I have always been neurodivergent, so naturally it’s had a big influence on my life. However, something I’ve learnt through self reflection recently is how masking as a child has very much informed my life as an adult.
For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of masking, it’s a term used to describe neurodivergent people who try to hide their differences, so they appear “normal” during social interactions (click here for my previous blog post on masking). Often we do this as a form of survival and to prevent discrimination. Although in the short term it can help us get through social situations, it’s often intense, and exhausting, leading to burn out and distress. Although I’ve been aware of the mental health impact masking has had on my life for a while now, more recently, I’ve realised how it has affected some of the biggest decisions I’ve made as an adult. Let me explain.
I masked for the majority of my childhood, to the point where most of my younger years weren’t my own, as they were taken by neuronormative expectations. I spent so much time trying to fit in to avoid bullying, meaning that I was constantly in fight, flight or freeze when I was around my peers. I didn’t have the freedom to express myself during the time I should’ve been discovering who I am as a person.
That meant once I was an actual adult, and I finally had some autonomy over my life (which I was desperately craving) I needed to take time for myself. Granted a lot of this was my alone time as I was still heavily masking in public. It gave me space to breathe, as I needed to recover from my own childhood. However, it would still be several years before I understood why I was feeling this way and finally discovering my AuDHD (co-occurring autism and ADHD together).
The time I needed out for myself and recover from being in a hostile neuronormative environment meant that I couldn’t explore as many opportunities as my peers during my early adult years. Some of those experiences wouldn’t be accessible to me because of my neurodivergence, or I didn’t have a desire to participate in. But there were certainly times where I’ve missed out or had restricted options because of this. Partly because of burnout, but also because of trauma.
Also, the impact of masking so extensively at a young age has (and still does) very much influence the decisions I have made as an adult (not to mention the distress I still have from these experiences years ago). Down to where I live, my personal living situation and my decision to remain child free. I cannot ethically bring a child into this world and have them go through the same school system as I did, when very little has actually changed during my lifetime. I wouldn’t be able to home-school either as I need to work full-time. Also as I’m living a lot of life now, that I would have done 10-15 years ago if I grew up in a more accepting environment. I didn’t have those truly care free years before making a commitment such as raising a child like some people my age are now doing. However, this decision isn’t only due to my trauma that comes from masking my neurodivergence, a lot of it is also to do with wider issues in the UK right now (but that’s a conversation for another time).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m fairly content with my life at the moment, and it’s not a bad thing that the decisions I’ve made that led me to this point were because of trauma. However it’s important to acknowledge how trauma that stems from masking as a child still influences my life.
I hope by sharing this, it helps to improve understanding of the longer term impacts of masking can have (that I haven’t seen talked about too much before). And that masking as a child, can have a significant knock-on effect well into our adult years.
If you enjoyed this post and like to support my writing, I would be forever grateful if you could buy me a coffee (or tea in my case) on Ko-fi.
You can also support the blog by purchasing my book ‘Young Autistic and ADHD: Moving into adulthood when you’re multiply neurodivergent’.
