Time for a MASKquerade

Welcome back to the Audacious Aspie! This week we will look at technique called many things: masking, passing or camouflaging. No, it has nothing to do with wearing proper camouflage for a war game, or with setting up a cat fishing account on Tinder or Facebook. Rather, it’s what people with Autism/Aspergers do when we are trying to pass as normal or socially acceptable. Kind of like what we wish Donald Trump would try to do.

 

For this segment, please welcome our next guest, Healthwatch Bristol! Those of us with the condition (Specialisternes alternate term for Autism/Aspergers, rather than disabled), Bristol notes, can act differently from those who do not have the condition, and therefore presumed strange. Because of these things, those with the condition (must be my favorite word of the week, condition. As I use it no less than 4 times in one paragbraph) can then be bullied and/or harassed, as people are known to act, will, “unpleasantly” (Paragraph 1) to other poeple, whom they do not understand. All of these things the author of the article has learnt from his/her friends: Sherlock Holmes and Captain P. Obvious.

 

This is Captain P. Obvious’s ship. It has his name on both sides of the boat, in case you mistake it someone else's boat the first time around. His favorite phrase when talking to someone in his boat? “This is my ship”.

 

What might this look like? Will, let's look at an employment scenario: Someone with Autism has a job where they have to interact with the general public, like a cashier. Their job is to smile, and be friendly, so that the customer feels welcomed and, as the companies will never ever tire of telling us, “valued”. The whole time they are on the job, from start to finish, hour one to quittin time. Or imagine a social situation, like meeting a group of friends. Where we, again, smile and be friendly (albeit this time much more genuine). Maintaining such an effort to seem outgoing, especially over a number of days, can be taxing, to differing degrees (less so, obviously, amongst friends and family),

 

Now, everyone knows, we all put on masks. We put on masks to greet those we don’t like in public, or whom we are forced to work with. We’ve, in the past, put on masks to people in authority, like teachers or our parents, to try and hide the fact that we stole little Suzies cookie (and another one to hide the fact that poor Suzies getting a wet head after ratting on us). Masking is something that crosses the neuro divide, those with and without Autism/Aspergers. But, the article claims (in my experience, correctly), masking is harder for those with Autism/Aspergers, especially when maintained for long periods of time.

 

Think of it as 2 seperate lawns. Both have to cut their grass, but while one lawn is on soil that is not any more or less rich in minerals as the next one, the other one is on rich, black soil. Sprinkled with minerals. On top of an old compost heap. That guy's lawn mower is working over time.

 

This is known as “Social Burnout” (Paragraph 3), when a person becomes physically drained, and suffering from anxiety and depression. Other wise known as “planning a huge social event”-syndrome. Will, this does it for this week's post. Next week we will finish looking at this specific article, then move on to another article talking about the same topic. But until then, this continues to be, the Audacious Aspie.                    

 

Sources used:

https://healthwatchbristol.co.uk/blog/what-is-autistic-masking/