a lot of my autism masking is just making myself more palatable for other people and my therapist said "does spock make himself 'more palatable' for others?" and had me promise to keep unmasking like:
Genuine question as someone diagnosed in my mid 20s. What's wrong with masking? It makes the lives of everyone around me AND my own social functioning easier. Like duh don't mask with friends out of shame of your personality and interests (I'm working on this), but in like the day to day?
Like yeah it can be effort, but it's ALSO effort for other people to deal with me if I'm being a confused autist. Masking in the day to day just feels like the autism equivalent of not taking up two seats on the long-distance-bus because even if you'll be more comfortable for the whole bus ride, you'll make the 4 or 5 people who use that seat more comfortable for their short journeys with you.
Wikipedia because I'm not confident in my ability to explain things.
It's also worth noting that it depends on the individual. Some autistic people find masking easy or even subconscious, whereas for others it requires exhausting amounts of constant effort, and for some is impossible entirely.
Sometimes you are entitled to two seats because you take up two seats and you need and deserve the space
i feel like it depends on the day for me. like, how i start my day dictates how well i can manage masking. if i make it to all my buses on time and wake up on time and all that good stuff, my day is easy peasy lemon squeezy! but if i fuck up the timing and see my bus drive away as i’m running up? my whole school day collapses unless i get a little time to unmask (which, thanks to being in an alternative school, happens pretty early in the morning)
