2: Nobody is born masking
Nobody is born masking. It is a learned behaviour, and it tends to be learned at a very young age, without realising what exactly is happening. This is what part 2 of my series The Quiet Mind is about, because I think it changes how you feel about the whole thing. Because maybe if you can think of your masking as a strategy you started perfecting as a child in order to be acceptable, you can look at it with a bit more kindness than we tend to give it.
I remember winning a big sports cup at school, a reward for achieving gold in 10 races (I used to be very sporty as a child). I was to be presented with this award by the local Mayor and I was supposed to say a few words. But when I got up there, I completely froze. The Mayor presented me with the award and was looking at me expectantly, but I couldn’t say a thing, nothing would come out…I still have nightmares about this. Afterwards my mum, who worked at the school, was cross and I felt I had let her down. I was only 10 years old. Since then, I have not only been petrified of public speaking, but I also learnt to smile and act as if I was confident – this is the story of where my mask began.
How a child works out which parts of them are welcome
I think children are extraordinarily good at reading a room. (My kids are particularly excellent at noticing the raised eyebrow or the change of tone I use.) Children also notice which version of them makes the adults relax, and which version makes them pleased.
So when grown-ups say behave – children learn what that means – to sit still, or become quiet and inward. Some children learn to make a joke to try and relax the atmosphere and make the adult smile.
I don’t think any of this would be a conscious decision, in the same way adult decisions are conscious. But with children, I think it’s all about finding the path with the least trouble over and over again. And by doing this, you are creating your first mask.
What the research actually shows, and what it does not
Research on ADHD masking is thin on the ground, and it borrows most of its framework from autism studies. And there is even less research when you narrow it to children.
What we do have is suggestive. The three-part model that most of this work rests on was developed by Laura Hull and colleagues in 2017 from interviews with autistic adults, and they describe masking as:-
- hiding the traits,
- compensating for the difficulties with workarounds, and
- trying to blend into the group.
I want to be careful here, because none of these studies watched children masking and followed them into adulthood. They asked adults to look back, which means it’s not an exact science because our memories are not always reliable.
What we can say, though, is that adults consistently describe having built these strategies early on, and this appears to be consistent across different studies as well as different countries. What we cannot say is how many children do it, or at what age, or what predicts it.
The trouble with being no trouble
So this is what I would like a parent or a teacher to take away. A child who is no trouble and is quiet isn’t always the same as a child who is fine.
I have talked to lots of clients now who are late diagnosed and some have described themselves as bright, or as good as gold in school. I know I belong in this category too. The ones who look capable on the outside often had the hardest time of it, because the effort you use to appear “fine” is invisible, so no one asked if you were ok, it’s just assumed.
But it was costing something. Hello parents of neurodivergent children! How many times has your kid been brilliant and coping well at school and then they come home and fall apart the moment the front door shuts behind them? I have actually had a teacher tell me to my face that there is no such thing as being able to mask all day. I am still reeling from that interaction.
As us parents know, a mask stays on while being watched in the daytime, and comes off in the place that feels safe. Which means that home tends to get the fallout.
What this means if you are the grown-up version of that child
If you recognise yourself in any of this, I’d really love you to think about this.
You did not develop these strategies because something was wrong with you. You developed them because you have watched what you thought was wanted and actually, you need to pat yourself on the back because you have done a remarkably sophisticated piece of social problem solving.
The difficulty is that it is impossible to keep going with the mask for 40 years without maintenance!
Part three of my blog will be looking at the school environment, where masking gets rewarded.
If any of this sounds familiar to you, I would love to hear about it. The comments are open, and if you would rather talk about it in private, please do drop me a message.
Tamsin