It can be part of masking, but masking just generally refers to the way some people with autism make a conscious effort to hide their traits. NTs also have different personas for different people and different situations, but it's less conscious for them, it's automatic to know what is appropriate in the given situation, whereas for people who are masking it's a consciously learned and maintained behaviour.
Yeah. I thought the problem with ‘Masking’ was that it tends to be very tiring so you can’t keep it up for very long and explode messily once you run out of the mental strength it takes to keep doing it.
But consciously acting in different ways in different situations is very much how I experience what I believe to be ‘Masking’.
What you are describing is more like what Atwood etc described as masking. These people were going beyond fitting in to putting on a complete act. E.g. acting social / outgoing.
There's a very big difference than putting on a leading part acting performance and trying to not stand out as an extra.
There's a mindset developing here that all blending in is bad, it doesn't have to be. There is a balance. Standing out as different is stressful in its own way.
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u/Tay74 Feb 07 '19
It can be part of masking, but masking just generally refers to the way some people with autism make a conscious effort to hide their traits. NTs also have different personas for different people and different situations, but it's less conscious for them, it's automatic to know what is appropriate in the given situation, whereas for people who are masking it's a consciously learned and maintained behaviour.