Autism Masking vs. Autism Camouflaging: What’s the Difference?

My sense of identity has taken a real hit over the past few years, and I’m just getting to the point where I’m ready to explore it more openly. So join me. As a neurodivergent parent, I’m faced with demands that often leave me feeling depleted and overwhelmed. And that means I’m chronically under-resourced when it comes to trying to blend in while I’m out in the world.

If you’re autistic (or wondering if you might be), you’ve probably heard the words autism masking and autism camouflaging used almost interchangeably.

They both describe the exhausting work of trying to “pass” as non-autistic in a world that isn’t designed for you. But in current research, they don’t mean exactly the same thing—and that difference really matters for understanding autism burnout, identity, and unmasking.

In this post, we’ll break down:

What autistic masking is
What autistic camouflaging is
How autism researchers currently define and measure camouflaging
What recent studies say about mental health and burnout
Why the distinction matters for self-understanding and recovery

Quick Definitions (The Short Version)

You can think of the terms like this:

Masking = the specific behaviors you hide or perform to appear non-autistic
Camouflaging = the whole strategy of managing how others see you (including masking, plus deeper compensation and assimilation)

Masking is one part of autism camouflaging. So, put another way, all masking is camouflaging, but not all camouflaging is masking.

Researcher Laura Hull and colleagues describe social camouflaging as efforts to disguise or compensate for autistic traits in social situations in order to blend in. More recent work frames camouflaging as a more comprehensive impression-management strategy that responds to stigma in the social environment. So let’s dive deeper.

What Is Autism Masking?

Masking refers to specific, observable behavior changes you make to appear less autistic or more “socially acceptable.”

Examples of masking might include:

Forcing yourself to make or hold eye contact
Hiding or minimizing stims (like rocking, flapping, fidgeting)
Rehearsing social scripts before conversations
Copying other people’s facial expressions, body language, or tone
Laughing along or pretending to understand jokes, even when you don’t
Flattening or over-controlling your emotional expression
Suppressing sensory distress (e.g., staying in a painfully loud room without saying anything)

Organizations like the National Autistic Society describe masking as a strategy—sometimes conscious, sometimes automatic—to appear non-autistic and avoid stigma or negative reactions.

Key features of masking

It’s focused on moment-to-moment behaviors
It often develops early (to avoid bullying, punishment, or social exclusion)
It can be automatic, especially if you’ve been doing it for years
It’s energy-intensive and can contribute to fatigue and burnout

Masking alone, however, doesn’t fully capture what many autistic people describe—things like building entire social “characters,” feeling unreal, or losing track of who they are. That’s where autism camouflaging comes in.

What Is Autism Camouflaging?

Camouflaging is the broader, whole-system strategy of managing how your autism is perceived by others.

In current research, camouflaging is usually understood as three interacting components:

Masking
- Hiding or suppressing autistic traits (as above).
- Monitoring your face and body to appear relaxed.
- Monitoring your face and body to appear interested in others.
- The felt pressure to make eye contact.
- Thinking about the impressions made on others.
- Awareness of the impression made on others.
Compensation
- Watching others to understand social skills.
- Using scripts in social situations.
- Learning social cues from television, films or books.
- Developing workarounds for social and communication differences, such as:
  - Memorizing detailed social rules and scripts
  - Analyzing conversations intellectually instead of reading cues intuitively
  - Tracking “if X happens, people usually expect Y” patterns
  - Using routines and structure to manage social situations
Assimilation / Performance
- Pretending to be “normal” in social situations.
- Relying on support from others in order to socialize.
- Presenting a constructed persona that will blend in, for example:
  - Mirroring others’ interests, slang, or humor
  - Performing a more “socially acceptable” identity
  - Changing speech, clothing, or hobbies to match the group
  - Constantly monitoring yourself for how you’re coming across

A widely used self-report tool, the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) (you can take the assessment here), is built around this three-factor model (compensation, masking, assimilation) and has been validated in multiple cultures and languages.

Key features of camouflaging

It’s big-picture: behavior, internal strategies, and identity presentation
It can be conscious (“I’m going to act ‘normal’ at this party”) or automatic
It’s heavily shaped by social stigma and expectations about “normal” behavior
It’s now seen as a major factor in autistic mental health outcomes, especially in adults

Autism Masking vs. Camouflaging: How Researchers Are Drawing the Line

There’s still some terminology overlap in both academic papers and everyday use when it comes to autism masking and camouflaging. Some authors treat “masking” and “camouflaging” as near-synonyms; others, especially more recent work, argue for clearer distinctions.

A 2022 conceptual paper by Radulski proposes this helpful structure:

Masking = concealing autistic traits or distress
Camouflaging = masking plus compensating and assimilating to pass as non-autistic
Compensation (sometimes discussed separately) = cognitive strategies used to “make up for” difficulties in social processing

Recent systematic and conceptual reviews also frame camouflaging as a response to social stigma and ableism, not as an internal flaw of the autistic person.

So in short:

Term	Focus	Typical Use in Research
Masking	Hiding or suppressing autistic traits	Often treated as one part of camouflaging
Camouflaging	Entire strategy: masking + compensation + assimilation	Main umbrella term in current literature

What Does the Latest Research Say About Autism Camouflaging & Mental Health?

Over the last few years, there’s been an explosion of research on camouflaging—especially its costs.

1. Camouflaging is common and starts early

Autistic adults consistently report high rates of camouflaging, often describing it as necessary for survival in school, work, and relationships.
Recent work shows that autistic children and adolescents also camouflage, often learning to do so at a young age as they encounter stigma or exclusion.

2. It’s not unique to autism—but it is especially intense there

A 2024 study comparing autistic adults and adults with ADHD found that camouflaging behaviors also occur in ADHD, though typically to a lesser extent than in autism, suggesting that camouflaging is a broader response to social pressure rather than something strictly “autistic only.”

That said, autistic people appear to camouflage more intensely and consistently, especially in high-demand social environments.

3. Camouflaging is strongly linked to anxiety and depression

Multiple recent studies and meta-analyses show that higher camouflaging scores are associated with:

Increased anxiety and depression
Higher social anxiety
Lower psychological wellbeing and self-esteem

A 2024 meta-analysis concluded that camouflaging is consistently linked with greater mental health difficulties and lower wellbeing in autistic people.

4. Camouflaging and suicidality

This is one of the most sobering findings in the literature.

A 2020 study found that camouflaging autistic traits was associated with greater lifetime suicidality, partly through feelings of not belonging and being a burden.
Later work by the same group and others has continued to show links between camouflaging, defeat/entrapment, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

These findings don’t mean camouflaging causes suicidality on its own, but they do suggest:

Living in a world where you must constantly manage how autistic you appear can dramatically increase the emotional cost of daily life.

5. Camouflaging and quality of life

Recent studies have also found that higher camouflaging is associated with lower quality of life, including:

Lower psychological quality of life in autistic adults
Lower social quality of life in some non-autistic people who camouflage heavily

A 2025 review and co-citation analysis suggests that camouflaging may be one pathway connecting autistic traits, mental health difficulties, and reduced quality of life over time.

How Do Researchers Measure Camouflaging?

The most commonly used tool right now is the:

Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q)

25-item self-report questionnaire
Measures three factors: Compensation, Masking, Assimilation
Developed from autistic adults’ own descriptions of their experiences

The CAT-Q has been:

Validated in multiple countries and languages
Recently adapted into a shorter 9-item version for use in clinical or research settings where time is limited

There’s also ongoing debate about how best to quantify camouflaging and how to separate it from related concepts like social anxiety, impression management, and code-switching.

Why Distinguishing Autism Masking and Camouflaging Matters

You might be thinking: Okay, but does the language really matter?
For lived experience, yes. For research and support, absolutely.

1. It explains why burnout can feel like “identity collapse”

Masking drains energy in the moment.
Camouflaging can erode your sense of self over time.

Camouflaging often involves building and maintaining an entire social identity that may not feel fully authentic. Research and autistic narratives both describe consequences like:

Feeling like you’re “acting all the time”
Losing track of what you actually like or prefer
Emotional numbness or dissociation
Intense exhaustion after social situations

This helps explain why, when people hit autistic burnout, they may say things like:

“I can’t pretend anymore.”
“The scripts are gone.”
“I don’t know who I am without the mask.”

That’s not just dropping a few behaviors. That’s camouflage collapse.

2. It clarifies targets for change

If we only talk about “masking,” we might focus mainly on behaviors:

“Let yourself stim more.”
“Try not to force eye contact.”

That’s important—but incomplete.

Recognizing camouflaging pushes us to look at:

The social environments that make camouflaging feel necessary
The stigma and ableism that punish visible autism
The identity work needed to rebuild a sense of self after years of performance

3. It supports better research and policy

Clear terminology helps researchers:

Study which parts of camouflaging are most harmful (masking vs. compensation vs. assimilation)
Separate camouflaging from social anxiety, impression management, or code-switching
Design supports and accommodations that reduce the need to camouflage at all

Recent reviews emphasize that we still don’t know enough about how camouflaging changes across the lifespan, how it interacts with gender, and which interventions help people reduce harmful camouflaging without losing safety or belonging.

Reflective Questions: How Do You Experience Masking and Camouflaging?

You don’t need a questionnaire to start noticing your own patterns. You might reflect on:

Masking behaviors
- Which autistic traits do I hide, suppress, or apologize for?
- When do I force myself to act “fine” when I’m not?
Compensation strategies
- Do I rely heavily on scripts, rules, or mental checklists in social situations?
- Do I analyze conversations after the fact, worrying about what I said?
Assimilation / persona
- Do I feel like different “versions” of myself around different people?
- Are there parts of my identity I keep completely out of sight?
Cost and context
- After social situations, do I feel energized, neutral, or completely wiped?
- Where in my life do I feel safest being visibly autistic—or not camouflaging at all?

None of this is about blame. Camouflaging is usually a survival response to living in environments that don’t accept or understand autistic ways of being.

So… Should You Stop Masking and Camouflaging?

This is where things get complicated.

Research is very clear that high levels of camouflaging are risky for mental health and quality of life.

At the same time:

Many autistic people don’t feel safe if they suddenly “drop” all camouflaging. Personally, I feel incredibly exposed. And in a lot of ways, I feel like my sense of identity has sort of collapsed in on itself because now I see camouflaging as me being fake (even though cognitively I know that isn’t true).
Some forms of compensation (like using scripts or checklists) can be genuinely helpful when they’re chosen, not forced.
Unmasking is often a gradual, context-dependent process, not a single decision—unless you’re like me, your energy reserves are depleted, and your black-and-white thinking makes it hard for you to tolerate the grey area of semi-honest camouflaging.

For now, the research suggests that the most protective approach is not “never camouflage,” but:

Increasing choice: noticing where you’re camouflaging and choosing when/where to do less
Building safe spaces and relationships where you’re allowed to be visibly autistic
Shifting responsibility outward: from “I need to perform better” to “this environment needs to be more accessible and less stigmatizing”

Final Thoughts

The distinction between masking and camouflaging is more than a semantic argument. It gives language to:

The tiny, constant behavioral edits you make (masking)
The enormous, sometimes invisible effort of constructing a socially acceptable self (camouflaging)
The emotional and mental health fallout when that effort becomes unsustainable

As the research continues to grow, one theme is already very clear:

Autistic people are not “broken” for masking or camouflaging. They are adapting to environments that were not built with them in mind.

The more clearly we can name these processes—and the harm they can cause—the more power we have to change the environments, not the core of who autistic people are.