This month, there is a #TakeTheMaskOff social media campaign, about the role of masking in autistic lives (and the harm it can cause), so I thought I'd write a quick post about my own personal experience. A quick definition, in case anyone needs: masking, or camouflaging, is affecting learned social behaviours in order to not appear autistic. Its importance as a social and medical issue has been significantly raised recently, following an extensive and thorough study by Sarah Cassidy, Louise Bradley, Rebecca Shaw and Simon Baron-Cohen that assessed risk factors leading to suicide amongst autistic adults ( https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-018-0226-4 ). As I've said in previous posts, I was diagnosed aged 36. Like, I'm sure, many other late-diagnosed autistic adults, the diagnosis didn't come as a shock, didn't sneak up out of the blue after decades of thinking I was 'normal'. I had never been terribly good at fitting in, w
I've thought about writing this for a while now. It's not strictly about autism, although it is related. Lots of autistic people are lonely, want company, but either lack the social skills or society lacks the skills for socialising with autistics (I'm increasingly leaning towards the latter, but that's another post for another day). But that said, a lot of autistic people are lonely because a lot of people are lonely. It can and does hit anyone. But the loneliness, it's invisible. Many mental health matters have been, still are - including autism - and many people are doing fantastic work to bring them into the light. Loneliness, however, is different. Loneliness makes itself invisible. Loneliness is out of sight and of mind for those not suffering. Loneliness hides in plain sight and loneliness hides in dark corners. Loneliness inherently, inescapably, makes it hard for those affected to talk to those who aren't, to find support, to find a way out. Lonel