By Brett – The AudHD Boss
Helping neurodivergent professionals thrive in the corporate workplace.
What happens when you spend a lifetime performing a version of yourself to feel safe? And what does it mean to finally let that mask go?
In this deeply personal and thought-provoking conversation, I sat down again with Dr. Megan Anna Neff (she/they) — psychologist, author, and founder of Neurodivergent Insights — to explore the complex and often misunderstood reality of autistic masking and the journey of unmasking.
Here are some of the biggest insights from our conversation:
🔹 1. Masking Starts Early — And Often Unconsciously
“That’s where all of that is. That’s autism behind that door.”
Many of us begin masking in childhood — not as a strategy we choose, but as a survival mechanism our nervous system adopts. As Dr. Neff shared, early experiences of being punished or corrected for autistic traits teach us to blend in, suppress, or edit ourselves before we even understand why.
🔹 2. Masking Is Both Protective and Costly
“There are real privileges in being able to mask — and real dangers for those who can’t.”
We unpacked how intersectionality impacts masking, particularly for Black and Brown autistic individuals. While masking may provide access to jobs, safety, and social inclusion, it also comes at a cost: exhaustion, identity confusion, and long-term mental health challenges.
🔹 3. The Language of Masking Can Be Life-Changing
“I used to think I was just manipulative. Now I know it was masking.”
Getting language for experiences we never had words for — like camouflaging or mimicking — can be profound. We discussed the idea of hermeneutical injustice, and how naming something as “masking” can validate years of misunderstood pain, self-doubt, and internalized shame.
🔹 4. Masking Often Intersects with OCD, Anxiety, and Burnout
“I smiled so hard it hurt.”
When we add OCD or high anxiety to the masking experience, the result can be devastating. We talked about the emotional toll of constant performativity, hypervigilance, and the desperate need to be seen as “good,” even when we’re suffering inside.
🔹 5. Unmasking Is Identity Work
“Throwing out lacy underwear was the start of my unmasking.”
Unmasking often begins with small acts of reclaiming comfort, preference, and authenticity. For Dr. Neff, it started with clothing. For me, it was coming out in my thirties. These moments open doors to broader identity work — from gender exploration to redefining relationships.
🔹 6. We Can’t (and Shouldn’t) Unmask All at Once
“Unmask slowly. See who’s safe. That’s okay.”
There’s often pressure to “fully” unmask, especially in intimate relationships — but nuance matters. Masking isn’t inherently bad; sometimes it’s protective. Sometimes it’s strategic. We discussed how relational context plays a huge role in how and where we choose to unmask.
🔹 7. Unmasking Is Best Done in Community
“Identity work was never meant to be done alone.”
Perhaps the most important takeaway: we need each other. Whether it’s sharing stories, finding safe spaces, or letting someone else see the real you — community is essential to healing, identity discovery, and long-term thriving.
🎧 Listen or Watch the Full Conversation
- 📺 Watch on YouTube
- 🎧 Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts
- 🔗 Learn more about Dr. Neff: neurodivergentinsights.com
**📚 Links Mentioned:** – Order Dr. Neff’s **Autistic Burnout Workbook**
Dr. Neff’s Website: https://neurodivergentinsights.com
Order Dr. Neff’s Self Care for Autistic People:
https://neurodivergentinsights.substack.com @divergentconversations
🌐 More resources (including a transcript of this video):
Below is an AI generated transcript of our conversation:
Brett (00:00):
Understanding that I was masking and understanding just the concept of masking and that I was unconsciously masking was such a big aha moment that as I pulled on that thread, I was able to go, oh my God, that’s autism behind that door. That’s where all of that is. So to me, what I think I’m still so fascinated by is how we can, at such an early age, how do we find our way into doing that so quickly.
Megan Anna Neff (00:28):
Such a good question First, also just the way something hit me about the way you talked about masking just now of can we have more conversations about that, the felt experience of masking and the impact on our psychology, on our identity? I hear it in how you even ask that question. It’s so often the conversation becomes is masking good or bad? How do you unmask? It’s very pragmatic, but can we just sit with, oh my gosh, what is it like to have this thing that we do are much of our life and not have a name for it? I’ll post it, bookmark it over here for that to answer the question, this is where I really love the work of Amy Pearson and Kieran Rose, who really shifted the conversation around autistic camouflaging from this early research, which was done by holistic non-autistic people, was like, it is a kind of social strategy autistic people use to blend in.
(01:26):
And that’s where Amy Pearson and Kieran Rose were like, no, actually this is a survival tactic and it’s a trauma response. It often happens really early. It often happens unconsciously, not for everyone. For some people it will be a more conscious thing that comes online later. And then of course for some people it never is something they do. But I think especially for those of us who perhaps have a lot of sensitivity and maybe even rejection sensitivity and who pick up cues around us quite sensitively, we’re going to notice those shifts. If a parent is harsh with us or if it’s, hey, make eye contact and if we are punished for our autistic traits, the brain is really good at learning and by learning, I mean it pays attention to things that are reinforcing and rewarding and it does more of those
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Things.
Megan Anna Neff (02:22):
And so at a very young age, especially depending on how we are parented around our autistic traits, we might have learned, this is how I stay safe is by doing these things, by not wiggling when I want to, by forcing myself to do eye contact. And then it just becomes baked into our psyche and we assume, I don’t know about for you, but for me, I just assumed everyone was doing this. Is that your assumption too?
Brett (02:49):
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I can distinctly remember hiding special interests or self-soothing techniques if I was interrupted, if I was alone as a child, I could remember that feeling of the tension in my body and locking up and locking something away. Not having the language for it at the time, of course, but I can distinctly remember that and think about that now and just sort of how important it was to keep those things safe from others.
Megan Anna Neff (03:22):
Locking your joy away.
Brett (03:24):
Yeah. Yeah, really that’s what it is.
Megan Anna Neff (03:27):
And think about what that does for a person.
Brett (03:28):
Yeah. And then you just assume everyone else is doing that too. You talk about in the book that double-edged sword of it is a protective strategy that we’ve adapt to for many of us. Definitely. There’s safety. There’s also, there’s a lot of privilege within that. Can you talk through that complexity?
Megan Anna Neff (03:50):
We just need so many more nuanced conversations. It’s interesting. I actually made an infographic on this when I wrote a couple years ago when I was working on the digital workbook on masking, I had infographics and one was privileges or benefits of masking and one was cost of masking. Oh my goodness. The responses to my benefits of masking. I just got kind of pulled through the mud on that one, but it also made something very clear to me that made me very, very sad. The people who were critiquing it were all white,
(04:25):
And it was just so clear how non intersectional the autistic spaces in the sense of if you do not realize there’s safety in masking, there’s privilege in masking. I had a lot of feelings and sadness about it, not just because those were hard comments to receive, but it was a really awakening moment to me of, and I hear this from my friends and colleagues all the time who are black and brown in the autistic space around this is a really hard space to be in. And to me this is kind of a prime example of that, of how if you are not able to recognize the privilege of masking, then there’s a lot of learning that you still have to do both around folks who have higher support needs than you, but also especially around racialized autistic people and their experiences. So many privileges, safety, having a meltdown in public, especially if you’re black or brown, can be lethal. And we need to be able to talk honestly about that as a community
(05:29):
And access to education, access to jobs, access to social networks that can help you professionally. That is a huge privilege. I am not going to have eyes perceiving me and looking at me and judging me when I’m in public that that’s a huge sensory experience to be perceived, especially in a hard moment or especially in what we might experience as our awkwardness that can be very anxiety inducing. So it’s also an emotional management system. Is it more costly to mask or is it more costly to handle the distress of people seeing me in a way and then having negative reactions toward me? So there’s so many privileges that come with masking and that has to be part of the conversation. And yes, it’s a trauma response and a survival response. So it’s so complex and then the cost is very real. So something I often say, and I don’t know, I’ll decide if I like saying it this way, I might soften this phrase, but something I’ve said in trainings before is those of us with low support needs tend to have very high mental health support needs. So those of us who are autistic navigating neurotypical systems and spaces, substance use, depression, anxiety, suicidality, the mental health picture of this group is just so complex and burnout, right? Because it makes sense. If we are navigating these systems, we’re probably holding ourselves to neurotypical standards because we’re masking and then we’re less likely to have supports because we’re masking and we’re less likely to be identified. So there is very real cost of masking and there’s very real privileges, and as a community, we’ve got to be able to hold the tension of that.
Brett (07:21):
You do a great job writing in the book about the relationship between code switching and masking.
Megan Anna Neff (07:28):
When I’ve had the privilege of hearing folks who both code switch and mask let me into their minds and talk me through it, I’m just like, that sounds so exhausting. Masking is exhausting to me. And can you imagine running another system underneath that around code switching, just cognitively hypervigilance how that would live in the body? That is such a huge labor and burden that so many live with.
Brett (07:58):
It took me a really long time to understand what masking was and then going through identity work and then having a lot of ableism wrapped up into that. One of the things you write about that, I can’t remember exactly the way you put it, but there was this beautiful part in your essay about there’s that moment where something kind of breaks through, that there’s something that sort of challenges every day for you that you sort of suddenly see yourself.
Megan Anna Neff (08:23):
Well, I’ll say for me, the moment I realized I was autistic and it was fast, it was like my kid and I started talking about it as an option for her. We did a ton of research on autism and girls, and a week later I remember sitting across from my spouse and being like, I’m autistic and I feel at peace in my body for the first time ever because I’d done so much research in that week and looked through. It was cool. I had a lot of psych data that I could pull through as I was anyways, besides the point, it was a click into alignment moment
Speaker 3 (09:00):
For me
Megan Anna Neff (09:01):
Of until that point, and I was in depth therapy trying to sort out is this repressed trauma? What is this? Why can’t I get into my life in a way that I want to? Why do I have such an alien relationship to my body and to desire and to pleasure, and it just clicked and all of a sudden a thousand questions were answered. It might not be quite that profound for everyone. It might be a more gradual process, but there is something about that breakthrough moment. And then we have language and then we have names for things and it unlocks. So very much.
Brett (09:44):
When I learned the word camouflaging and I sat with mimicking and copying, all of those things were just sort of like, oh my God, yes, that’s a word for that thing that I’ve been doing for years and years and years, and you just feel so seen in so many different ways when you start to put those words to it.
Megan Anna Neff (10:02):
I am a little nervous to reference this. I maybe don’t have it right, but I did a conversation recently with Black spectrum scholar Callie on intersectionality of ableism and racism, and they introduced me to a term I hadn’t heard before, which is hermeneutical injustice. And it’s this idea of when we don’t have, or a group doesn’t have language to describe an experience, and then language will often collectively develop to kind of fill that gap. I want to be careful of what I’d put into that category and not, I don’t know if I’d put masking into that, but I do think the felt experience of there is something that on some level, whether it’s big T or small T, that feels traumatizing in my body and in how I show up that I don’t understand and I don’t have language for. And then when we have access to language for it, it’s just so much. And I’m curious, I am curious how do people describe that experience before they access that language, sat with people for whom before discovering they were autistic. It’s like I’m a deeply manipulative person and manipulate how I show up to try and get people to like
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Me.
Megan Anna Neff (11:18):
And so the narrative of it is like, well, I’m manipulative, so what are the other narratives before we have access to the language of camouflaging and masking? What are the narratives we have around
Brett (11:27):
This? I definitely did have different language beforehand, and definitely I was worried it was manipulative. I definitely had those thoughts and go, oh God, I feel like I’m being manipulative. But then I would tie it back to my intent and say, well, I’m not intending to be, so then I would feel guilt over whether or not I was or wasn’t because again, you then end up on this loop certainly for me of just sort of back and forth with, am I a good person? Am I a bad person, but I’m doing all these things and then you’re off.
Megan Anna Neff (12:00):
Well then throw in the OCD, right? Yeah. So this is what, and I know you follow my substack so that I made a video on this of those, and then the OCD is like, let’s infect this and agreed on this. So masking would be a neurodivergent wounding, which many of us wouldn’t have language for of like, I am performative when I’m with people and I change what my face looks like, or I just stop myself from moving. And then OCD, if we’re lucky enough to get that on top of everything, then is going to have a heyday with that of I’m a bad person. And that would be such a great example of baseline, neurodivergent, wounding and then OCD or anxiety just infecting it.
Brett (12:41):
I used to think a lot about the tension in my face when I would smile because I would have to fake so many hard smiles in so many situations where I knew I was putting on a performance and then just the relief of not the literal second that I didn’t have to perform, that I could turn my face and let the smile drop and I could just feel those muscles relax. I used to think about that all the time before I had language to understand what it was that I was doing.
Megan Anna Neff (13:13):
Oh my gosh, I love hearing this. I love hearing the details. I know for me it was like I have a very professional stance, and I remember it from training. I crossed my legs. I never know what the hell to do with my body, and then I’d always been uncomfortable. So I’d do this, and then I’d be telling myself, okay, nod. And then kind of do the smile thing. And I remember feeling, especially about halfway through a conversation, I’d start feeling sick and I wouldn’t know why, but it was just like, I described it as I think sensory sick, but just the coaching myself of what my body should do and not do, and doing all these things to try to contain it from moving, and then the nodding and the enthusiasm and the performing interest on my face. I don’t miss that.
Brett (14:04):
Yeah, I know. And I would have, I’m sure you did too, a running checklist of things in my head of just like, oh, there’s a conversation point I need to think about, or there’s a thing that I can latch onto. Just all that sort of laundry list of
Megan Anna Neff (14:20):
Things. What would be on your checklist?
Brett (14:25):
Constantly scanning for a piece of conversation that I could actually connect with somebody on listening intently to go, I don’t know what to talk about right now because I’m not a sports person, for example. So listening closely to go, okay, fake your way through this part of the conversation, but the first sign of something you can relate to, latch onto it, hold onto it, pull an anecdote from somewhere in my head and then see if we can participate in some way in this conversation.
Megan Anna Neff (14:54):
I was always on the lookout for shared anchor points if there was anything shared in our history, but also shared ideas. Absolutely. So this actually, this also came up in my conversation with ka, how again, we have to nuance it so much more. Not all masking is bad. That would be, I think a compensation strategy that’s probably actually really supportive of, well, this part of the conversation is harder for me to enter into and access, but if as I’m listening I can find anchor access points where I can feel more comfortable, then that would be an example I think of masking or camouflaging where it’s more cognitive effort to do that, and I think it’s important to honor. Okay, yeah, that’s more cognitive effort, but it’s also probably, I don’t know that we want to unmask that. That’s probably helpful socially
Brett (15:49):
And for career wise too, just thinking from a workplace situation, it’s incredibly useful because again, that’s where I would run into these narratives of am I being manipulative at that time? Because it’s like I can apply those strategies and career situations to either keep a conversation going or to keep people feel highly engaged and it’s very helpful.
Megan Anna Neff (16:14):
Yeah, so that also I think, and this is again, I want to point back to Callie, they were the one that pointed me onto this of especially if we break down masking into compensation, assimilation, masking, some of these are compensation strategies that are helpful for us. And yes, I think we want to honor again, the cognitive load of them, but we don’t want to just blanketly talk about unmasking as if it’s all bad. Some of it’s really intentional, thoughtful, strategic compensation we do that supports us in, I know for me, I feel less anxious if I’ve scripted out some stuff ahead of time or if I can find those anchor points.
Brett (16:54):
Well, and like to, you’ve got a great strategy in the book about having a masking plan when you know need to mask in advance, and maybe you could just walk through a little bit of that, how to prepare and then how to prepare for the day. And then on the day, what we’re doing,
Megan Anna Neff (17:14):
And this goes back to honoring, it’s not as simple as good bad masking of that masking can be protective. So when we’re going into situations where we know, okay, yeah, that’s going to be more protective than not, how do I make a thoughtful plan around that? What’s my before care going to look like? Can I give myself some downtime before? What’s my during care going to look like? Maybe it is thinking through scripts or thinking through kind of rehearsed pieces or identifying, okay, that’s going to be a safe person in that context when I’m overwhelmed or I’m going to step out in this way for five minutes. And then having an aftercare plan as well of, and again, so to do that work, so much of it, we do have to address that ableism of we do have to acknowledge something that maybe I believe should be simple to me, like going to this birthday party or this whatnot is actually really exhausting and I need before care and I need aftercare, and that that’s okay.
Brett (18:10):
Yeah. Yeah. I think about that a lot. Like I’m going to be late to that event no matter what I try, because that’s just a little bit of my baked in before care of just processing out different things like that.
Megan Anna Neff (18:25):
So you’re going to be late because that helps you. Then you’ll be there longer or be there shorter.
Brett (18:34):
I apply what I call the Moyer Rose policy of events from Schitt’s Creek where it’s twice around the room and then out.
Megan Anna Neff (18:44):
I love that you have such good language for that. That’s amazing. So what I was going to say is, and maybe it’s different if it was like I’m just going to make an appearance to check it off the box, that’d be one thing, but my response is to go early. Because if I go, oh, interesting. If I walk into an event and I’m walking into conversations already happening, I’m walking into a sensory overload, my system is really going to struggle. But if I get there early and I can find my ideal seating,
Speaker 3 (19:14):
If
Megan Anna Neff (19:14):
I can be part of the early starts of the early conversations, if I can anchor myself in the context, I can warm up a bit. So my adaptation is to go early. So that was really interesting to me. Your adaptation is to go late.
Brett (19:29):
Yeah. Well, that’s fascinating to me because I am completely with you on the noise and the overwhelm and all the different nuances of that. And at the same time, I want to blend in and I don’t want to be seen, so I kind of want to hide in the fabric of the room to sort of
Megan Anna Neff (19:52):
Avoid
Brett (19:53):
The conversations I don’t want to have. And then, which is
Megan Anna Neff (19:56):
Why you have to get there early to find a corner to hide out with your safe people.
Brett (20:01):
I know, but then I’m worried I have to talk to the first people that come in and I’m like, what if I don’t like those people? What if I don’t want to talk to those people? What if I have nothing to say to them? It just sort of my brain just, I know. I don’t want to put new doubts in your head. No,
Megan Anna Neff (20:16):
Totally. That makes sense. That makes sense. And it probably does depend on the event actually.
Brett (20:20):
Yeah. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Yeah,
Megan Anna Neff (20:22):
Yeah.
Brett (20:23):
It definitely depends on the event. If I have a different role at the event, then I probably don’t have a choice. I want to swing into what I think is probably one of the most important things in the chapter I’m masking. There’s this marriage of finding your way into your identity and finding your way into understanding masking can sometimes block us having our needs met or even having an awareness of what those needs are.
Megan Anna Neff (20:50):
It’s a huge moment, and it does go back to identity work, and it reminds me of even what you were saying earlier about locking away your special interests and locking away your joy is that is essentially what masking does is my pleasure. What brings me pleasure and joy, and even the way I move my body, these things are bad, and for safety, I’m going to cue into what other people around me want, and I’m going to deprioritize my signals and prioritize external signals. So if we think both on an identity level, what that does for a person, but also for being able to know our needs and respond to them and to believe they’re actually valid enough to respond to, oh my goodness, if deprioritizing my needs for others is what’s given me safety, the idea of flipping that can feel really scary and really disarming.
(21:38):
So there is so much self-knowledge work and so much learning of self sometimes at really basic levels of what kind of movement do I enjoy, what does feel good, what kind of clothing feels good? And then as we’ve talked about previously, once you start asking those questions, that can actually unlock a lot of other identity questions. So for me, I sometimes share this, it feels a little embarrassing to share, but I sometimes share, and I didn’t actually have language for unmasking yet, but that when I look back, my unmasking started with throwing away Lacey undergarments because first of all, just why the hell would I own that stuff? It’s so uncomfortable. It was me wanting to perform femininity. And then when I threw that away, I was like, wait, what kind of clothes do I like? And I realized, well, I like things that are soft. I like things that are black and gender neutral, and wait, how do I feel about this whole her thing and being a woman because my mask was very feminine. So then that journey led me to exploring gender in more nuance and my experience of gender. And so, goodness, I’ve deviated from your question a lot, but I think
(22:50):
It goes back to that question of once we start asking those questions, simple questions of what do I like? That can take us on really interesting identity pathways too.
Brett (23:02):
Well, and even within that though, I distinctly remember in my journey on that same path, that unconsciously waiting for someone to give you permission, and there’s a moment where you realize, oh wait, it’s just me. I’m the one who gives me permission for this. I don’t have to wear, I don’t like jeans. I’ve never liked wearing
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Jeans.
Brett (23:25):
So being able to say, okay, I don’t have to do that anymore. If I don’t want to wear jeans, I’m not going to wear jeans anymore. Or just accepting that it’s okay to just give yourself that thing can be quite powerful. And it can be quite emotional.
Megan Anna Neff (23:43):
How did you get free? It’s queering. Oh my goodness, I can give myself permission to not do this thing or not wear these jeans. And this is where I think the neurodiversity space has learned a lot from the queer
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Space of
Megan Anna Neff (23:58):
It’s really been queer people who have taught us how to get free. And then when we adapt that for neurodivergence, I mean, that is querying to be like, wait, yeah, it is okay for me to move and stand and pace and sway and to not wear the jeans and to not wear the lacy underwear, and that’s neuro querying.
Brett (24:20):
Yeah, and I think I haven’t talked a lot about this, but I came out very late for myself. I came out in my early to mid thirties, but I very much can pinpoint that as the beginning of my unmasking process, that when I gave myself permission that it was okay to come out and that I was safe enough to do so. And then as I started to pull on that thread and I got closer to the place where I realized, oh, I’m masking. I’m high masking. I’m going to start to unmask a little bit more and starting to have my needs met and sort of recognizing all the different ways that I was withholding so much of that for myself that it was a floodgate opportunity at that point of things to just start flushing out. And just the more, and that’s a journey. It takes time. It takes a long time to go through that part. Words did for me. I don’t know. I’m sure it’s different for everybody, but
Megan Anna Neff (25:18):
I mean, I think autistic people can sometimes go through it rapid fire, but it is a long journey. And I like to remind people of that, of, Hey, you’ve got time.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
You’ve
Megan Anna Neff (25:26):
Got time. But yeah, once you start querying, it’s like all identities get put back on the table and it can feel overwhelming if it feels like we need to sort this all at once. And so I like what you say of it took time because it’s delicate work and it honors it when we take our time with it. It’s a deeply emotional process, and it’s also a relational process because especially if we’re doing this in our thirties and we’re perhaps already partnered, for example, then how do we bring our partner into those conversations too, in a way that the relationship can metabolize that
Brett (26:05):
I specifically wrote down the phrasing that you used, meaning making process and how you then wrote to the need for identity affirmation and support and community remains universal. And just sort of how we begin on that process, that affirmation is I feel like that affirmation is everything. When I do identity work, when I’ve gone through that identity work, suddenly you kind of go back and forth from that self-acceptance to really wanting to be seen, to being really nervous about being seen, but you’re looking for that affirmation and then you’re really looking for support and community and just sort of that juxtaposition of all of those things and just sort of how it’s, frankly, I don’t know. For me, it was difficult and continues to be difficult to navigate a lot of that.
Megan Anna Neff (26:58):
I mean, I think you just nailed why. I mean, that’s so many complex emotions to hold at once that you just named around because it is a mixed bag of liberation and shame and confusion. And is this really my identity? The impost, also the imposter syndrome ness around the identity that can happen. And this is why I often say and really believe that neurodivergent community is, I think, the most healing work we can do post discovery. And I see this in therapists all the time too. They’re like, well, I’m working one-on-one with all these folks, but I just want them to talk to each other. And that identity work was never meant to be done in isolation. It was meant to be done in community. This whole idea of a buffered self and having an identity that’s located in self, that’s not relational, first of all, it’s a very wide idea,
Speaker 3 (27:53):
But
Megan Anna Neff (27:54):
It’s also a pretty new idea. Identity work was always supposed to be about the community. So there’s the quote from Descartes, which captures Euro Western thought, which is, I think therefore I am. And then there’s this beautiful phrase that I learned when I was living in Malawi, which is, I can’t pronounce it, tu, do you know?
Brett (28:19):
I don’t know.
Megan Anna Neff (28:21):
I think it was the TU people, but I might be mispronouncing that. And I believe the quote is, we are, therefore I am, which is so different than I think, therefore I am. So that was a big pivot. But the point is identity work was always meant to be in community.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Most
Megan Anna Neff (28:42):
Communities have understood this throughout history. White people are terrible at understanding this, but when it comes to neurodivergent identity integration, I think that’s a really important thing to remember is that it’s best done in community.
Brett (28:56):
I think sometimes I get nervous around that because you are letting your mask off, you’re taking your mask off to do some of that work, and you are therefore letting your guard down. And there’s an element of trust. And I think what tends to come up for a lot of folks when I talk about the unmasking process is I think there’s some all or nothing thinking in there that we want to be able to unmask fully with the people in our lives through that identity work. It’s sometimes as hard to accept that that full self can be on display in that process. So sometimes I try to tell people, well, just unmask a little at a time and sort of see where those boundaries are. And you may not be able to fully unmask around everybody. And if that’s what you need in your situation, then that’s okay. In that situation, again, we use that masking for protection.
Megan Anna Neff (29:58):
I first of all, love that thought. Second of all, I know that this can be, this might get some pushback. I know it can be hard to talk about, but the reality is a lot of us do have cognitive and flexibility as autistic people. And so to some degree, and this is a classic way, it could show up of, well, I’m either masked or I’m unmasked,
Speaker 3 (30:20):
And
Megan Anna Neff (30:22):
If my partnership is going to be stable, I have to a hundred percent be unmasked. Or if my partner doesn’t love me completely unmasked. And that’s just, we need so much more space for nuance because that’s, our relationships are really going to struggle if that’s the expectation. And I’m even thinking about relational therapists and how no relational therapist would say, you should say every single thought that ever comes into your mind to your partner.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Yeah,
Megan Anna Neff (30:51):
This is just a human thing. Also to modulate how much of myself do I show in this moment? And that it doesn’t mean we can’t be our authentic self if there’s parts that we keep private
Speaker 3 (31:06):
And
Megan Anna Neff (31:06):
That that’s not a failing. But I think sometimes when it gets wrapped into that, well, for me to unmask would be to tell you, download all of these things that can get us into some tricky waters where we are not thinking about the relational field. We’re just thinking about us and unmasking. But what about, I could go on a huge info dump to my spouse every night, but I also want to think through what’s that impact on that relationship and that dynamic, and how’s his experience of that? When I talk at him for 30 minutes, I can unmask. It doesn’t mean that my partner needs to love every single piece of that. And so maybe I figure out, and this gets back to Esther P’s idea of the whole, we are now placing on especially marriages, this idea that you’re supposed to be my whole village. Yes. Yeah. Can you make a YouTube channel for your special interest dives? Can you find neurodivergent community where you can talk about these things?
Brett (32:02):
I very much appreciate that specific thought of your partner. Can’t be everything just, that’s too much pressure to put on your partner. It’s too much pressure to put on the relationship. And
Megan Anna Neff (32:15):
Wait, we should talk about this. I think autistic people do that. My world is very small, so I actually do put a lot on my partner functionally in regards to how much he holds for me. So that, and I also love the esta perel idea, but then as an autistic person who has a pretty small social network, I do that even
Speaker 3 (32:33):
More.
Megan Anna Neff (32:34):
Oh, that would be an interesting conversation. That idea paired with
Brett (32:38):
Through
Megan Anna Neff (32:39):
A neurodivergent lens.
Brett (32:41):
And when you factor in how we look at pop culture and what the systems of pop culture tell us with what relationships have to be and romanticize those things, we have an early learned experience of, oh, it has to be exactly this.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
And
Brett (32:59):
In my autistic brain, when I thought I was straight, I thought it had to be exactly this, and it took years to work through. No, no, no, no, no. It doesn’t have to be this. It doesn’t have to be exactly in that model and in that way. And that’s okay.
Megan Anna Neff (33:13):
It is interesting. So I was about to be like, wow, we’ve diverged a lot. And then here’s a through line. This is what unmasking is. When you start unmasking, it diverges all over the place because all of a sudden it’s like, oh wait. It’s such a rabbit trail of identity work and so many through lines. So it actually makes, I feel like it’s very meta that we’ve diverged so much in this conversation because that parallels the internal process of unmasking is it takes you in so many different discovery points. So if we can do that with curiosity and compassion, it is a really complex process of diverging all over the place within our internal landscape and also then in our relational landscape.
Brett (33:56):
And it normalizes. It takes the shame away. It takes all of that away. At the same time. If we walk into shame, what’s the best way to meet that
Megan Anna Neff (34:06):
Moment? I mean, I feel like kind of a broken record. I say this word all the time, but curiosity,
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Like,
Megan Anna Neff (34:14):
Okay, what’s coming up around that shame? Why did that just show up? And I think curiosity is such a good diffuser of shame.