masking

Masking is the practice of hiding your true feelings, traits, or experiences behind a socially acceptable performance. In mental health and neurodiversity circles, it often refers to the effort of autistic people, highly sensitive people, and trauma survivors to appear "normal" by suppressing natural responses, mimicking others, and carefully managing facial expressions and tone.

Masking can be a protective strategy—sometimes necessary in unsafe environments—but it comes at a cost: exhaustion, anxiety, a blurred sense of identity, and the loneliness of never being fully seen. Healing involves recognizing when masking is needed and when it isn't, building relationships and spaces where the mask can come off, and slowly reclaiming the parts of self that once had to stay hidden.