What is the definition of masking?
Masking isn’t merely hiding differences but actively performing neurotypical behaviour whilst monitoring and suppressing authentic responses — a process that’s cognitively exhausting, emotionally damaging, and contributes to late diagnosis, identity confusion, and eventual burnout.
Masking describes the conscious or unconscious suppression of natural neurodivergent behaviours, communication styles, and responses to appear neurotypical — a survival strategy that enables social acceptance whilst depleting cognitive and emotional resources through sustained effort.
Frequently asked questions about the term masking
At what age do neurodivergent people start masking?
Masking often begins in early childhood, sometimes as young as preschool age, when neurodivergent children first encounter negative social consequences for authentic behaviour. A child might naturally stim for regulation but notice peers staring or adults correcting them, learning to suppress the behaviour in public. School intensifies masking pressure — neurodivergent children quickly learn that displaying difference invites bullying, teacher frustration, or social exclusion, developing masking strategies for survival. Many neurodivergent adults report that masking began so early they cannot remember not masking, making it nearly impossible to identify which behaviours are authentic versus learned performance. The early onset of masking means many neurodivergent people spend their entire conscious lives performing neurotypical behaviour, contributing to profound identity confusion when they eventually recognise the mask exists. Early masking also delays diagnosis — children masking effectively appear neurotypical to parents and teachers, preventing recognition of support needs until masking capacity fails, often in adolescence or adulthood when demands exceed compensation capacity.
Can masking cause long-term psychological damage?
Yes. Sustained masking creates multiple forms of psychological harm. Chronic suppression of authentic self whilst performing neurotypical behaviour contributes to anxiety, depression, and identity confusion. The hypervigilance required for constant masking — monitoring behaviour, suppressing natural responses, tracking others’ reactions — creates sustained stress response with associated health impacts. Many masked neurodivergent people describe dissociation from internal experience, difficulty identifying emotions, and disconnection from authentic preferences after years of prioritising neurotypical performance over genuine feelings. Additionally, masking prevents authentic connection — relationships built whilst masked feel hollow because the other person knows only the performance, not authentic self. The isolation of never being fully known or accepted authentically whilst surrounded by people who accept only your mask creates profound loneliness. Long-term masking frequently culminates in autistic burnout, a state of severe exhaustion and reduced functioning that can persist for months or years, requiring extensive recovery time.
Is masking more common in certain neurodivergent conditions?
Masking is most extensively documented in autistic populations, particularly autistic women and girls, though it occurs across neurodivergent conditions. ADHD people mask by suppressing hyperactivity, hiding inattention, and performing organisation they don’t naturally possess. Dyslexic people mask literacy challenges through avoidance strategies and overcompensation in other areas. The specific behaviours masked vary by condition, but the fundamental process — suppressing natural neurodivergent traits whilst performing neurotypical behaviour to avoid negative consequences — operates similarly. Autistic masking may be most recognised because autistic traits often provoke stronger social responses than other neurodivergent traits, creating more intense pressure to hide difference. Additionally, autistic researchers and advocates have extensively documented masking from lived experience, creating language and frameworks that other neurodivergent communities now apply to their experiences. Cross-condition masking deserves more research attention, as current understanding centres primarily autistic experience.
How can I tell if I'm masking or just being polite?
Politeness involves minor behavioural adjustments that don’t require sustained effort or suppression of authentic self — saying “please,” moderating volume, not interrupting. These adjustments operate relatively automatically and don’t create exhaustion. Masking involves sustained, effortful suppression of natural responses that feel necessary for your regulation or expression — stopping yourself from stimming despite needing the sensory input, forcing eye contact despite discomfort, manufacturing interest in conversations you find boring, suppressing excitement about special interests. Key indicators you’re masking include: exhaustion after social interaction requiring extended recovery time, difficulty identifying which behaviours feel authentic versus performed, sense of wearing a costume or playing a character in social situations, relief when alone because you can “finally be yourself,” skill regression or increased neurodivergent traits when stressed or ill, and disconnect between how others perceive you (competent, social) and how you feel internally (exhausted, different, struggling). If socialising feels like sustained performance rather than relatively natural interaction, you’re likely masking rather than merely being polite.
Should I encourage my neurodivergent child to mask for their own protection?
This question reflects genuine parental concern about children’s safety and success in neurotypical-dominated environments, but teaching masking creates significant long-term harm. Masking contributes to identity confusion, mental health challenges, and eventual burnout. Children who mask extensively often experience delayed diagnosis because they appear to function well, leaving them without understanding of why they struggle or access to support. Additionally, relationships built whilst masked prevent authentic connection — your child never experiences being fully known and accepted for who they are. Instead of teaching masking, advocate for environments accepting authentic neurodivergent expression. This includes educating teachers about neurodivergence, building communities where difference is valued, explicitly teaching your child that their neurodivergent traits are acceptable, and modelling unmasked neurodivergent expression if you’re neurodivergent yourself. Acknowledge that some degree of code-switching may be necessary for safety in hostile environments whilst ensuring your child has spaces where unmasking is safe, supported, and celebrated.
Can therapy help with unmasking?
Therapy can support unmasking when the therapist understands masking as a survival strategy rather than a pathology requiring elimination. Helpful therapy explores which behaviours feel authentic versus learned performance, validates the exhaustion and identity confusion masking creates, and supports grief for years spent suppressing authentic self. Therapy can provide safe space to experiment with unmasked expression, develop language for communicating needs without masking, and process trauma resulting from environments that punished authentic neurodivergent expression. However, therapy focused on “improving social skills” or “appropriate behaviour” may reinforce masking rather than supporting unmasking, teaching more sophisticated camouflaging without addressing why masking became necessary. Effective therapy for masking requires neurodiversity-affirming approach recognising that masking is response to hostile environments rather than deficit requiring correction. Ideally, therapists should be neurodivergent themselves or extensively trained in neurodiversity paradigm, understanding masking from lived experience or deep engagement with neurodivergent perspectives.
Is it possible to unmask completely in neurotypical-dominated environments?
Complete unmasking may be impossible or inadvisable in societies structured around neurotypical norms, particularly for neurodivergent people in precarious positions — those without financial security, stable housing, supportive relationships, or other forms of security enabling risk-taking. Unmasking carries material consequences in employment, education, healthcare, and social contexts where displaying neurodivergent traits invites discrimination, infantilisation, or loss of autonomy. Many neurodivergent people develop selective unmasking strategies — masking in high-stakes professional contexts whilst unmasking in safe environments like the home or a neurodivergent community. This pragmatic approach reduces cognitive load compared to constant masking whilst acknowledging that full authenticity isn’t safe in all contexts. Selective unmasking represents harm reduction rather than ideal solution — the goal shouldn’t be teaching neurodivergent people to unmask better but creating environments where unmasking doesn’t carry punishment. Until systemic change makes authentic neurodivergent expression safe, strategic masking remains a rational survival choice rather than a personal failing.
Why do I mask more around certain people or in specific situations?
Masking intensity fluctuates based on perceived safety, stakes, and relationship context. You likely mask most intensely in high-stakes situations where consequences for displaying neurodivergent traits are material — job interviews, professional settings, interactions with authority figures, first encounters with potential friends or partners. You mask more around people who’ve demonstrated discomfort with neurodivergent traits or where you’ve learned that authentic expression invites negative consequences. Conversely, masking decreases in contexts you’ve assessed as safe — around accepting friends, family members who embrace your neurodivergence, neurodivergent community spaces, or when alone. This variable masking represents sophisticated risk assessment rather than inconsistency — you’re allocating limited cognitive resources strategically, masking where necessary for survival whilst unmasking where safe to reduce exhaustion. The fact that you can unmask around certain people doesn’t invalidate the reality that masking is necessary and exhausting in other contexts. Variable masking demonstrates you’re making rational choices about where to deploy limited capacity for neurotypical performance.
What's in this glossary entry
Masking, defined
Masking, also called camouflaging or compensating, describes the process by which neurodivergent people suppress, hide, or modify their natural behaviours, communication styles, and responses to appear more neurotypical. The term emerged from autistic communities describing lived experiences of performing neurotypical behaviour whilst monitoring and controlling authentic impulses that would reveal difference. Masking operates on a spectrum from conscious, deliberate effort to deeply ingrained, automatic behaviour learned through years of social conditioning — many neurodivergent people mask so extensively and automatically that they struggle to identify what constitutes their authentic self versus their masked performance.
Masking encompasses multiple simultaneous processes. Suppression involves inhibiting natural neurodivergent behaviours — stopping yourself from stimming, forcing eye contact despite discomfort, restraining special interest discussion, suppressing sensory reactions. Compensation involves developing alternative strategies to achieve social goals — scripting conversations in advance, mimicking observed social behaviours without understanding their purpose, using cognitive analysis to decode social situations that neurotypical people navigate intuitively. Performance involves actively presenting neurotypical behaviour — forcing facial expressions that don’t match internal emotions, manufacturing small talk, pretending interest in conversations you find boring, laughing at jokes you don’t understand to signal social engagement.
The motivations driving masking are complex and often unconscious. Social survival represents the most immediate motivation — neurodivergent people learn early that displaying difference invites bullying, exclusion, correction, and punishment. Masking becomes protective strategy enabling social acceptance, educational success, employment opportunities, and safety. Many neurodivergent people don’t consciously choose to mask but develop masking behaviours automatically in response to repeated negative consequences for authentic behaviour. The pressure to mask intensifies for marginalised neurodivergent people — women and girls, people of colour, LGBTQ+ individuals — who face compounded expectations for social conformity and higher costs for visible difference.
Research demonstrates that masking is particularly common in autistic women and girls, contributing to diagnostic gender disparities. Autistic girls often mask more extensively than autistic boys, developing sophisticated social camouflaging strategies that hide autistic traits from observers including parents and clinicians. This masking delays or prevents diagnosis, leaving autistic women and girls without understanding of why socialising feels exhausting, why they feel fundamentally different from peers, or why standard advice never works for them. The cost of successful masking is invisibility — if you mask effectively enough to avoid diagnosis and appear neurotypical, you also mask your struggles and support needs.
The cognitive and emotional toll of sustained masking is severe. Masking requires constant executive function — monitoring your behaviour, suppressing natural responses, consciously producing neurotypical performance, tracking multiple social demands simultaneously. This depletes cognitive resources that could be used for actual tasks, leaving neurodivergent people exhausted from social interaction that neurotypical people find energising or neutral. Emotional costs include identity confusion (not knowing which behaviours are authentic versus performance), disconnection from internal experience (suppressing natural responses creates dissociation from genuine feelings), and chronic stress from sustained hypervigilance about how others perceive you.
Long-term masking contributes to autistic burnout and worse ADHD symptoms — a state of profound exhaustion, skill regression, and reduced capacity resulting from prolonged overextension without adequate recovery. Burnout doesn’t result from laziness or poor stress management but from years of depleting cognitive and emotional resources through sustained masking combined with navigating neurotypical-dominated environments without accommodation. Many neurodivergent people describe burnout as the point where masking capacity collapses — they can no longer maintain the performance, authentic behaviours emerge regardless of consequences, and functionality decreases dramatically as compensation strategies fail.
Understanding masking reframes behaviours that appear like social competence or mild quirkiness as effortful performance concealing significant struggle. The neurodivergent person who seems socially successful at work might be spending every evening in silent recovery, depleted from maintaining their mask all day. The child who behaves appropriately at school but has meltdowns at home isn’t being manipulative — they’re holding in natural responses at school (where social consequences are high) then releasing accumulated stress in the only safe environment available. Recognising masking as survival strategy rather than deception or choice is essential for understanding the full cost of navigating neurotypical-designed environments whilst neurodivergent.
How to use masking in a sentence?
“After years of masking my autistic traits to fit in at work, I finally recognised that my chronic exhaustion and loss of identity weren’t personal failings but the inevitable result of suppressing my authentic self for eight hours daily to meet neurotypical social expectations.”
The key concepts in masking
The cognitive cost of split attention and dual processing
Masking requires maintaining split attention between authentic internal experience and performed external behaviour — essentially running two parallel processes simultaneously. You must track your natural impulses, suppress those deemed socially unacceptable, consciously generate neurotypical alternatives, monitor whether your performance reads as convincing, adjust based on others’ reactions, whilst also attempting to focus on whatever the actual task or conversation requires. This dual processing depletes executive function dramatically. Neurotypical social interaction operates largely automatically — their authentic responses align closely enough with social expectations that they don’t require constant monitoring and adjustment. For neurodivergent people masking, nothing operates automatically. Every social interaction becomes a high-cognitive-load performance requiring sustained executive function that would exhaust anyone if maintained continuously. The exhaustion neurodivergent people describe after social interaction isn’t introversion or social anxiety — it’s genuine cognitive depletion from sustained dual processing that neurotypical people never experience at comparable intensity or duration.
Learned masking versus conscious compensation
Masking exists on a spectrum from deeply learned, automatic behaviour to conscious, deliberate compensation strategies. Early-learned masking often becomes so ingrained that the person cannot identify where authentic behaviour ends and masked performance begins — they’ve been suppressing natural responses and performing neurotypical behaviour since early childhood, making the mask feel like their only self. This creates profound identity confusion, particularly common in late-diagnosed neurodivergent people who spent decades masking without recognising they were masking. Conscious compensation describes deliberately developed strategies to navigate social situations — scripting conversations, memorising social rules, using cognitive analysis to decode unwritten expectations. Conscious compensation can be controlled and deployed strategically, whilst automatic masking operates continuously regardless of conscious intention. Understanding this distinction matters because unlearning deeply ingrained masking requires recognising behaviours you’ve performed automatically for years, which is significantly harder than simply choosing to stop conscious compensation strategies.
Masking as survival strategy in hostile environments
Masking doesn’t emerge from vanity or desire to deceive but from genuine threat assessment in environments that punish neurodivergent difference. Children learn to mask after experiencing bullying, social exclusion, or punishment for authentic behaviour — the masking develops as protective strategy ensuring survival in hostile social environments. Adults continue masking because unmasking risks employment discrimination, social ostracism, infantilisation, or loss of autonomy. For multiply marginalised neurodivergent people — people of colour, LGBTQ+ individuals, women — masking pressure intensifies because visible difference carries compounded risks. The decision to mask or unmask isn’t simply personal preference but risk calculation in environments where difference has material consequences. Understanding masking as survival strategy rather than deception or cowardice recognises that neurodivergent people mask because neurotypical-dominated environments force this choice — perform neurotypicality or face consequences. Blaming neurodivergent people for masking whilst maintaining environments that punish unmasked neurodivergence is victim-blaming that ignores systemic pressure creating masking necessity.
The gender dimension of masking and diagnostic disparity
Autistic girls and women mask significantly more than autistic boys and men, contributing to diagnostic gender disparities where girls are diagnosed later or not at all despite being equally autistic. Multiple factors drive this disparity. Social expectations pressure girls toward social conformity more intensely than boys — girls who violate social norms face harsher consequences, creating stronger motivation to mask. Girls’ play often involves social imitation and role-playing, providing practice developing masking skills that boys’ play doesn’t emphasise equally. Diagnostic criteria were developed primarily by studying autistic boys, meaning female autism presentations that differ from male patterns aren’t recognised as autism. Autistic girls often develop sophisticated camouflaging strategies — forcing eye contact, mimicking peers’ social behaviour, suppressing stimming in public — that hide autistic traits from observers including parents and clinicians. The result is autistic women and girls spending years or decades undiagnosed, struggling without understanding why socialising exhausts them or why they feel fundamentally different from peers, whilst successfully masking prevents recognition of their support needs.
Unmasking, identity reconstruction, and the authenticity dilemma
Unmasking — the process of reducing or eliminating masking behaviours to express authentic neurodivergent traits — presents complex challenges beyond simply “being yourself.” After years of suppressing natural responses, many neurodivergent people don’t know what their authentic self looks like — the mask has become so ingrained that removing it reveals confusion about which behaviours are genuine versus performance. Unmasking requires active reconstruction of identity, exploring what feels authentic versus what was learned for social survival. Additionally, unmasking carries risks — displaying neurodivergent traits openly invites discrimination, infantilisation, and loss of opportunities that masking provided access to. Many neurodivergent people describe oscillating between masking in professional contexts (where consequences are material) whilst unmasking in safe environments (home, neurodivergent community). This selective unmasking represents pragmatic navigation of hostile environments rather than full authenticity, but reduces cognitive load compared to constant masking. Complete unmasking may be impossible or inadvisable in societies structured around neurotypical norms, creating ongoing tension between authenticity and survival.
Key figures and publications on masking
Laura Hull’s research on autistic masking and camouflaging — Hull, an autistic researcher, has conducted extensive research documenting the phenomenon of masking in autistic people, particularly women and girls. Her work demonstrates that masking is pervasive in autistic populations, creates significant mental health costs including anxiety and depression, and contributes to diagnostic delays particularly for women. Hull’s research validates lived experiences of exhaustion and identity confusion resulting from sustained masking, providing empirical evidence that masking isn’t benign social skill but costly survival strategy with measurable negative impacts. Her work emphasises that masking is response to hostile environments rather than an inherent autistic trait, challenging approaches that teach camouflaging skills without addressing systemic barriers forcing masking necessity.
Kieran Rose’s writings on autistic masking and identity — Rose, an autistic activist and writer, has extensively documented the experience of masking from insider perspective, describing how sustained masking creates identity confusion, contributes to burnout, and prevents authentic connection. Rose’s work emphasises that masking isn’t conscious deception but learned survival strategy often operating automatically. His writing explores the complex process of unmasking — recognising which behaviours are authentic versus learned performance, grieving years spent suppressing authentic self, and navigating risks of displaying neurodivergent traits openly. Rose’s advocacy challenges the expectation that autistic people should mask to make neurotypical people comfortable, arguing instead for environments that accommodate authentic neurodivergent expression.
Devon Price’s “Unmasking Autism” — Price, an autistic psychologist and author, provides comprehensive examination of masking across autistic experience, exploring how masking develops, its costs, and pathways toward unmasking. The book documents how autistic people learn to mask through social conditioning, how masking particularly affects marginalised autistic people, and how sustained masking contributes to burnout and mental health challenges. Price emphasises that unmasking isn’t simply individual choice but requires systemic change creating environments where autistic people can exist authentically without punishment. The work provides both personal narrative and research-based analysis, making masking accessible to broad audiences whilst centring autistic perspectives.
The Neurodiversity Directory’s guide to disclosure decisions — the Directory’s analysis of workplace disclosure positions masking as central to the strategic question of whether and when to disclose neurodivergence at work. The guide argues that masking is itself a sustained cost — using regulatory capacity that workers would otherwise have available for substantive work — and that one of the underestimated costs of not disclosing is the depletion produced by sustained workplace masking. The guide treats disclosure as a strategic decision in which the costs of continued masking are weighed against the risks of disclosure, reframing the conventional “is it safe to disclose” framing as the wrong question. The companion analysis of reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 extends this by identifying the specific workplace modifications that reduce the masking demand, arguing that the framework’s value is partly measured in how much sustained masking the resulting adjustments actually eliminate.
Common misconceptions about masking
Is masking the same as good manners or social skills?
No. Good manners involve learned social conventions that everyone performs to some degree — saying “please” and “thank you,” not interrupting, moderating volume in shared spaces. These social skills operate relatively automatically for neurotypical people and don’t require sustained cognitive effort. Masking involves constant, exhausting suppression of natural neurodivergent responses whilst consciously performing neurotypical behaviour that doesn’t align with authentic experience. The difference is cognitive cost and authenticity. Neurotypical people performing good manners aren’t suppressing their authentic selves — their natural responses already align closely enough with social expectations that “manners” feel like minor adjustments. Neurodivergent people masking are suppressing behaviours that feel natural and necessary (stimming for regulation, avoiding eye contact for comfort, pursuing special interest discussion) whilst forcing behaviours that feel deeply unnatural (manufactured facial expressions, small talk, pretending interest in boring conversations). Masking isn’t politeness — it’s survival strategy requiring cognitive resources that deplete capacity for everything else.
Can't neurodivergent people just stop masking if it's so exhausting?
Unmasking isn’t as simple as deciding to stop — masking often operates automatically after years of conditioning, making it difficult to identify which behaviours are authentic versus learned performance. Additionally, unmasking carries real risks in environments that punish neurodivergent difference. Displaying autistic traits openly invites discrimination in employment, infantilisation from others, social exclusion, and potential loss of autonomy or opportunities. Many neurodivergent people correctly assess that unmasking would create material consequences they cannot afford — job loss, damaged relationships, reduced independence. The “just stop masking” advice ignores that masking developed as rational response to hostile environments that haven’t changed. Blaming neurodivergent people for masking whilst maintaining systems that punish unmasked neurodivergence is victim-blaming. The solution isn’t individual choice to unmask despite consequences — it’s creating environments where neurodivergent people can exist authentically without facing punishment for difference.
Is masking proof that someone's not "really" neurodivergent?
This misconception dangerously suggests that successful masking indicates mild or questionable neurodivergence, when actually extensive masking often indicates significant neurodivergent traits that require substantial effort to hide. The ability to mask doesn’t mean the underlying neurodivergence is minor — it means the person developed sophisticated compensation strategies, usually at significant cost. Many late-diagnosed neurodivergent people spent decades masking so effectively that even they didn’t recognise their neurodivergence, but the cognitive and emotional toll remained severe. Additionally, masking capacity isn’t stable — people who mask successfully in structured environments often experience complete mask failure during stress, illness, or burnout. The appearance of neurotypical function through masking provides no information about the effort required to maintain that appearance or the person’s capacity when masking fails. Using masking ability to question diagnosis validity penalises neurodivergent people for developing survival strategies, essentially arguing they can’t be disabled because they successfully hide their disability at great personal cost.
Don't all people mask to some degree in professional settings?
Everyone modulates behaviour based on social context — you probably act differently with your boss than with close friends. However, neurotypical code-switching between contexts involves minor behavioural adjustments whilst maintaining authentic personality and responses. The cognitive load is minimal because their natural behaviours already align closely with professional expectations. Neurodivergent masking involves fundamental suppression of natural responses and conscious performance of neurotypical behaviour that feels deeply unnatural — suppressing stimming that provides regulation, forcing eye contact that causes discomfort, manufacturing facial expressions that don’t match emotions, engaging in small talk that feels meaningless. The cognitive load is substantial and sustained. Additionally, neurotypical people can “be themselves” in personal contexts without exhaustion, whilst neurodivergent people often need extended recovery time after sustained masking before authentic responses even become accessible. The “everyone masks sometimes” claim minimises the distinct, exhausting experience of neurodivergent masking by conflating minor behavioural adjustments with profound suppression of authentic self.
Is unmasking just an excuse to be rude or inappropriate?
Unmasking doesn’t mean abandoning all social awareness or behaving without consideration for others — it means allowing authentic neurodivergent traits and communication styles rather than forcing neurotypical performance. Autistic directness isn’t rudeness but different communication style valuing clarity over social niceties. Stimming isn’t inappropriate behaviour but necessary regulation strategy. Not making eye contact isn’t disrespectful but accommodation of genuine discomfort. Special interest discussion isn’t conversational monopolising but authentic enthusiasm others are free to redirect. The framing of unmasked neurodivergent behaviour as “rude” or “inappropriate” reveals assumptions that neurotypical social conventions are universally correct standards everyone must follow. Unmasking challenges this hierarchy, proposing that neurodivergent communication and behaviour are equally valid rather than inherently lesser or immature. Additionally, many neurodivergent people unmasking still maintain consideration for others’ needs — they’re not abandoning social awareness but refusing to suppress authentic selves to perform neurotypical expectations that serve no functional purpose beyond enforcing conformity.
Related terms and concepts
Autism: masking is particularly prevalent in autistic populations primarily (and ADHD, secondarily), with especially autistic women and girls who often mask more extensively than autistic boys and men. Understanding autistic experience requires recognising that many autistic people spend significant energy suppressing natural autistic traits — stimming, special interest focus, direct communication, sensory responses — to appear neurotypical. The exhaustion autistic people describe from social interaction largely stems from masking demands rather than socialisation itself.
Burnout: autistic burnout frequently results from sustained masking — years of suppressing authentic responses whilst performing neurotypical behaviour depletes cognitive and emotional resources until capacity collapses. Burnout manifests as profound exhaustion, skill regression, increased sensory sensitivity, and reduced ability to mask. Understanding burnout requires recognising that masking isn’t sustainable indefinitely and that collapse is physiological consequence of prolonged overextension, not personal failing.
Identity: sustained masking creates identity confusion — after years of suppressing natural responses, many neurodivergent people struggle to identify which behaviours are authentic versus learned performance. The mask becomes so ingrained that removing it reveals uncertainty about who you are beneath the performance. Unmasking often requires active reconstruction of identity, exploring what feels genuine versus what was learned for survival.
Camouflaging: is synonymous with masking, describing the same process of hiding neurodivergent traits to appear neurotypical. Some research literature uses “camouflaging” whilst community discourse often uses “masking.” Both terms describe the cognitive and emotional labour of suppressing authentic neurodivergent expression whilst performing neurotypical behaviour to avoid negative social consequences.
Late diagnosis: extensive masking contributes significantly to late diagnosis — neurodivergent people who mask effectively appear neurotypical to observers, delaying or preventing recognition of support needs. Many late-diagnosed autistic adults, particularly women, masked so successfully throughout childhood that neither they nor clinicians recognised their autism. Late diagnosis often triggers recognition that years of exhaustion and difference stemmed from unrecognised neurodivergence hidden by effective masking.
