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Why was this study done?: Masking is the process of intentionally, or unintentionally, hiding aspects of yourself to avoid harm. Recent research has suggested that autistic people might mask a lot and that this can lead to long-term problems in mental health. At the moment, we do not know which parts of masking are specific to autistic people, and which parts might be experienced by others, especially other neurodivergent people who are not autistic, for example, people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).What was the purpose of this study?: The purpose of this study was to find out about masking in autistic and nonautistic people, to find out whether some parts of masking are specific to autistic people, or experienced by others.What did the researchers do?: We conducted an online survey about masking with three groups of people: autistic people, nonautistic people who have another neurodevelopmental or mental health diagnosis, such as dyslexia, ADHD, or depression, and nonautistic people who do not have any neurodevelopmental or mental health diagnoses. The survey included an open text box for people to write about their experiences of masking and their opinions about masking. We analyzed these responses using a method called "thematic analysis." This method helps us look for ideas that people commonly talk about in their answers.What were the results of this study?: We found out that autistic and nonautistic people think masking is very complicated and has a negative effect on them. Both autistic and nonautistic people said that masking made them exhausted and really unhappy and that it made them feel like people did not know the "real them." Only autistic people mentioned that masking sometimes makes them feel suicidal and that masking includes things that other groups did not mention (such as trying to hide being upset by sensory things such as loud noise).What do these findings add to what was already known?: Our findings suggest that some aspects of masking do not just affect autistic people (such as feeling like people do not know the real you), but other parts might be more unique to autistic people (such as hiding stims from other people).What are potential weaknesses in this study?: More women than men and nonbinary people took part, which means that we know more about women than other people. We also do not really know whether everyone in the nonautistic groups were really "not autistic." They could be autistic people who do not have a diagnosis, which might affect our results.How will these findings help autistic people now or in the future?: We hope our findings will help people to understand how masking affects autistic and nonautistic people. We also hope that people designing new studies will look at important things such as whether someone is autistic and nonbinary, or autistic and ADHD as these things might affect their experiences.
Miller et al. (Mon,) studied this question.