Masking is when you change how you behave to fit in with other people. It’s something that everyone does but it can be a really big pressure for autistic people. 

In order to ‘fit in’ you might find yourself trying to copy how other people behave and ignoring how you really want to behave. 

Masking is a learned behaviour which begins when you are little. When you are young, you are naturally unaware of how your behaviour might be different from other children. You simply indulge your stimming and interests but you might soon be taught that these behaviours are ‘wrong’ or ‘strange’ and are encouraged to stop. This puts a huge amount of pressure on people and they can start to feel like who they are as a person and they might only feel truly themselves in the privacy of their own homes. 

Masking can mean that you aren’t doing things, like stimming, that help you cope with the stresses of life. This can lead to things building up until you can’t keep pretending anymore. This is like a can of pop that keeps being shaken up until it finally bursts. 

Being in a safe place or with safe people can help you to relax so you don’t feel like you have to mask. What a safe place or safe people are like will be different for different people.