Autistic Masking: When the Mask Leads to Burnout
Florent Many autistic people spend years appearing to function normally in the eyes of others. Yet this apparent normality often relies on an invisible effort: autistic masking, also known as social camouflaging. This mask can sometimes help a person adapt more easily to the outside world, but it comes with an often underestimated cost: chronic fatigue, overload, and sometimes autistic burnout. In this article, I explain what masking really is, why it appears so early for some people, and how it can eventually become a trap.