The eyes (don't) have it

In her post on masking and what we do and don't know from research, Dr Laura Hull mentions eye contact (or perceived eye contact) as one of the many ways that Autistic people mask. For many not looking someone in the eyes is seen as disrespectful or to mean you're hiding something.

To many neurodivergents, like myself, looking someone directly in the eyes is a special kind of torture. I have two settings when talking to someone one on one - looking you in the eyes or pretending to look into your eyes. Neither is good for me and both result in a huge energy drain.

If I'm really looking you in the eyes, my brain is screaming, begging me to end the pain. Every time I do it, it feels like it's the most awkward, intimate experience I've had in my entire life. Every single time. It doesn't matter if I'm buying a pack of mints or discussing something life changing, it's the same Groundhog Day of awkward, draining emotions for me.

Looking someone in the eyes takes a tremendous amount of my energy. As does pretending to look in your eyes, where I'm actually focusing on your mouth or ears or nose. If I'm really looking you in the eyes, it's unlikely I've processed a word you're saying. In my brain when this happens it's like the writers of South Park were given the task of creating Inside Out 3. Internally I'm screaming "someone start the fecking clock" and "how many seconds of this shit is enough to seem like I'm one of them?".

I say all this, not to extend into my world of masking (that'll arrive in the coming weeks), but to get the ball rolling on this series on masking that'll run over the course of the next month or so, telling the stories of others and what masking has meant to them.

Some of those people will write anonymously and the reasons for that will be self evident on reading each of those articles. All are individual stories of how masking has affected an individual's life for positive and negative reasons.

This week we're beginning with one of the world's leading academics on the topic of masking - Dr Laura Hull – whose article looks at what we know (and don't know) from research on the topic. It's a vitally important read to get a base level of where we are and I felt it important to lay the context before we begin telling individual stories of masking.

We also have two other writers tell their stories this week starting with regular The Moment writer, Rebecca Dempsey whose article not only discusses masking but the need from society to accept those of us who are neurodivergent as we are, "along with patience, kindness and mutual respect". Rebecca points out that we can’t unmask in a world that doesn’t understand us.

Our second writer is a young refugee who left his home country due to war and dealt with arriving in a new city, unable to speak the language and living with ADHD at the same time with some teachers thinking the young person was being "disruptive" in class.

I hope that over the coming weeks those of you who are neurodivergent and reading this will take comfort in hearing the stories of others. For those of you who are neurotypical, I urge to read every story, to understand what it's like to put a mask on. I know... you're potentially shouting at the screen, we all put a mask on sometimes. That may be partially true, but if you read Dr Laura Hull's article, you'll get an answer to that.

There's no one mask fits all in the neurodivergent world, but hopefully these stories will build a picture of what life is like for the many of us whose exhaustion levels are at a steady DEFCON 1 because of masking. Settle in and have a read because many people will struggle to unmask until, as Rebecca mentioned, that the world makes the effort to understand us.

Masking: What we know (and don't know) from research, by Dr Laura Hull

"No one believes me", by Rebecca Dempsey

My journey with ADHD and being a young refugee, by anonymous

More stories of masking will run over the month of July. If you're neurodivergent and want to tell your own story of masking here, drop me an email.