Let's be clear: You are not a fraud. You are a brilliant, self-taught anthropologist, and you are exhausted from a lifetime of fieldwork in a foreign culture.
The scene: A party. You're leaning against a wall, appearing relaxed. But you are not relaxed. You are working. Your eyes are scanning, collecting data on social cues, conversational rhythms, and group dynamics. Your brain is running a dozen predictive models, calculating the optimal moment to deploy a practiced, casual-sounding question. When you laugh at a joke, it is perfectly timed — not because you found it funny, but because your analysis of the room's emotional state indicated that a laugh was the correct response. You are a ghost in the machine, a brilliant chameleon, performing "normal" so flawlessly that no one can see the massive, whirring supercomputer behind your eyes that is making it all happen.
And here's the part that should make you furious: people keep complimenting you on the performance. "You're so easy to talk to." "You're such a great listener." What they don't know is that you're not listening — you're computing. And the processor is overheating.
The Full-Time Data Analysis Job You're Working for Free
What you call "acting normal" is actually a series of high-level cognitive tasks running in parallel, 24/7. Research has identified this as a three-stage process: Motivations (to fit in, to connect), Techniques (masking and compensation), and Consequences (exhaustion, anxiety, and a threatened sense of self-perception). You are constantly engaged in:
Rapid Social-Data Analysis: Scanning dozens of micro-expressions, tones, and body language cues to find a pattern. This is real-time signal processing at a level most people never have to consciously execute.
Predictive Modeling: Running complex simulations to guess the "correct" response based on past observations. Every social interaction is a branching decision tree you're navigating in real time.
Manual Code-Switching: Translating your authentic, non-linear thoughts into a palatable, linear narrative that won't be perceived as "weird." Your natural communication style works fine — just not here.
This is not a social skill. It is a full-time, high-demand data analysis job that you are performing for free. And the research confirms the cost: masking is a primary risk factor for a wide range of mental health issues in autistic people. Not a minor contributing factor. A primary risk factor. Your exhaustion is not a personal weakness. It is a predictable occupational hazard of the unpaid job you've been working your entire life.
Your Exhaustion Has a Name
The act of masking causes exhaustion, burnout, and a loss of personal identity. Your weariness is not a mystery. It is a documented, researched, and named phenomenon.
And it gets worse: emotional masking leads to affective dissonance and identity fragmentation. That feeling of not knowing who you really are? That terrifying sense that if you peeled off all the masks, there might be nothing underneath? That's not existential crisis. That's a predictable neurological consequence of running camouflage protocols for decades. Your sense of self got buried alive under the performance — but it's still in there.
A Survival Strategy, Not a Personality Flaw
You were forced to become this brilliant anthropologist because the "native culture" of the neurotypical world is often profoundly intolerant of difference. You were not taught to mask; you learned it as a necessary survival strategy in an environment that punishes neurological authenticity. Research on autistic women confirms: they develop immense resilience and a host of "social compensation" strategies that are ultimately a draining and harmful "survival thing."
And here's the part nobody says: autistic women camouflage more for "conventional" reasons — work, school, professional settings — than autistic men. If you're a woman who's always been praised as "so professional" or "so put together," that praise may be the sound of your survival strategy being mistaken for a personality.
"You don't need to be 'fixed.' You need a place to finally take off your field gear, put down your notes, and rest among fellow explorers who already speak your native language."
You believe your masks are a sign of your inauthenticity and that your "real" self is fundamentally unlikable. This is a lie. Your masks are a testament to your resilience, your intelligence, and your profound ability to learn. They are the brilliant, detailed field notes of your anthropological study.
But the study is over. The dissertation is written. You do not have to live in the field forever. The work of neurodivergent-affirming therapy is not about teaching you to be a better anthropologist. It is about finally coming home.
You are not broken; you have just been living in a foreign land your entire life. It is time to find your people, to speak your native tongue, and to experience the profound relief of being understood without having to perform. Read about the crushing labor of masking, learn about the impostor fear, or when you're ready: Come home →
Part of: Neurodiversity Hub → | Related: The Sensory Hangover · The Guide to Masking · The Impostor Fear
