ADHD Masking:
What It Is,
What It Looks Like,
& What It Costs
Have you found yourself spending more time on work tasks than your peers do, because it just takes that long to get everything perfect – and you just cannot seem to stop proofreading everything 100 times? This is a common example of ADHD masking.
Do you find that you internally burn out your social battery way earlier than your friends or your partner, and yet you power through, only to collapse once you’re home? You guessed it: this is ADHD masking, too.
Everyone thinks you’re fine, doing well at work or school, yet inside you are running on empty, overcompensating to appear focused, organized, and dependable.
ADHD masking is hiding or managing neurodivergent traits so you come across as “normal” in the room. For folks just discovering their neurodivergent tendencies, learning about masking can truly be a light bulb moment, putting a label on a process they’ve struggled with for years.
What is ADHD Masking?
ADHD masking is overcompensating to cover up neurodivergent characteristics to appear “normal” (read: “fine”) on the outside. There are two types of masking: camouflage and compensation. Camouflage is making sure you blend in and seem OK to avoid the social consequences of being seen having neurodivergent challenges that neurotypical people don’t, such as wandering attention or difficulty with time management. Compensation is the set of strategies used to get needs met under the duress of daily life without accommodations, often presenting as overfunctioning.
Masking is something we all do sometimes: whether we’re neurodivergent or not, we all overcompensate in some ways to avoid drawing negative attention to certain difficulties we’ve had or mistakes we’ve made. The difference with ADHD masking is that it is automatic and never turns off. It feels like we can’t stop doing it or everything will fall apart.
Masking Examples:
What Masking Looks Like In Action
Ramon is a straight-A college student, though he seems to be five to ten minutes late to things no matter what he does. He sets his clock early to try to force himself to leave on time, but then he knows that it’s set early and waits to leave later anyway. When he meets his friends, he is always the first person to joke about how he’ll be late to his own wedding one day, trying to preemptively make fun of himself so others won’t give him a hard time. It seems like he’s always in a hurry, and needs a deadline in order to get anything done, even if he nearly misses it. But he never completely misses it, and always gets good grades. At the same time that he is rushing to finish work, he’s madly checking and re-checking it to make sure it’s perfect, so no one can accuse him of slacking and putting things off until the last minute. During school vacations, at home he plays Nintendo Switch nearly nonstop, sometimes forgetting to eat.
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Anastasia learned at a young age that people began to act bored when she would talk to them at length about her favorite topic as a middle school student: Welsh Corgis. She used to recite statistics about when they became popular via social media, talk about local breeders that use ethical practices, and share their common personality characteristics and medical issues. As she got older, she began keeping her deep dives to herself, instead opting to stay quieter in groups to avoid turning people off with her niche interests, which came one after the other. In her teens, she went on to learn everything she possibly could about tennis; in her 20s, it was medieval architecture. She dropped her earlier interests as new ones emerged. She also learned to cope with social situations feeling overwhelming by mimicking the characteristics of whoever she was talking to, consciously smiling when they would smile, laughing at the same rate as the other person, and waiting for people to look away as a sign that it was OK to break eye contact. Often, though, she walks around in public with noise canceling headphones, with the noise canceling function turned off.
Masking in
ADHD vs. Autism vs. AuDHD
Masking has a lot of overlap across the neurodivergent spectrum, though there are differences between masking in folks with ADHD, autism, and AudHD (the acronym for those who have both ADHD and autism).
In ADHD, masking often involves overcompensating to keep up good performance, at work or socially, due to challenges with concentration and time management. Perfectionism can mask how hard it is to complete tasks, and people-pleasing can mask anxiety stemming from a tendency to space out and miss things in social situations.
In autism, masking tends to happen when folks are experiencing sensory overload or social differences. People with autism may consciously hold eye contact or mimic facial expressions, scripting beforehand what they’ve objectively assessed to be the proper things to say in a particular situation. They may feel they have no choice but to “white knuckle” through situations to not appear rude, even though the movie they’re watching has been too loud for at least an hour, the sound of crinkling candy wrappers is grating on them, the smell of spilled soda on the theatre floor is making them feel sick, and they’ve wanted to leave since they got there.
With AuDHD, the masking goes in both directions: covering up autistic tendencies (like becoming easily overstimulated and connecting socially via infodumping), as well as ADHD tendencies (like forgetfulness and disorganization). With both sets of vulnerabilities, folks with AuDHD can crash unpredictably under this heavy load.
Why Women & High Achievers Often Mask the Longest
Women often have the “inattentive type” of ADHD. Usually when we think of ADHD, it’s the “hyperactive” type (there is also a “mixed type”). The stereotype of the “hyperactive” type of ADHD is usually an elementary school-aged boy being disruptive, maybe something like the Mike Myers’ character on SNL in the 90s who is so hyperactive he’s chained to the jungle gym wearing a helmet for his own safety. Women, and those with the “inattentive type,” tend to fly under the radar, as they may just present as quiet and sweet when they are spacing out, but this is just how society likes its girls to be.
High achievers tend to work super hard to compensate for lost focus or time blindness. Their hyperfocus can earn them praise for excelling, even if they are holding on by the skin of their teeth. Since performing well comes with rewards, it’s self-perpetuating, even if the crunch gets harder every time. The last thing they want to do is have people notice their capacity has diminished.
ADHD & Perfectionism
It may be a new concept to consider perfectionism as masking. It’s common for neurotypical folks to want to hide flaws or weaknesses in order to be more easily accepted. It makes total sense to want to excel at tasks and feel a sense of accomplishment. But for those with ADHD, perfectionistic tendencies can become endless and significantly impact their quality of life.
Neurodivergent folks may consider themselves as having their sensory and processing differences a “hidden disability,” and many develop habits early on to appear flawless so no one will look closer and see how different their experience of the world actually is. Sacrificing being understood for belonging is tough compromise.
Many folks with ADHD become high achieving, which can be self-perpetuating since it is so rewarding. The unfortunately long-term effects of perfectionism in neurodivergent folks include burnout, collapse, meltdown, and feeling like you don’t know who you are anymore.
Signs of Masking (In ADHD & Autism)
The Cost of Masking:
Burnout,
Late Diagnosis,
& Losing Track of Yourself
The destigmatization of mental health diagnoses and better education around them in recent years have led to late diagnosed ADHD, autism, and AuDHD. Many neurodivergent folks mask so well when they are young that they managed to keep it hidden until burnout hits.
Young folks have more energy to burn, of course, and even if it’s a stretch, they can more easily keep up with the intense mental demands of having to work twice as hard to exist in a neurotypical world without accommodations. There may come a time, however, when work and family responsibilities build beyond their capacity. Aging is no picnic for anyone, and, when it hits, neurodivergent burnout can hit hard.
Many folks come to identify their neurodivergence through self-diagnosis after learning about neurodivergent traits that present more subtly than the common stereotypes, which can result in feeling betrayed by the medical establishment for not having identified this sooner and provided proper supports.
With autism, burnout (exhaustion of internal resources) sometimes appears as a “meltdown” or “shutdown,” characterized by a temporary emotional outburst or withdrawal (sometimes rendering one nonverbal) due to sensory overwhelm. Burnout for those with ADHD/AuDHD can appear as the inability to make even simple choices and feeling like you never have energy no matter how much you rest or take time off, swinging between hyperfocused productivity and isolated shutdown.
This can be very destabilizing, especially if your identity is tied to being high achieving, and you may wonder if you even know who you are anymore.
How Therapy Helps You Take the Mask Off (Slowly)
The idea of neurodivergent masking fits well in the IFS framework: the mask is simply a part, a protector trying to stave off pain and keep you safe. It can take time to get to know this part and gain its trust, especially when masking is a habit ingrained in you throughout most of your life. There may be environmental supports that are needed in order for it to step back. We are also not trying to get rid of masking – there are legitimately some situations in which it’s appropriate and necessary for it to be present. The world is not set up to make things easy for neurodivergent folks. What we want to get to in therapy is a greater sense of agency over when masking steps in, rather than it always happening automatically.
When your system trusts you (and me), some ways we might get to know the mask are zooming in on the moments that it steps in. Some people may experience this as an increased sense of distance from themselves (perhaps on the dissociative spectrum), a physical tightening in “powering through”, a sense of rushing (sometimes accompanied by breathlessness), a numbness in the body and increased awareness of oneself from the neck up. Everyone experiences it differently, and it’s our job to get to know how it shows up for you, both physically and imaginatively.
Once we take a look at this, then we can begin to attend to the vulnerability that lies beneath, which sometimes holds wounds from having your neurodivergent traits rejected, both by oneself and others. It is also important to begin to build supports into your life that work with rather than against your unique presentation of neurodivergent differences. However, it can be challenging to know how to do this before digging into the ways that masking has been holding things together this whole time.
Frequently Asked Questions About ADHD Masking
Is masking only an autism thing?
Nope! Folks with ADHD and AuDHD also mask, as do neurotypical people. We all like to do things well and look good to other people. However, masking in neurodivergent populations can be never ending and automatic, diminishing their quality of life over time. Autistic folks’ masking tends to revolve around increased sensory sensitivities and social interactions, to avoid being seen as weird or cold. ADHD folks’ masking tends to be more around performance, and not wanting to be seen as irresponsible or neglectful. Of course, these aren’t hard and fast rules and there’s a lot of overlap.
Can you mask ADHD without knowing it?
100%! Often people do not know they have been masking until they hear about the concept from friends or in the media. Only then does something click, and there can be a sense of relief.
Masking often starts at a young age as a response to awkwardness around peers or as a way to keep from being punished. It can often be confused with hard work, which is seen as such a virtue in our culture. This can push it underground.
Many folks who discover they’ve been masking connect it with imposter syndrome, which makes total sense. Of course you feel like an imposter if you’ve been unconsciously hiding your neurodivergence for years.
Is masking the same as being fake?
No! Masking is a way neurodivergent folks have learned to cope with the strain of living in a world designed for neurotypical people.
It’s tough, because if you have the sense that you aren’t acting like your true self, you are correct – however, attributing this to being “fake” sounds like deliberate manipulation, which masking is not. Neurodivergent people are fed messages, both implicit and explicit, about their spaciness, disorganization, sensory sensitivities, and social differences being unacceptable. It makes sense to keep this hidden through masking. If you had learned any other way of moving through the world that worked as well, you wouldn’t be masking. It’s our job in therapy to open up that possibility.
Do I need a diagnosis to work on masking in therapy?
No! Masking is something we can focus on regardless of diagnosis.
Getting expensive neuropsychiatric testing to confirm an autism or ADHD diagnosis can be useful if you need accommodations at work or school. However, my professional opinion is that it is not necessary for less extreme cases, which is most people.
