4 ms·

> To keep your job and avoid conflict, you must "mask." Masking means hiding your natural habits and feelings, while imitating the social behaviors that coworke

by latexr 1y ago

> To keep your job and avoid conflict, you must "mask." Masking means hiding your natural habits and feelings, while imitating the social behaviors that coworkers expect. Why do both eating a proper breakfast and skipping breakfast affect your masking negatively? No one is around, what difference does it make?

fmbb 1y ago
Also, everyone has to mask at work.
- ActorNightly 1y ago
  If you feel like this, you may be on the spectrum (not an insult btw). Masking for neuro typical people is very easy, even if emotionally draining. My wife is the perfect example - her personality is to be nice to everyone and to connect with people. A lot of times this leads to prolonged conversations with people, which then she complains about, but its basically like saying you are tired after going on a long bike ride - there is some enjoyment in the activity. Whereas for neuro-spicy people, masking is the equivalent of spilling seeds on the floor and having to pick up each one with tweezers to put them back. Its both exhausting and not enjoyable.
  - idiotsecant 1y ago
    Yes, it's performing tasks in software that most people perform in hardware.
  - gffrd 1y ago
    No, parent is right: everybody "masks" at work. Call it putting on a persona, playing a role, whatever - but as you said, it's less effortful for some than others.
    - ActorNightly 1y ago
      I wouldn't even say its less effort. Its a whole different kind of effort. A social neurotypical person willingly engages in interactions and "masks". A person on the spectrum only engages because they have to.
      - SchemaLoad 1y ago
        For me masking at work is more boring than it is effort. Most coworkers i've encountered are so plain that the moment you start discussing something personal that isn't the most sanitised hobby ever they get funny. Tell them you spent the weekend at an illegal rave or getting drunk at a furry convention and they start to freak out. It's no effort to not talk about this but it also means there's basically nothing to discuss.
        acureau 1y ago
        Life's too short for bullshitting. Why not just speak your mind and avoid the people who react that way? I've found that if I sanitize my words I get sanitized responses, and vice versa. Nobody is as boring as they seem.
  - lxgr 1y ago
    Everybody has a social battery, but while some are working with a USB PD 240W monster you can't take on an airplane, others have to get by with an iPhone Air (and they can't disable background refresh).
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      While I understand your point, the air has a very good battery life and beats the 16 and 16 pro. If you recharge at night, that's a lot of socializing.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - Glyptodon 1y ago
    It's true that different people require different amounts of effort to do and approach it with different tactics, but fundamentally almost nobody streams their inner monologue straight out of their lips, and I think when it does happen is actually much more associated with TBI and inhibition disregulation than ASD. (Which is not to say that it doesn't require a different approach or more effort for those with ASD.)
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- ants_everywhere 1y ago
  This is because autistism advocacy groups misuse the word mask. It is supposed to refer to extra work you have to do playing a specific persona. E.g. at a party pretending to be a character from a movie or a book. And especially trying to force yourself to become that persona to fit in. A lot of people in the advocacy space use it to mean basic things like being well behaved or being nice to people. Everybody has to be well-behaved at work. Everybody has to consider the feelings of others etc. The idea of "wearing a mask" in the sense of being polite is older than the notion of masking in autism. For example, P. G. Wodehouse used it a few times in the 1920s to refer to the social expectations made on aristocratic families. E.g. from 1922: > I didn’t like the chap, but we Woosters can wear the mask. I beamed a bit. In this sense everyone masks. In fact they mask almost all the time from the time they get up until maybe the time they go to bad. Masking in autism originally referred to something different that was specific to autism. The way it's used now it essentially just means "it's harder for me to fit in." Which is true but doesn't tell you anything about autism from a psychological point of view beyond the obvious fact that it's harder for us to fit in.
  - xp84 1y ago
    > people in the advocacy space use it to mean basic things like being well behaved or being nice to people Thank you for this comment. As a family member of a young AuDHD person I am continually battered by a combination of their behavior (which directly and un-ignorably degrades the experience of everyone around) and by various 'advocacy' ideas that use phrasing like that to not-so-subtly imply that it's actually our bad for daring to expect to "not be hit," or to not be forced to constantly base our whole lives on one person's preferences, etc. It's tough sometimes to figure out what's real, what's a fair expectation, what's something that can be learned/unlearned, and what's just inevitable.
    - VHRanger 1y ago
      Having had personal experience with this problem, there is actually a simple but difficult solution to your problem: Focus in the effect if the person's action on you, and set hard boundaries for yourself. Note that boundaries are in this specific form: "If you do X in Y situation, I will do Z" The consequence to the instigating person (the Z part) is important. The person you described likely has a deficit in empathy, so feedback on actions has to happen to modify behavior. Note that I'm not saying to hit back. Consequences are generally best when withdrawing something of value than adding something of negative value. For example: "If we're watching a movie and you are physically rowdy, you will have to leave the living room and entertain yourself in your room". Focua on how things affect you, and what actions you can take in response to boundary breaking behavior. Then be ruthlessly firm and consistent about it.
- jlhawn 1y ago
  Yep... If I didn't mask while at work and home, I'd probably be annoying my family and coworkers with state and local land use politics issues all the time.
- ilikecakeandpie 1y ago
  Yeah this is a thing that gets me. Everyone has to mask because otherwise there'd be a more conflict over shit that doesn't matter then there likely already is during meetings and stuff. Some of the messaging too is just... off-putting/patronizing. "Brave the grocery store"? I know social situations can be tough on people but it's not you're being asked to kill the chicken and process it or grow the veggies. Is resiliency so low that it's a battle to go pick up necessities? Maybe I was blessed to grow up in a poor, not exactly stable household at least for a while.
  - gridspy 1y ago
    It's harder than you think. - Go into a bright, commercial space - All the packets are "shouting" at you with colorful labels - There is noise of shoppers, a PA system, canned music and/or advertising - Navigate lots of social interactions with other shoppers around navigating asiles, manouvering carts, who picks what - Manage a shopping list and find a variety of goods - Go to the check-out asile. Hopefully you can avoid interacting with a human - Manage packing bags and paying - Hopefully noone talks to you as you leave
    - esseph 1y ago
      You just described my shopping experiences.
    - encrypted_bird 1y ago
      _Thank_ you. I'm seeing a LOT of people in this thread who do not understand autism at _all_ and yet claim it's really not much different than neurotypical people's experience. "Why should x situation be like y difficulty? I don't understand." "No, you _don't_ understand, because you're not autistic. Which isn't really an insult but it is the case. So why you gotta brush off our struggles like you do get it." Being autistic is exhausting on a _whole different level_. It is NOT comparable to neurotypicals' experiences except superficially.
    - gusgus01 1y ago
      For anyone who feels this way about the grocery store, I'd highly recommend curbside pickup or online ordering. Some stores are getting rid of it, but plenty still offer it. If you live in a large enough city, grocery delivery can also pretty competitive in pricing if you're willing to negotiate on brands.
- mootothemax 1y ago
  Is it that common to upset people at work and have absolutely no clue why or how or what you’ve done? And not from a lack of trying, and definitely not because you don’t care? Because to me, that’s what masking means: constantly checking yourself because you do care, and you do like people, and the last thing you ever want to do is hurt or upset someone, and yet sometimes you do, and that sucks, and you learn from it, file it away in your mind for next time, and wake up the next day with the same happy-go-lucky optimism you do every day until the world beats it out of you.
- userbinator 1y ago
  Your sentence took me back to 5 years ago.
adammarples 1y ago
I was surprised to find that skipping my medication which causes drowsiness instantly caused my energy to crash to zero and lose the game. I think this is well intentioned but weirdly designed.
- freehorse 1y ago
  You have to titrate off by halving the dosage, not stop cold turkey. This is common with antidepresant (and other) medication.
ActorNightly 1y ago
Its a bit of a misnomer. Skipping breakfast reduces the caloric energy you have. Eating a full breakfast is basically going against your instinct. Optimal thing for autistic people would be a energy bar that is both healthy, has good texture, and makes you feel full.
- ASalazarMX 1y ago
  The game puts the "masking" definition right in the start page, no need to deduce. I also dislike how any form of self care reduces your masking even if you're alone. It's designed to make you lose in a couple of days, which would imply you're not a highly functional autist, and hence I wonder how the heck did you get a job without others noticing your autism?
  - ActorNightly 1y ago
    Like I said, implication is a bit weird. For example, self care with video games would be different. I think the author was just trying to demonstrate that self care in the normal sense isn't the same to spectrum folks
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  My instinct is to eat breakfast in the morning because if I don't I'm flagging before lunch time and lose energy / concentration / get cranky. (of course the other issue there is that I prefer having fixed times in the day to eat)
- NicuCalcea 1y ago
  I don't enjoy having a full breakfast before work, but I usually still do, otherwise I'd be hungry before lunchtime. It's one of the thousands of little compromises we all make every day, I'm not really sure how this constitutes masking, or I'm not understanding the term correctly.
  - ActorNightly 1y ago
    Basically its forcing yourself to do normal things. The idea behind the game is to illustrate that adhering to norms is energy draining, while also letting yourself be yourself results in negative outcomes.
catchcatchcatch 1y ago
[dead]
esseph 1y ago
If I don't eat in the morning, I have extremely low energy and am very cranky. That makes it harder to mask, because the decisions I would make with low energy and crankiness are not the same ones I would make if I had eaten. It impacts my ability to converse with others in an effective way. It also impacts my work output and mood..
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
zmmmmm 1y ago
This is a really interesting aspect of masking. The thing is, it's often not the direct presence of external scrutiny that drives the feeling of needing to mask, it's a lifetime of having normal behaviour expectations reinforced to a point where they truly internalised that there's something wrong with not doing the "normal" thing. So they will even be masking in private and have to go to great lengths to even discover where they are doing that and proactively "undoing" their private masking in order to allow them to restore energy during their own private time. All this is often referred to under the notion of "internalised ableism".
- jonnycomputer 1y ago
  Okay, but isn't this just what all people do? Everyone has a lifetime of normal behavior expectations reinforced to a point where they are truly internalized that there's something wrong with not doing the "normal" thing. That's called enculturation. I find a lot very confusing about the idea of masking. Everyone masks, even people who are more neurotypical than autists. Getting along with social life means not showing every emotion, it means being uncomfortable, doing things that you personally dislike or find uncomfortable, feigning more comfort in social situations than you actually feel, regulating your behavior to fit in, etc. And then going home to detox and restore your energy with private time. I'm not saying that masking is autism is not a thing. But most of what I hear described is just ... normal life for most people ... except perhaps to the degree it is felt or needed.
  - zeroonetwothree 1y ago
    Most of the challenges of autism are also present in neurotypical just to a lesser degree. No one likes annoying loud sounds but to someone with autism the limit is going to be much lower. No one likes sudden changes but someone with autism won’t be able to handle them as easily. And so on.
  - zmmmmm 1y ago
    it's absolutely what all people do. The missing piece is you need to (a) multiply the severity/effort required by an order of magnitude and (b) add in a whole host of co-occuring factors like anxiety, OCD etc. that often come along for the ride
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
SwtCyber 1y ago
It's more of a system-level drain than a moment-to-moment judgment

by latexr 1y ago

fmbb 1y ago

Also, everyone has to mask at work.

ActorNightly 1y ago
If you feel like this, you may be on the spectrum (not an insult btw). Masking for neuro typical people is very easy, even if emotionally draining. My wife is the perfect example - her personality is to be nice to everyone and to connect with people. A lot of times this leads to prolonged conversations with people, which then she complains about, but its basically like saying you are tired after going on a long bike ride - there is some enjoyment in the activity. Whereas for neuro-spicy people, masking is the equivalent of spilling seeds on the floor and having to pick up each one with tweezers to put them back. Its both exhausting and not enjoyable.
- idiotsecant 1y ago
  Yes, it's performing tasks in software that most people perform in hardware.
- gffrd 1y ago
  No, parent is right: everybody "masks" at work. Call it putting on a persona, playing a role, whatever - but as you said, it's less effortful for some than others.
  - ActorNightly 1y ago
    I wouldn't even say its less effort. Its a whole different kind of effort. A social neurotypical person willingly engages in interactions and "masks". A person on the spectrum only engages because they have to.
    - SchemaLoad 1y ago
      For me masking at work is more boring than it is effort. Most coworkers i've encountered are so plain that the moment you start discussing something personal that isn't the most sanitised hobby ever they get funny. Tell them you spent the weekend at an illegal rave or getting drunk at a furry convention and they start to freak out. It's no effort to not talk about this but it also means there's basically nothing to discuss.
      - acureau 1y ago
        Life's too short for bullshitting. Why not just speak your mind and avoid the people who react that way? I've found that if I sanitize my words I get sanitized responses, and vice versa. Nobody is as boring as they seem.
- lxgr 1y ago
  Everybody has a social battery, but while some are working with a USB PD 240W monster you can't take on an airplane, others have to get by with an iPhone Air (and they can't disable background refresh).
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    While I understand your point, the air has a very good battery life and beats the 16 and 16 pro. If you recharge at night, that's a lot of socializing.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- Glyptodon 1y ago
  It's true that different people require different amounts of effort to do and approach it with different tactics, but fundamentally almost nobody streams their inner monologue straight out of their lips, and I think when it does happen is actually much more associated with TBI and inhibition disregulation than ASD. (Which is not to say that it doesn't require a different approach or more effort for those with ASD.)
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
ants_everywhere 1y ago
This is because autistism advocacy groups misuse the word mask. It is supposed to refer to extra work you have to do playing a specific persona. E.g. at a party pretending to be a character from a movie or a book. And especially trying to force yourself to become that persona to fit in. A lot of people in the advocacy space use it to mean basic things like being well behaved or being nice to people. Everybody has to be well-behaved at work. Everybody has to consider the feelings of others etc. The idea of "wearing a mask" in the sense of being polite is older than the notion of masking in autism. For example, P. G. Wodehouse used it a few times in the 1920s to refer to the social expectations made on aristocratic families. E.g. from 1922: > I didn’t like the chap, but we Woosters can wear the mask. I beamed a bit. In this sense everyone masks. In fact they mask almost all the time from the time they get up until maybe the time they go to bad. Masking in autism originally referred to something different that was specific to autism. The way it's used now it essentially just means "it's harder for me to fit in." Which is true but doesn't tell you anything about autism from a psychological point of view beyond the obvious fact that it's harder for us to fit in.
- xp84 1y ago
  > people in the advocacy space use it to mean basic things like being well behaved or being nice to people Thank you for this comment. As a family member of a young AuDHD person I am continually battered by a combination of their behavior (which directly and un-ignorably degrades the experience of everyone around) and by various 'advocacy' ideas that use phrasing like that to not-so-subtly imply that it's actually our bad for daring to expect to "not be hit," or to not be forced to constantly base our whole lives on one person's preferences, etc. It's tough sometimes to figure out what's real, what's a fair expectation, what's something that can be learned/unlearned, and what's just inevitable.
  - VHRanger 1y ago
    Having had personal experience with this problem, there is actually a simple but difficult solution to your problem: Focus in the effect if the person's action on you, and set hard boundaries for yourself. Note that boundaries are in this specific form: "If you do X in Y situation, I will do Z" The consequence to the instigating person (the Z part) is important. The person you described likely has a deficit in empathy, so feedback on actions has to happen to modify behavior. Note that I'm not saying to hit back. Consequences are generally best when withdrawing something of value than adding something of negative value. For example: "If we're watching a movie and you are physically rowdy, you will have to leave the living room and entertain yourself in your room". Focua on how things affect you, and what actions you can take in response to boundary breaking behavior. Then be ruthlessly firm and consistent about it.
jlhawn 1y ago
Yep... If I didn't mask while at work and home, I'd probably be annoying my family and coworkers with state and local land use politics issues all the time.
ilikecakeandpie 1y ago
Yeah this is a thing that gets me. Everyone has to mask because otherwise there'd be a more conflict over shit that doesn't matter then there likely already is during meetings and stuff. Some of the messaging too is just... off-putting/patronizing. "Brave the grocery store"? I know social situations can be tough on people but it's not you're being asked to kill the chicken and process it or grow the veggies. Is resiliency so low that it's a battle to go pick up necessities? Maybe I was blessed to grow up in a poor, not exactly stable household at least for a while.
- gridspy 1y ago
  It's harder than you think. - Go into a bright, commercial space - All the packets are "shouting" at you with colorful labels - There is noise of shoppers, a PA system, canned music and/or advertising - Navigate lots of social interactions with other shoppers around navigating asiles, manouvering carts, who picks what - Manage a shopping list and find a variety of goods - Go to the check-out asile. Hopefully you can avoid interacting with a human - Manage packing bags and paying - Hopefully noone talks to you as you leave
  - esseph 1y ago
    You just described my shopping experiences.
  - encrypted_bird 1y ago
    _Thank_ you. I'm seeing a LOT of people in this thread who do not understand autism at _all_ and yet claim it's really not much different than neurotypical people's experience. "Why should x situation be like y difficulty? I don't understand." "No, you _don't_ understand, because you're not autistic. Which isn't really an insult but it is the case. So why you gotta brush off our struggles like you do get it." Being autistic is exhausting on a _whole different level_. It is NOT comparable to neurotypicals' experiences except superficially.
  - gusgus01 1y ago
    For anyone who feels this way about the grocery store, I'd highly recommend curbside pickup or online ordering. Some stores are getting rid of it, but plenty still offer it. If you live in a large enough city, grocery delivery can also pretty competitive in pricing if you're willing to negotiate on brands.
mootothemax 1y ago
Is it that common to upset people at work and have absolutely no clue why or how or what you’ve done? And not from a lack of trying, and definitely not because you don’t care? Because to me, that’s what masking means: constantly checking yourself because you do care, and you do like people, and the last thing you ever want to do is hurt or upset someone, and yet sometimes you do, and that sucks, and you learn from it, file it away in your mind for next time, and wake up the next day with the same happy-go-lucky optimism you do every day until the world beats it out of you.
userbinator 1y ago
Your sentence took me back to 5 years ago.

adammarples 1y ago

I was surprised to find that skipping my medication which causes drowsiness instantly caused my energy to crash to zero and lose the game. I think this is well intentioned but weirdly designed.

freehorse 1y ago
You have to titrate off by halving the dosage, not stop cold turkey. This is common with antidepresant (and other) medication.

ActorNightly 1y ago

Its a bit of a misnomer. Skipping breakfast reduces the caloric energy you have. Eating a full breakfast is basically going against your instinct. Optimal thing for autistic people would be a energy bar that is both healthy, has good texture, and makes you feel full.

ASalazarMX 1y ago
The game puts the "masking" definition right in the start page, no need to deduce. I also dislike how any form of self care reduces your masking even if you're alone. It's designed to make you lose in a couple of days, which would imply you're not a highly functional autist, and hence I wonder how the heck did you get a job without others noticing your autism?
- ActorNightly 1y ago
  Like I said, implication is a bit weird. For example, self care with video games would be different. I think the author was just trying to demonstrate that self care in the normal sense isn't the same to spectrum folks
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
My instinct is to eat breakfast in the morning because if I don't I'm flagging before lunch time and lose energy / concentration / get cranky. (of course the other issue there is that I prefer having fixed times in the day to eat)
NicuCalcea 1y ago
I don't enjoy having a full breakfast before work, but I usually still do, otherwise I'd be hungry before lunchtime. It's one of the thousands of little compromises we all make every day, I'm not really sure how this constitutes masking, or I'm not understanding the term correctly.
- ActorNightly 1y ago
  Basically its forcing yourself to do normal things. The idea behind the game is to illustrate that adhering to norms is energy draining, while also letting yourself be yourself results in negative outcomes.

catchcatchcatch 1y ago

[dead]

esseph 1y ago

If I don't eat in the morning, I have extremely low energy and am very cranky. That makes it harder to mask, because the decisions I would make with low energy and crankiness are not the same ones I would make if I had eaten. It impacts my ability to converse with others in an effective way. It also impacts my work output and mood..

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

zmmmmm 1y ago

This is a really interesting aspect of masking. The thing is, it's often not the direct presence of external scrutiny that drives the feeling of needing to mask, it's a lifetime of having normal behaviour expectations reinforced to a point where they truly internalised that there's something wrong with not doing the "normal" thing. So they will even be masking in private and have to go to great lengths to even discover where they are doing that and proactively "undoing" their private masking in order to allow them to restore energy during their own private time. All this is often referred to under the notion of "internalised ableism".

jonnycomputer 1y ago
Okay, but isn't this just what all people do? Everyone has a lifetime of normal behavior expectations reinforced to a point where they are truly internalized that there's something wrong with not doing the "normal" thing. That's called enculturation. I find a lot very confusing about the idea of masking. Everyone masks, even people who are more neurotypical than autists. Getting along with social life means not showing every emotion, it means being uncomfortable, doing things that you personally dislike or find uncomfortable, feigning more comfort in social situations than you actually feel, regulating your behavior to fit in, etc. And then going home to detox and restore your energy with private time. I'm not saying that masking is autism is not a thing. But most of what I hear described is just ... normal life for most people ... except perhaps to the degree it is felt or needed.
- zeroonetwothree 1y ago
  Most of the challenges of autism are also present in neurotypical just to a lesser degree. No one likes annoying loud sounds but to someone with autism the limit is going to be much lower. No one likes sudden changes but someone with autism won’t be able to handle them as easily. And so on.
- zmmmmm 1y ago
  it's absolutely what all people do. The missing piece is you need to (a) multiply the severity/effort required by an order of magnitude and (b) add in a whole host of co-occuring factors like anxiety, OCD etc. that often come along for the ride

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

SwtCyber 1y ago

It's more of a system-level drain than a moment-to-moment judgment