The Cost of Masking: How Hiding Your ADHD or Autism Affects Mental Health

If you’ve ever forced yourself to act “like a normal person” all day – smiling, making eye contact, trying to push through overstimulation or suppress your natural behaviors – you already know how exhausting masking ADHD or autism can be. Many neurodivergent millennials end their day completely drained, wondering why they feel so depleted after a regular day. That’s because masking isn’t neutral. It’s labor. It’s survival. It’s a coping mechanism that once helped you find safety, but comes with long-term costs to your mental health.

What Does Masking Your Neurodivergence Look Like?

Masking is when autistic or ADHD folks hide, change, or suppress their natural behaviors to fit into neurotypical environments. 

You might:

• Rehearse conversations before speaking
• Hide stimming behaviors (like tapping, rocking, or fidgeting)
• Force yourself to sit still even when your body needs movement
• Pretend to understand social cues or jokes you actually don’t
• Push through sensory overwhelm with a smile

In other words: you’re working overtime to make yourself appear “less ADHD” or “less autistic.”

The Difference Between Neurodivergent Masking and Code Switching

Autism or ADHD masking can look and feel a lot like code switching. Both involve changing how you present yourself depending on context. Both also stem from an instinct to avoid punishment, discrimination, or rejection. Each often starts in childhood as a way to try to “copy” others’ behaviors or language in order to fit in. Sometimes these coping mechanisms are a result of not really understanding social cues, and sometimes they’re just a matter of trying to fit in. Either way, survival and the desire for safety are typically at the root of both. Some people use the terms interchangeably, but I see a couple of key differences between the two.

Code Switching

Code switching is more specific to changing the way you communicate with others in order to be seen as more professional. You might try to change your tone of voice, or shift the language you use. Its ties to professionalism means it occurs a lot in work environments, especially those dominated by neurotypical, heterosexual, white-collar folks. It’s often exhausting, but can be a conscious strategy to succeed in academic and professional settings.

Examples:

• Speaking more formally in a work meeting or attempting to use a more impressive range of vocabulary
• Making yourself speak more slowly
• Using language you think other people will understand
• Matching others’ facial expressions or tone
• Trying to curb the use of filler words (“um,” “like”) in order to sound smarter or more put together, even if they’re part of your natural speech patterns.
• Using a different register, such as speaking in a higher or lower tone of voice, depending on context

Masking

Masking is a term that refers to watering down or suppressing traits, behaviors, and characteristics that are part of who you are. While this can of course include changing your language, masking is typically broader in scope and often shows up in social settings. It’s often unconscious and ingrained, and tends to create identity confusion, loneliness, burnout, and anxiety.

Examples:

• Forcing eye contact even though it’s uncomfortable
• Hiding stimming or fidgeting
• Forcing yourself to attend social events that feel overstimulating and exhausting
• Holding back from interrupting when excited
• Keeping your passions and hyperfocus topics to yourself 
• Rehearsing what you’ll say so you don’t sound “weird”

The Hidden Costs of Autism and ADHD Masking

While masking usually helps you feel safer because you’re more likely to fit into a neurotypical world, the toll builds over time. It can lead to things like:

• Emotional exhaustion. Wearing a disguise all day every day leaves you depleted. Neurodivergent burnout is often tied to years of chronic masking.
  
  
• Anxiety. Living on high alert and always worrying people will judge or abandon you if you slip up.
  
  
• Depression. Wondering if anyone even knows or would accept an authentic version of yourself.
  
  
• Identity confusion. After years of masking, it’s common to be unable to really understand who you are, what you value, and what you want in your own life.
• Shame. Masking reinforces the idea that who you are at your core is unacceptable.

Masking, Burnout, and Mental Health

Research shows that masking neurodivergent traits increases risks of anxiety, depression, and even suicidality. Many of my clients talk about completely crashing after social events or work obligations. Others share that they feel numb or disconnected from themselves and others after years of masking.

When every environment expects you to camouflage yourself, you lose access to your innate sense of self. Over time, that leads to neurodivergent burnout: a state of complete depletion that can take months or years to recover from.

What Unmasking Can Look Like

Unmasking ADHD or autism doesn’t mean throwing away every strategy or forcing yourself to be 100% authentic everywhere. If you could just make yourself take off the mask without any consequences, then duh, you would have by now.

Small ways to unmask might include:

• Letting yourself stim in safe spaces
• Saying, “I need a break” and then taking one instead of pushing through sensory overload
• Sharing your needs and struggles with trusted people
• Wearing headphones in public
• Noticing when exhaustion or overwhelm hits during social functions, and leaving early
• Letting yourself off the hook for not doing things that feel uncomfortable, like making eye contact with everyone you meet
• Not making your home or car perfectly clean before anyone else comes over

How Do I Start Unmasking Safely? 

Not every environment will accept unmasking. Many workplaces and families remain hostile to neurodivergence. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed if you still mask. It means you’re keeping yourself safe.

The goal is to build pockets of safety within relationships you trust. Masking is by default a relational behavior, which means it’s healed inside relationships. Think about strengthening your friendships with people who accept your quirks, getting more involved with online or in-person communities where your natural behaviors are celebrated and shared, and getting support where you don’t have to pretend. 

How Therapy Can Help with Masking and Mental Health

Therapy can be a place where you finally drop the mask. Together we can:

• Process shame tied to masking
• Explore who you are outside survival mode
• Build nervous system safety so unmasking feels less overwhelming
• Learn tools to recover from burnout and prevent future crashes

If you’re curious about working with a therapist who specializes in neurodivergence, I’m here to help. Book a free consultation with me to learn more and see if we’re a good fit.

Whether you want support in your journey or not, masking ADHD or autism isn’t a sign you’re broken. It’s a sign you’ve been surviving. But surviving doesn’t have to be the whole story. You deserve spaces where you can rest, unmask, and feel fully seen.