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🧩 Neurodivergent
How much do you mask?
Measure how much energy you spend pretending to be normal.
Rate each statement 1 (never) to 5 (always). Think about your behavior in social situations.
1I rehearse what I'm going to say before social situations.
2I monitor my facial expressions to appear "normal."
3I copy other people's gestures or speech patterns to fit in.
4I force myself to make eye contact even though it feels uncomfortable.
5I suppress my natural reactions (stims, expressions) in public.
6I feel exhausted after social interactions, even enjoyable ones.
7I have developed "scripts" or responses for common social situations.
8I hide my true interests because I think others will find them strange.
9I feel like I'm performing a character rather than being myself around others.
10When alone after socializing, I need significant recovery time.
What is social masking?
Masking (or camouflaging) is the conscious or unconscious suppression of natural behaviors to appear neurotypical. The CAT-Q (Hull et al. 2019) is the standard measure, validated in autistic and general populations.
Score interpretation
- 10-18: Low masking — you present authentically in most situations
- 19-28: Moderate — some social performance, common in everyone
- 29-38: High masking — significant energy spent performing "normal"
- 39-50: Very high — chronic masking, risk of autistic burnout
Research findings
- Masking is most common in autistic women and AFAB individuals — delays diagnosis by 5+ years
- Chronic masking leads to autistic burnout: loss of skills, exhaustion, and withdrawal
- Masking correlates with higher rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality (Cassidy et al. 2018)
- Everyone masks to some degree — neurodivergent people just do it constantly and at greater cost
- The "mask" often starts in childhood as a survival strategy
Sources: Hull et al. (2019, CAT-Q), Cassidy et al. (2018), Lai et al. (2017), Autism Research.