> Challenging the idea that you need to mask to be successful... How much of the need here is self-imposed?

Autistic people don't come into the world as fully formed adults with irrational ideas about the need to mask. They start off as children and attempt to socialize with other children. The autistic child in a neurotypical world just "being themselves" finds themselves repeatedly kicked out of friend groups and rejected by everyone sometimes including by their parents. This is deeply traumatic to a young child's psyche. Unloved and rejected, a solution appears! I'll just pretend to be like the other kids, even though they're stupid and wrong. They may actually objectively be stupid, but apparently they don't like being told that to their face. Pile on another decade or two of this, and hey, this child, now older and wiser, has autistic masking tendencies that cause them to burn out. Blame the now-adult person with autism all you want to absolve yourself of a need to concern yourself with other people's problems, but that's not actually helpful for those people suffering from autistic burnout.

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ikerino a day ago | parent [-]

Not the angle I'm coming at it from.

I mask as a coping mechanism for ADHD and Social Anxiety. This masking causes me harm. I learned it in the way you describe.

The most helpful learning I've gotten through years of therapy has been to: (1) recognize what I'm doing (2) not beat myself up about it (3) try small steps to change my behavior so that I can feel good about it.

I'm the only person who can unlearn this for myself. I don't blame anyone who masks, and have nothing but empathy for the experience, but I'm proposing they can find a different way.

	▲	fragmede 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		We'd need to have a rigorous definition on what it means to mask, and to agree on which behaviors should be considered masking, and which are simply being socialized, and what's necessary to exist in a society and what's not, before we could have a detailed productive conversation. Therapy absolutely helps. Unlearning maladaptive behaviors rooted in childhood trauma is part of being a well-adjusted adult. It takes energy to not do every impulsive thing that comes to mind. Fine, don't call it masking to not give into them. Whatever you want to call it though, it's exhausting. What's the different way?