Inverting Autistic Masking
Finding Authenticity in Anonymity
I am most myself when I am alone and unseen. The day’s mask comes off to rest, to recharge, to be free of performance.
Masking has become my tool to reach freedom in public. A reversal that only makes sense to someone who has never trusted their unfiltered self to be welcome.
For the neurodivergent, it often feels as if others simply are, while you are left wondering how. They move through the world with an ease you study and mimic. You craft a version of yourself that passes, not flawless, but close enough to go undetected.
A pseudonym gave me authenticity without exposure. I traded the mask of performance for one of personal freedom. Behind another name, I could speak without a lifetime of self-critique weighing on my words. The tension in my shoulders eased, self-censorship released its grip. Writing became the first place I felt less like an impostor in my own skin.
Where some use handles to escape accountability, mine became a way to step closer to who I really am.
I shaped a reputation under the pressure of expectation, convinced my undiagnosed autistic mind had found success. I tried, with craft and care, to be a mortise and tenon, the join that disappears, the structure unseen until it breaks. For years, I believed that was enough.
But it wasn’t sustainable. The effort of being everyone else’s ideal eroded my sense of self, until silence felt safer than speech. You can’t say the wrong thing if you say nothing at all. Withdrawal became my tactic, retreating to the sidelines, hiding from both society and myself. Convinced that survival required shifting into neutral, I lost all momentum to avoid crunching the gears.
Authentic writing began as a purge after burnout and breakdown. Words poured out from behind my public façade. Vulnerability felt stripped of shame and self-indulgence, because those qualities need an identity to take hold. It was like diving into the sea, uncovering a hidden world beneath the reflective surface.
Behind the pseudonym, I could admit things I’d hidden even from myself. The fears, the contradictions, the unflattering truths. I could write the things that would have stuck in my throat if tied to my legal name. I began to notice how the page let me speak with more honesty than conversation ever had.
It feels like carrying two identities: one silenced, the other free to fail without consequence and speak without restraint. One of me is cautious, still scanning for signs of danger. The other is reckless in the best way, unafraid to say what being me feels like.
If this journey leads nowhere, it proves the original mask was required. But if it makes a difference to others feeling seen, then I’ve introduced a self who can live in superposition, two lives in the same space, only one ever visible.
