe enough not to need to mask.
High masking autistic women rarely find themselves in circumstances that feel safe enough to unmask. And in the odd chance they do, it’s likely they don’t know they’re masking, they don’t know how to unmask, and they don’t know who they’d be without masking.
This is as scary as it sounds.Previously high masking myself, I had little awareness of what I needed, what I preferred or who I was. I didn’t even consider being aware of these things. I was on survival-mode autopilot: hypervigilant to other people’s needs, disembodied, and trying desperately to understand things I may never understand. I felt like a brittle, cracked, hollowed-out egg; like I had no substance and that I could disintegrate at the mere stroke of pressure. I know I’m not alone in the painful emptiness of high masking.
It’s heartbreaking that autistic women feel they need to mask. Can I emphasise the word need here? It’s important to understand that, as autistic women, it’s highly doubtful we’d mask if we didn’t consider it essential for our safety and survival. The costs are too high. It’s heartbreaking that a precious portion of the global population feels the need to suppress their natural way of being and ‘pass as someone else’ in the pressure cooker of ‘neurotypical’ expectations.
The Different Types of Masking in Autism
As autistic women, ideally we’re at choice about how and when we mask or unmask. This relies, in part, on an awareness of the ways we might be masking. Masking is multifaceted and can be quite sophisticated! The same masking strategy can operate across more than one type of masking. For simplicity, though, let’s group types of masking into some categories:
Sensory communication masking
Emotional masking
Identity masking
Sexual masking
Cognitive masking
Sensory masking
Interoceptive masking
Let’s briefly explore each type.
Social Communication Masking
Social communication masking is when an autistic person modifies or suppresses their natural ways of interacting.
When we mask in this way, we might rehearse conversational small talk to appear fluent. We might force ourselves to manage eye contact even when this is dreadfully uncomfortable. We might ‘mirror’ the way other people communicate (copying gestures, intonation, slang, specific words or phrases, or patterns of speech) and greet each other (body posture, handshakes, hugs, or verbal greetings). We might also try not to talk about topics we’re greatly interested in for fear of appearing too intense.
Emotional Masking
Emotional masking is when an autistic person hides, suppresses or alters their authentic emotional responses, often replacing them with socially expected expressions.
Emotional masking can involve laughing or showing a positive affect when anxious, distressed or exhausted. It can involve working hard to speak in expressive and pleasant tones to avoid being judged as rude, cold or aloof. It can also involve suppressing emotional responses (including meltdowns or shutdowns) until we’re alone in a private and safe space.
Identity Masking
Identity masking is when an autistic person minimises, conceals, or reshapes who they are.
When we mask our identity, we may downplay and try to suppress our autistic ways of being (example: stimming suppression). We may adopt expected gender norms even though it feels uncomfortable. We may ‘memory-foam’, and we may suppress our authentic preferences for hobbies, social roles, and careers. We may adopt the norms of a friendship group[ or act according to our partner’s expectations.
“‘Memory-foaming is the process of losing, giving up, or having trouble forming a sense of self-identity, self-advocacy and self-determination in social situations, and molding oneself to someone else or to a situation. It often involves excessively conceding, bending, conforming and acquiescing to someone, either actively or passively, either as a reaction to specific feedback, or in anticipation of a certain response. It often involves making yourself as small, as accommodating, and/or as agreeable as possible, to the point of self-neglect and self-alienation.’”
Sexual Masking
Sexual masking is when an autistic person suppresses, conceals or alters their authentic sexual responses, boundaries or preferences to meet external expectations of intimacy.
When sexually masking, we may go along with a sexual activity to avoid conflict, we may pretend to enjoy sensations that are overwhelming or uncomfortable, or we might try to copy what we see in media. We may hide sensory intolerance, such as discomfort with certain types of touch. We may also conceal differences in desire or arousal.
Cognitive Masking
Cognitive masking is when an autistic person uses mental effort to compensate for processing or executive functioning challenges.
Cognitive masking may show up as concealing our processing delays by nodding, smiling or pretending to understand while we’re still trying to process what was being said. We may mask cognitive overload in conversations by using conversational fillers (‘interesting’) to buy ourselves time and to appear engaged in the meantime. We may also conceal executive functioning challenges by over-preparing or triple-checking to avoid showing difficulty with planning and organisation.
Sensory Masking
Sensory masking is when the autistic person suppresses or disguises sensory needs or discomfort.
Sensory masking involves forcing ourselves to stay in overwhelming environments instead of leaving or asking for accommodations. We may suppress authentic reactions to distressing sensory inputs, like loud noises or bright lights. Or we may minimise or avoid using sensory supports like noise cancelling devices, sunglasses or fidget objects. We may force ourselves to eat foods that cause distress or wear uncomfortable clothing. And we may restrict sensory-seeking activities, such as rocking, touching objects or smelling things.
Interoceptive Masking
Interoceptive masking is when the autistic person overrides, ignores or conceals internal bodily signals.
Interoceptive masking occurs when we push through fatigue or pain. We might not eat or drink when we’re hungry or thirsty, perhaps because the people around us aren’t eating or drinking, or because we want to stay ‘productive’. We may hold off taking toilet breaks, especially in community-based settings like school or the workplace. We might minimise physical pain (period pain, headaches, injury) to avoid being seen as weak, complaining or needy. We may also pretend to cope when we’re feeling overly heated or too cold.
The Emotional & Physical Costs of Masking
The costs of masking extend beyond emotional and physical, but I’ll mention these now and we’ll more thoroughly explore the costs of masking in another blog article.
Emotional Costs
The emotional costs of masking can be understood as the psychological consequences of masking.
High masking narrows the possibility of safe, authentic, and reciprocal connection with self and others. It makes sense then that masking tends to result in loneliness, a sense of isolation and of not ever being truly known. High masking causes emotional exhaustion and diminished self-trust.
Feelings common in the context of high masking include shame, confusion, and grief.
Emotional masking can exacerbate the experience of alexithymia and in my experience, can mimic the experiences of alexithymia. This is why I believe it’s important to gain a thorough understanding of the way an autistic woman is masking and to support her safe recovery from masking before making a definitive identification of the presence of alexithymia.
Physical Costs
The physical costs of masking can be understood as the bodily consequences of masking.
For high masking women, the nervous system is often in a sustained state of hypervigilance - we’re constantly scanning and adjusting to maintain safety. Over time, this prolonged activation of the stress response system can disrupt sleep, digestion and immune function, leaving the body depleted and less able to return to a state of rest and repair.
Masking, therefore, narrows the body’s opportunities for rest, recovery and regulation.
The physical cost extends to disconnection from bodily cues like hunger, thirst, fatigue, pain and temperature. In my experience, the physical costs of masking can mirror and intensify interoceptive challenges, making it harder for autistic women to recognise what their body needs and when. This is why it’s important to attend to the embodied impacts of masking, not just the psychological ones, and to support recovery practices that restore nervous system balance and bodily trust.
How to Unmask Autism Safely: Practical Steps
Unmasking essentially means to BE YOU.
In my work with autistic women, I’ve found that certain practical steps tend to emerge consistently during the process of safe and sustainable unmasking. Together they form an unmasking framework that supports the unmasking process to be more paced and gentle (and less random, chaotic or damaging).
Be You Unmasking Framework
Consider yourself a person
Many late-identified autistic women have spent decades indiscriminately identifying and meeting the needs of everyone around them. We don’t mean too, but we can inadvertently dehumanise ourselves by defining ourselves primarily through the roles we play for other people.
A crucial first step in unmasking is to consider yourself as a person rather than as a series of roles. This might be difficult if you’ve been high-masking and don’t have a sense of who you are. The next step in the Be You Unmasking Framework helps with this.
Prioritise a relationship with yourself
If we don’t know who we are, I don’t believe we can unmask. Masking requires a foundation of self-knowledge. Without this, the unmasking process risks leaving us exposed without clarity about what we need. And that is not supportive of safe unmasking.
We learn about who we are by being in relationship with ourselves. For some of us, this may be the first time we’ve even begun a relationship with ourselves.
This is where it gets interesting!
To begin a relationship with ourselves, we slow down enough for us to notice ourselves (beyond who others expect us to be). We become curious about ourselves - what we’re passionate about, what we could talk for hours about without tiring, our sensory joys, what we prefer, what we value, what we need and want, and what we feel without the imposition of other people’s influence. We become responsive and attuned to ourselves.
The more curious and open we are with ourselves, the more clearly we’ll understand ourselves and the more intimate our relationship with ourselves becomes.
Establish a self-soothing process
We’re better able to slow down enough to notice ourselves when we engage in healthy self-soothing practices that calm our nervous system. In fact, we need to care for our nervous system at every stage of the unmasking process to enable safe unmasking.
Self-soothing practices support us to regulate when we experience a stress response. Being in a state of regulation helps prevent us from automatically masking again. My go-to self-soothing strategies including EFT/tapping, rhythmic exercise (running, walking, Reform Pilates), restorative rocking and spending time in nature. You’ll discover your own go-to strategies.
Over time, your self-soothing practice will increase your capacity to remain authentic in the face of external demands.
Draw in to recalibrate
It can be supportive to intentionally draw inward for a period of time, focusing on your own company until your sense of self feels more established. It’s especially supportive to draw inward if you memory foam.
This isn’t about isolating yourself; it’s about reducing external influence enough that you can reset, strengthen your sense of self, and begin to hear and trust your own inner voice. During initial phases of unmasking, it can be protective to stay connected to a small number of people around whom you mask less. Leaning into these connections can be supportive as you recalibrate your sense of self.
Choose what you prefer when you can
Once you’ve developed a foundation of self-knowledge and you engage in practices to sooth your nervous system, you might feel ready to make choices (however small) that reflect your true preferences. This might be choosing what you wear, which music you listen to, how you arrange your bookshelf or which environments you spend time in.
Each choice strengthens your connection to self and reduces the immediate reaction to defer to others. You’ll probably find that when you choose what you prefer, you’ll be coping with and tolerating less.
Moving Towards Authenticity While Honouring Safety
You may feel like you have to unmask all at once and do it perfectly - you don't.
With the right therapeutic support (especially from a suitably trained neurodivergent therapist) you can engage in unmasking at a pace that feels safe, while learning to trust yourself… and hopefully have fun in the process!
Are you experiencing the costs of masking and would like to begin unmasking safely?
You don’t have to start this process alone. My occupational therapy services for late-identified autistic women are designed to support you with gentle, practical approaches that honour your needs and pace.
Frequently asked questions about masking
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Many autistic women describe putting on a smile (The Smiling Mask) in social and professional situations. They describe doing this even when they are overwhelmed, confused, annoyed, in pain or chronically unhappy.
The Smiling Mask looks like friendliness, approachability and amiability on the surface. At its core, however, it's a protective strategy - smiling can often make others less likely to criticise, exclude or question. This is particularly the case in patriarchal and misogynistic societies, of which Australia can unfortunately still be considered as being.
The sustained donning of The Smiling Mask can lead to high masking autistic women becoming unaware of their authentic emotions. It can also lead to the masking woman feeling unseen, unknown, isolated and disempowered.
From my perspective, it’s critically important for autistic women to receive safe support (whether clinically or informally) to mask less. To cope with less. To be seen and known. To experience authentic belonging. And to be empowered to be themselves.
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As autistic women, it can be difficult to know when we’re masking as we’re masking. I don’t believe it’s a reasonable (or kind) expectation to have of ourselves that we’re able to do this. At least, not in the beginning stages of learning about how or when we mask, and if/how/when we want to unmask.
If we’ve been masking for most of our lives, it can feel like wearing a costume we don’t remember putting on. It’s like second nature. We just slip into it.
The initial stages of realising we’ve been masking tends to occur after developing a thorough understanding of what masking is and usually after the fact when we’re in the safety of our own company or with a trusted person (like a friend or therapist).
While you may not know exactly how you’ve masked in the beginning, there will be some commonly experienced tell-tale signs.
Once you’re on your own and have stopped masking, you’ll probably feel relief… and exhaustion. You’ll likely need to restore your energy.
After social masking, for example, you may not remember large portions of the social interaction. You may conduct The Social Post-Mortem (a thorough autopsy - often conducted repetitively - on conversations and interactions you’ve had). You may be utterly exhausted and prefer not to speak for a while.
After sensory masking, you may feel irritable, impatient, angry and struggle to concentrate. You may have the innate desire for a Tuck Up (my version of this is popping into bed in a darkened room with my Loops in for ~15 minutes - you’ll likely have your own version of a Tuck Up).
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In many ways, yes. Autistic women often do mask more consistently and convincingly than autistic men. Women (and other marginalised genders) face higher social consequences for non-conformity, which tends to result in them developing more comprehensive masking strategies.
Women are typically socialised from early childhood to be agreeable, compliant and relationally attuned. This enhances the pressure to notice, interpret and meet other people’s expectations, leading to thorough masking.
Well developed masking capacity tends to lead to misdiagnosis, as well as late or missed identification of being autistic. While many autistic women may appear to mask ‘better,’ this is not necessarily to their advantage. By masking so consistently and competently, autistic women work harder to survive in systems they may not understand and in environments that aren’t helpful for them. Unchecked and unmoderated, this harder work commonly results in autistic burnout. -
This depends on what you’re unmasking and how.
If you’re unmasking in meaningful ways, with support and in safe contexts, you can expect to feel:more energetic
a relaxing of your body (your shoulders may drop, you may be breathing more deeply, your jaw may be more relaxed)
clearer thinking (your mind won’t be as noisy from rehearsing, self-monitoring or self-correcting)
able to engage in your areas of interest without guilt, reservation or self-criticism
present in conversations and needing less time to recover after socialising
a better sense of when you’re hungry, thirsty, hot, cold, uncomfortable or tired.
If you’re not alexithymic, you might be aware of feelings of joy, emotional relief and contentment. If unmasking is new to you, you may also notice feeling tentative.
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If you’re finding you can’t mask as well as you did prior to realising you’re autistic, you’re not alone. This is a common, albeit sometimes disconcerting, lived experience for autistic women.
Here are a few key reasons why you may not be able to mask as well now, knowing you’re autistic:
Recognition of being autistic can often coincide with us being in autistic burnout. During periods of autistic burnout, we don’t have the energy or capacity to mask as well as we probably did before.
Awareness in this context tends to interrupt the habit of masking. Once we understand our neurotype, learn about masking and become familiar with the ways we may mask, masking becomes harder to do subconsciously. Being in ways that may have felt like you were on autopilot may now feel noticeably more effortful and artificial.
It’s common for autistic females to desire authenticity when realising their neurotype. This naturally leads to less tolerance of or desire to push through (aka ‘mask’)… and thank goodness for this!
I’ve heard many women describe their inability to mask as well after realising they were autistic as a failure. Darling heart, if this is you: masking less well is a sign of healing. It means you’re becoming more in tune with what you need, desire and prefer. Of course it feels uncomfortable in the beginning - it’s new! Being you is not a failure. It’s your birthright.
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Though not extensively studied, there is evidence that masking can emerge as early as preschool (ages 3-5 years). At this age, autistic girls may try to imitate peers’ play styles and social behaviours, such as facial expressions.
Masking is often then consolidated during the primary school years, when autistic girls will observe and copy social scripts from real life, media or books. At this time autistic girls may also start to suppress stimming, learn ‘rules’ for fitting in, force themselves to manage eye contact, internalise normative social cues, and camouflage difficulties with friends and sensory regulation. Autistic meltdowns or shutdowns at home may become more visible. As will exhaustion and signs of anxiety.
Masking intensifies throughout adolescence, often due to increased social expectations, role variety and task demands. Many masking autistic teenagers and adults will experience identity confusion, autistic burnout or mental health challenges.
