Mask Off

Summary

Podcast Summary: Feminist Survival Project – Episode "Mask Off"

Release Date: January 9, 2025
Host/Authors: Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
Title: Mask Off

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Introduction to Masking

In the episode titled "Mask Off," hosts Emily and Amelia Nagoski delve into the concept of masking—a survival strategy often employed by individuals, particularly those who are autistic, to navigate social interactions. Amelia opens the conversation by explaining their unique approach to discussing masking: they will initially discuss it while "masking" and subsequently "mask off" to highlight the differences and underlying impacts of this behavior.

Personal Journeys: Discovering Autism Through Masking

Emily shares her late discovery of being autistic, highlighting how she had been masking effectively until a clinician in 2021 pointed out her high masking scores. She reflects:

Emily (00:35): "...I barely seemed autistic to anybody until 2021."

Amelia resonates with this experience, describing her longstanding struggle with masking and how it underpinned her stress and exhaustion throughout her life.

The CAT-Q Tool and Its Shortcomings

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q), a tool used to assess masking behaviors in autistic individuals. Emily critiques the tool, stating that it fails to capture the most exhausting elements of camouflaging for her:

Emily (05:00): "I have real critiques about the shortcomings of that tool because I believe it does not assess the elements of camouflaging autism that are most exhausting for me."

Amelia adds that the CAT-Q primarily measures social compensation but neglects sensory compensations, which are equally draining for many autistic individuals.

Gender, Non-Binary, and Masking

The sisters discuss how masking varies across different gender identities. They note that women, non-binary, and transgender individuals tend to mask more than cisgender men, contributing to higher stress levels:

Amelia (05:24): "Women mask more than men. But when you include anyone who's non binary, including trans and agender, they mask more than anyone else."

Health Impacts of Masking

Both hosts emphasize the severe health consequences of prolonged masking. Amelia recounts her experiences with doctoral school and professional roles where masking led to emotional breakdowns and hospitalizations:

Amelia (04:51): "I have come to understand that masking is the root of all stress for me."

Emily echoes these sentiments, linking masking to burnout and chronic stress:

Emily (19:21): "Knowing what masking did to me of like needing to conform to other people's expectations."

Masking in Academic and Professional Settings

The conversation highlights the challenges of masking within academic and professional environments. Amelia shares poignant stories of conducting choir rehearsals and dealing with unsupportive professors, leading to emotional crises:

Amelia (07:21): "It was bad for your health. And then the other job that you could not do..."

Emily discusses her struggles in academia, where despite her effectiveness, the pressure to mask led to burnout and eventual departure from her role:

Emily (43:21): "I loved my students. I think it's the most important job I'll ever do."

The Concept of Persona vs. Authentic Self

Emily and Amelia explore the idea of persona—a curated slice of one's true self presented in social interactions. They argue that masking is not deceit but a necessary lubrication to reduce friction in daily life:

Emily (58:02): "Masking is not fake. It's a 100% real. Emily. The Emily show is made up."

Amelia adds that personas allow for authenticity within the boundaries of social expectations:

Amelia (65:01): "It's the truth. It's just not the whole truth."

Masking in Social Media and Public Life

The hosts address how masking extends to social media, where maintaining a consistent persona can be exhausting. They critique the societal pressure to be present and relevant online, which often demands additional masking:

Emily (67:14): "Have a Persona. Have an online Persona. Have a part of you that's online be really clear about like what parts of you go online to whom."

Amelia emphasizes the high cost of maintaining such personas, leading them to opt out of platforms like Facebook to preserve their well-being.

Experiencing Ceremonies and Rituals with Masking

Reflecting on personal experiences, Emily and Amelia discuss how traditional ceremonies and rituals, such as weddings or graduations, often require additional masking. They recount their own minimalist approach to weddings to avoid the exhaustion associated with conforming to ceremonial expectations:

Amelia (76:02): "No, no, no. We did the bare minimum church things so that my husband's kids would recognize that what was happening between him and me was a marriage."

Conclusion: Understanding Masking as a Survival Strategy

In wrapping up, Emily and Amelia reaffirm that masking is not about deception but a survival mechanism to navigate a world that often demands conformity. They encourage listeners to recognize the physical and mental toll masking can take and advocate for creating spaces where individuals can "mask off" and be their authentic selves. The sisters emphasize the importance of sharing their experiences to help others feel less alone and more understood.

Amelia (66:14): "Everyone masks to some degree. Some people mask super hard. If you're non-male, non-Cis male, you mask harder."

Emily (74:56): "I have something unique to contribute. Like, there are people who are interested in hearing from us the specific things that we have to say."

They conclude by inviting listeners to support their mission by sharing the podcast with those who might benefit from their insights:

Emily (73:33): "Rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts. Like, and share."

Notable Quotes

• Amelia (00:00): "So the idea today is that we're going to talk about masking... then we're going to do it again. We're going to do it, mask off and see what the difference really is."

• Emily (43:21): "I loved my students. I think it's the most important job I'll ever do."

• Amelia (66:14): "Everyone masks to some degree. Some people mask super hard."

• Emily (58:02): "Masking is not fake. It's a 100% real. Emily. The Emily show is made up."

Key Takeaways

1. Masking as a Survival Strategy: Masking is a fundamental coping mechanism for many, especially autistic individuals, to navigate social environments.

2. Health Implications: Prolonged masking can lead to severe mental and physical health issues, including burnout and chronic stress.

3. Limitations of Current Assessments: Tools like the CAT-Q may not fully capture the diverse and exhausting aspects of masking, such as sensory compensations.

4. Gender and Masking: Women, non-binary, and transgender individuals tend to mask more, contributing to increased stress and health risks.

5. Authenticity vs. Persona: Developing a persona is not deceitful but a necessary slice of oneself presented to conform to societal expectations.

6. Social Media Pressures: Maintaining online personas adds another layer of masking, often leading to exhaustion and disengagement from platforms.

7. Ceremonial Challenges: Traditional rituals often require additional masking, which can be particularly taxing for those who mask regularly.

8. Encouraging Authentic Spaces: There is a need for environments where individuals can feel safe to mask off and express their true selves without judgment or expectation.

Final Thoughts

"Mask Off" serves as a candid exploration of the complexities surrounding masking, particularly for autistic feminists. Through personal anecdotes, critical analysis of assessment tools, and discussions on societal expectations, Emily and Amelia Nagoski illuminate the profound impact masking has on individuals' well-being. They advocate for greater awareness and understanding, urging society to create more accommodating spaces that reduce the necessity of masking and promote authentic self-expression.

Transcript

[Amelia]

Foreign. So the idea today is that we're going to talk about masking and for the first part we're going to, we're going to put on our masks while we talk about masking and then we're going to do it again. But we're going to do it, mask off and see what the difference really is.

[Emily]

And this part is mostly like, so that you can get a video, like image, a picture of what it's like when you see somebody who you know technically is autistic because you've heard them say that. But you're like. But you don't seem autistic.

[Amelia]

I don't seem autistic?

[Emily]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I barely seemed autistic to anybody until 2021.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Until, until a clinician said one, you're autistic. Two, you mask hard.

[Amelia]

Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]

Sword.

[Amelia]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is what I call the Amelia Show.

[Emily]

And how's that going for you? How do you feel?

[Amelia]

And I've called it, I've called it Feels Good in the moment.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

I've called it the Amelia Show since the mid-90s, since high school I have known that I have a show.

[Emily]

I have only called it the Emily show since 2003 when I started teaching.

[Amelia]

Yeah. That was when I first started doing like teaching type things of like leading quite choirs and Yeah. I was in high school and then.

[Emily]

I remember the day I got home from my first. So it was when I became a doctoral student. I got a teaching assistantship. It was once a week, three hours, a three hour lecture with a 15 minute break in the middle of it. And I got home from teaching that class, I rode my bike home and I went into my room and I horn sobbed for half an hour. Yeah.

[Amelia]

Did you know why at the time?

[Emily]

But the same thing happened our very, my first job out of, out of the house. Like my first job job for a paycheck.

[Amelia]

Chuck E. Cheese. Chuck E. Cheese.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And the same thing happened. I worked my little like whatever it was, four hour shift.

[Amelia]

Oh yeah. And you 100% put on the show.

[Emily]

And I got home and I hoard stabbed for an unknown amount of time and I had no idea why.

[Amelia]

Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]

I knew that I was tired.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And I was physically tired. Like I was, I was physically tired from the demands of food service, waiting tables job.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

But I had no idea that I was also.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Putting on a show.

[Amelia]

Yeah. I in retrospect have come to understand that masking is the root of all stress for me. I've been Doing it so long and so hard for so ever of my life that it just underpinned all of the other stress creation. And the first time it. I found it just barely tolerable was in doctoral school. I mean, I. I made it work as long as doctoral school. And then, as you're saying, a three hour rehearsal. I was conducting three hour rehearsals of the town and gown choir students and community members. And it was a three hour rehearsal. And I did this every Monday. And I was driving 65 miles. Home was my commute. And I would cry most of the way home.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And I talked to my therapist about it and she was like, well, why is that happening? And I was like, I guess I'm just tired or.

[Emily]

Yeah, it's just so demanding.

[Amelia]

And also, rehearsals in particular require a lot of, like, emotional focus. Most of the labor of running a rehearsal is making the rehearsal a place where it's safe to make mistakes and, you know, where you are kind of channeling, funneling, shepherding people's emotional states into one that is conducive to beautiful singing.

[Emily]

Right. Ditto sex education.

[Amelia]

Right. Exactly. And that's kind of what I attributed it to at the time. And also that I had like this kind of like history of having a hard time with feelings. Sure. At no point did the word masking come into the conversation. No. And so then I finally got assessed for autism, and part of the autism assessment is a masking assessment. And the neuropsych person who evaluated my test said I had the highest masking score she'd ever seen. And her immediate follow up to that was, I'm worried about you, because this is masking is the aspect of autism in particular that leads to negative health outcomes, like bodily, physical, negative health outcomes.

[Emily]

Yes. And what I hope we get to talk about today is so the cat cue, which is the masking assessment tool that most often gets used.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

I have real critiques about the shortcomings of that tool because I believe it does not assess the elements of camouflaging autism that are most exhausting for me.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

But we can get into that.

[Amelia]

I will also say that there is research that demonstrates this. This negative health outcome consequence of masking.

[Emily]

Oh, yeah.

[Amelia]

And there is also research that compares different kinds of populations and how much they mask. In a gender binary situation, women mask more than men. But when you include anyone who's non binary, including trans agender. Non binary.

[Emily]

Yeah. People under the trans umbrella mask more than anyone else.

[Amelia]

Yeah. The less you conform to the masculine.

[Emily]

Among allistic people, among non Neurodivergent people.

[Amelia]

Yes, exactly.

[Emily]

But among autistic people.

[Amelia]

Right. And I. And I am the neurodivergent and non binary.

[Emily]

So you mask like, whoa.

[Amelia]

That's why I have the highest masking score my neuropsych evaluator had ever seen. And that's why it's been the source of so much stress for me.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Amelia]

Okay, so should we transition now to some not masking? Because I feel done with masking and I'm tired.

[Emily]

Let me conclude by saying that Burnout as a book was inspired by your health issues during grad school.

[Amelia]

Yes.

[Emily]

And I believe that virtually all of those health problems were a direct consequence of what we now know to be masking.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Me trying to conform to the ideal that my academic advisors, professors, wanted from me. They wanted me to conform to their expectation.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And the only professor, I had one professor who instead of wanting me to conform to his expectation, he saw me be good at what I did, despite the fact that I didn't conform to his expectation. I had one professor who saw that and he was a tremendous relief.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

In the end, not the strongest ally.

[Emily]

I could have hoped for, but.

[Amelia]

And yeah, and there was also like an adjunct professor who was really supportive, but like everybody else really, that I encountered required me to be something pretty narrow, something pretty rigid.

[Emily]

Are we transitioning out of masking now?

[Amelia]

Yeah, I think we need to. Yeah. I'm tired. I was in a hurry, so I made tea in my measuring cup. I had to stuff myself down into such a small box that I dreaded going to talk to them. Him. Him. There's one in particular who I'm thinking of.

[Emily]

I believe I met him at your.

[Amelia]

You for sure did. At my recital.

[Emily]

At your recital. And he said something like, it's a pleasure to meet you. And I went, uh huh. Yeah, he.

[Amelia]

I was.

[Emily]

And he, like, I felt the big wave of like, you're supposed to be in awe of me, right? Fuck you.

[Amelia]

Yeah. So this is. This is a professor who did write by me as a conductor in the extent that he gave me his ensemble to conduct when other professors were refusing to do that. When I had been told when I was admitted to the program that I'd be conducting ensembles at the university. And I started out that way and then they were slowly taken away. And then for my recital, this professor said, how about you conduct my ensemble? And I was like, awesome. This is someone with a PhD in musicology who studied early music. And I was also very, very interested and focused on early music and historically Informed performing. But he, like, held it over my head of, like, this. This incredible generosity he was having with me.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And how I. Like, I should be so grateful.

[Emily]

I mean, I met him once, and that was the vibe.

[Amelia]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when it came down to my actual recital, like, the night of the performance, we had a little dress rehearsal and then, like, a two or three hour break before the performance started, and I had a nervous breakdown.

[Emily]

You sure did. I was. I was driving there.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And you called me. And this is before we had access to prescription benzodiazepines.

[Amelia]

Yeah, man.

[Emily]

Would that have been easier if you had had access to medication?

[Amelia]

If I had had a diagnosis and access to adequate medical support, yeah, it would have been great. But so I was. I was crying uncontrollably, and I could not stop crying.

[Emily]

You literally, like, physically could not stop.

[Amelia]

I physically couldn't stop crying. And I was trying, like, we had already started the. Like, I had already been in the hospital twice. I had already learned that emotions are held in your body. And I had already started, like, trying to, like, feel my feelings. And I was jumping up and down saying, I'm angry. And I love being angry.

[Emily]

And I love being angry.

[Amelia]

Like, I was literally doing this out loud.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And it, like. Yeah. I ended up taking, like, a couple of shots of, like, chocolate vodka. I think you brought me.

[Emily]

Yes, I brought you alcohol because you.

[Amelia]

Brought me alcohol because we didn't have prescription meds and I needed to down regulate my nervous system.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And alcohol is depressant, and it. It does that. And I was. I still couldn't stop crying. 10 minutes before performance started, I was in the green room doing tai chi and crying because tai chi meditation and focus and, like, paying attention to this moment right here. And it's making me cry just thinking about that, because. Jesus.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And this professor comes in. People have reported to him, amelia can't stop crying. And there I am in the green room, crying, crying and doing tai chi, clearly trying to, like, calm myself the fuck down. And he comes in and says, I've tried to make this as easy as possible or something like that. Or I've tried to be supportive. And I'm like, huh? I need him to shut up and go away. I need him to, like, not exist.

[Emily]

Who?

[Amelia]

I don't remember much of that concert. Not because I was drunk. I only had, like, two shots. And that's not enough to be like.

[Emily]

Yeah, no, no, no, no. That's not even close to blackout drunk.

[Amelia]

I didn't. I didn't Drink inappropriate. I mean, but it's also.

[Emily]

Even when you're having a good performance experience. It is.

[Amelia]

I don't remember. Yeah, no, no, no. Yeah. That's.

[Emily]

Are so in the moment that they're not recording it, you walk off and they're like, exactly. I have no idea how that went.

[Amelia]

Yeah. People are like, how'd it go? And I'm like, I don't know. You were in the audience. You tell me.

[Emily]

You know, I have a recording of a lot of it.

[Amelia]

I. I have all of it on video. I had a front facing camera so that I. The camera's looking at me as though it's a member of the ensemble. And it's good. It's a. I did well.

[Emily]

Good. Great. I have no way of knowing.

[Amelia]

I did not break down. It was good.

[Emily]

Not until you were like walking off the stage.

[Amelia]

I was walking off stage at the end and I already crying again.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

It was basically a matter of stage health, like where your body does its job, it knows it's on stage and performing. And so now we switch gears and we do the thing. So that's a kind of a mask, but it. Here's the other instance. When in my doctoral program my broke down like uncontrollable sobbing, which is when my mask cracks and fails. I was singing in an ensemble that I used to conduct. And then the school, I guess, decided that they needed this other professor to have an ensemble. And she bragged that she's never had a conducting lesson in her life, never taken a conducting class.

[Emily]

And you at this point already had a master's? I had a master's in choral conducting.

[Amelia]

From one of the most prestigious schools in the world.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And she's a bad conductor. Even so that one professor who saw me succeed, despite my lack of conformity even, he was like, you know why she treats you this way? And I was like, because I'm better than she is. And he was like, yeah. Like he wasn't going to say it, but he knew it and he allowed me to say it. So she's conducting a song and one of the movements of the piece goes. It's in the meter 5, which is a non symmetrical meter. And it's one of those things you do in undergraduate conducting in the second half of the semester. So the second half of your first semester of conducting class, you learn how to conduct in asymmetrical meters. It's just a thing you learn how to do. And she couldn't do it. She was having a hard time doing.

[Emily]

It because pretty sure. Even I know how to conduct in five.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Let me try. One, two, three, four, five.

[Amelia]

It was in a compound five. So it was like, one, two, three, four, Five. One, two, three, Four, five. Which is the same as one, two, two, one and two, and one and two, and one and 2, and one and 2, and 1 and 2. And it takes a little tiny bit of, like, skill to move your arm in a way that is nuanced enough to convey that this is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and to, like, modulate that speed a little bit. You. You. I. I learned to do it in. In 1996.

[Emily]

When you were 19 years old.

[Amelia]

Yeah, when I was 19 or 20. So here's a woman with a doctorate in music education has never taken a conducting lesson in her life. She's trying to conduct in five, and she asks the jazz faculty member to come help her with it. She invites another professor, who has also never studied conducting but does a lot of music in odd meters.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

To come help her with it. And I am now singing in the ensemble that I used to conduct, watching her, unable to do a thing that I have been teaching undergraduates to do as part of my responsibilities as a. As a doctoral student.

[Emily]

So your mask cracks so hard.

[Amelia]

I just, like. As soon as he came up to talk to her about it, and I'm like. Like, the whole. The wrongness of the situation just, like, overwhelmed me, and I just walked straight off stage and went to the bathroom and sobbed uncontrollably. And the other. The adjunct professor who I mentioned had also been supportive. She came to that rehearsal, and when I got out of the bathroom and was a mess, she was like, oh, my God, I've never seen you, like, you're always so collected and calm and. And, like, you're always so kind of competent. And I just, like, gushed the whole thing to her. And she was sympathetic, but she was really surprised by the fact that this would be so. That she was. She was shocked that to. For me, in particular, to have been, like, hiding and suppressing this. I did not go back to that dress rehearsal. No, I didn't make it back. I spent the rest of the time crying in the bathroom and then talking to this other conductor in the lobby of the performance space. Those are the two times that I truly cracked at school, and those are the two times in my life when it just became unmanageable, such that when I graduated and I got a job right away, and this was in 2013, when too many people with doctoral degrees, not enough faculty positions People aren't getting full time jobs. I got a full time job as the only full time music professor at a very small private university where I was the music department and I was the coordinator of music. And it was my job to, like, make sure that the other people who taught music, like the band director and my accompanist, like, it was my job to be like the person who advocated for those other music people at the school. And there was no one to tell me what to do, and I just got to choose it. And the joy of not having to fight other academic music people, that was a really good job for me at that moment. It was a tremendous relief and I was so, so glad to have found that that specific kind of work. And I. I would not go and work and be like a full time faculty member at a big music school surrounded by other. I would not do that now.

[Emily]

Yeah. No.

[Amelia]

Knowing what masking did to me of like needing to conform to other people's expectations.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

I wouldn't do it now.

[Emily]

And you're now just talking about, like the emotional toll that it took. Like the way you built a hard wall around your internal experience and behaved yourself. And when the wall cracked, it was like the Levy breaking in Katrina.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Like devastation. And that's not including the stories about what that wall around your internal experience did to your physical health, which was hospitalize you twice.

[Amelia]

Right. I'm gonna stop recording the video now because this seems like. Yeah, pretty much a good demonstration of the difference between masking and not masking. And. And then we'll finish whatever we have to say just in the. In the audio. Okay. I didn't think I'd feel this strongly about this conversation.

[Emily]

Well, it. You said it was the foundation of all of your.

[Amelia]

I mean, that's stress that you've ever.

[Emily]

Experienced ever in your life.

[Amelia]

Yeah, but I. I thought I was like, I thought I had processed a lot of this and.

[Emily]

Sure.

[Amelia]

But I haven't thought about it in a long time.

[Emily]

Well, you can sit there and cry while I talk about the basics, which is what autism is and what masking is.

[Amelia]

Okay.

[Emily]

So masking as it is assessed by. There's a specific instrument that we're going to talk about today called the cat cue, which you can. You can look that up on the Internet if you want to. You can take it if you want to. You can find out what your score is. A score of 100 total is the sort of the threshold for an autistic person. I scored 140. I forget what Amelia Scored it was.

[Amelia]

It was over 160.

[Emily]

So I mask less. It's broken down into three components and I honestly do not really understand the difference among the three components. They. The three sort of. It's. So camouflaging is what the overall subject is called with masking being one of the ways of camouflaging. Compensation is another one and assimilation is the third. So compensation is assessed with items like when I am interacting with someone, I deliberately copy their body language or facial expressions. I have developed a script to follow in social situations. I will repeat phrases that I have heard others say in the exact same way that I first heard them in my own social interactions. I use behaviors that I have learned from watching other people. I have researched the rules of social interactions to improve my own social skills. And this is where we put in the anecdote about Emily reading Emily Post books.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

For entertainment. At the age of 11, there probably are 11 year old girls who read Emily Post books. Not because they're autistic, but so. So compensation is when you try to compensate for your lack by learning skills.

[Amelia]

I also want to mention as part of the having like learned and developing scripts for conversation the fact that both you and I like primarily quote musical theater.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Like and sing quotes of songs instead of coming up with actual sentences to reply to other people.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

That's the thing. We both do and have done a.

[Emily]

Lot and I know things now. Many valuable things that I hadn't known before.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Yeah. So compensation is generating strategies to use to compensate for social situations that you do not feel like you. So there are people in the world who just intuitively know how to make small talk. They don't need to intentionally deliberately choose their body language and facial expressions. I have always very deliberately cultivated my body language and facial expressions and I did not understand that everybody wasn't doing that. So that's compensation masking as it's assessed in this thing where all three of these things are called camouflaging. Masking is developing strategies to hide the autism specifically so that you seem not autistic. So this is assessed with items like I monitor. See, this is why I don't understand why they're different. Yeah. Items like I monitor my body language or facial expressions so that I appear relaxed. I adjust my body language or facial expressions so that I appear interested by the person I am interacting with. I always think about the impression I make on other people. I don't feel the need to make eye contact with other people if I don't want to I monitor my body language or facial expressions so that I appear interested by the person. It's literally the same item. I am always aware of the impression I make on other people. I adjust my body language so they appear relaxed in social interactions. I do not pay attention to what my body and face are doing. Is that anyone?

[Amelia]

I think it's some people.

[Emily]

Sometimes it's men mostly.

[Amelia]

Yeah, it's men mostly.

[Emily]

It's cisgender men mostly.

[Amelia]

Like, the main. For me, in burnout, the main point of burnout was understanding that there's this abyss between who you are and who the world expects you to be and sort of living with that gap, living with the chasm, living with constantly having to decide how much you attempt to conform. I think for a lot of people, that's the hard thing about existing in the world. Like, for sure, people of color are going to understand this idea that you have to be different than the world assumes you're going to be or be. Or be that thing. Like, and. And to what degree will either direction get you less friction between you and your path.

[Emily]

Yeah. Code switching is one way that a person can mask. It's a different reason that a person can mask.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

When there were critiques of Kamala Harris speaking differently at different events.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And being like, it's. How do we know she's pretending she. How do we know who she really is?

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

Like, she's all the people. She's just extraordinary at showing up in a way that people are going to feel connected to, because she has had to do that literally her whole life.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And also, she legitimately belongs to a wide array of communities who have different ways of communicating with each other, and she can do them all.

[Amelia]

But when she's on, like, a national stage, like she was, and people are comparing and contrasting her different ways of. Of being in front of crowds, and they're saying, well, these are. It's like she's two different people. Well, like.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

You don't understand how communication works.

[Emily]

Right, right.

[Amelia]

Like, and the only people who, like, really don't feel like they need to do that are those who are already very much in power, particularly rich white men with a certain level of education. Right. Yeah. Who are native English speakers because they're.

[Emily]

Considered to be the heavy air quotes default.

[Amelia]

Yeah. I have to say that early in my career, very, very early in the. In the late 90s and early 2000s, I got feedback that was from people I had just met at my new teaching job. Wow. You really are the same person on stage. As you are in, in social situations. And that's because I had one mask that worked.

[Emily]

Yeah, the Amelia show.

[Amelia]

And really it's still true that I have one mask that I know that works.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And I use it all the time. I use it all the time for everything.

[Emily]

I also have one mask, but it's.

[Amelia]

Not because I'm not masking, it's because I'm doing that one thing that I know how to do that I have learned pretty much works. And only very recently have I started like working on what if I don't put on the mask when I'm in public, when I'm talking to more than two people.

[Emily]

So let's get, let's, let's get through the, the third.

[Amelia]

Oh, sorry.

[Emily]

Yep, the third dimension of camouflaging. So we had compensation, which is try compensating for the thing that non autistic people do. Sort of intuitively. We learn the skill by rote. Some people intuitively know how to be a social person in connection with other people and some of us have to learn it by reading in a book how to do it. That's compensation.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

Academically, masking is a sort of like self monitoring of your body language and your facial expression to make sure you're presenting yourself in a way that other people are going to feel good about. And then the third part is called assimilation and it's assessed with items like, I feel a need to put on an act in order to get through a social situation. In social situations I feel like I'm performing rather than being myself. I need the support of others in order to socialize. I have to force myself to interact with people when I am in social situations.

[Amelia]

My husband doesn't like public displays of affection and he's a lot more sort of like touchy feely at home, like, yeah, you know, just kiss and hug and blah, blah, blah. But in public he wants none of it. And at home I'm like, I'm in my comfort zone. I don't really want to be like touched necessarily as much as he does. And, but in public I'm like, I want to like be grabbing onto his arm. I want to like make sure that people know I'm with it. Like I, Yeah, I need him for. Yeah.

[Emily]

So the definition here is strategies to fit in with others in social situations. Either avoiding social interactions or forcing social interactions or relying on other people or putting on a show. And again like these three things don't feel very different to me and I wonder how much they like, do they actually statistically significantly vary from each other.

[Amelia]

That is a good question.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

My only conversation with the assessor was about the total score and that there was some research in about, like, the correlation of which of the particular aspects of camouflage were stronger in different types of people.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Amelia]

By. By gender, for sure. I know they've studied, but I don't remember any of the results that were, if anything was significant. I'm sure that people are listening to the questions in this kind of assessment and going, well, yeah, that's me. Oh, my God. Does this mean I'm autistic? Because it happens in the context of aut.

[Emily]

No, it might just mean you're a woman.

[Amelia]

It might just mean you're a woman. It might mean you're non binary. It might mean that you're a person on Earth. Because everyone masks. We have to. And it is appropriate that we all kind of like, agree that there's a way to behave in the world.

[Emily]

Yes. And we all agree that there's a way not to behave.

[Amelia]

Right, exactly.

[Emily]

In the world. When we see, when we see Elon Musk tweeting on his own platform that people are always mean to him on Twitter.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

Like, that's somebody who needs to learn how to behave.

[Amelia]

Right. Like, that's someone who would benefit from a level of masking to be taught you can't just do whatever you want in the world.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Amelia]

So everyone masks to some degree.

[Emily]

So if greases the wheels of society that you, like, know how to be nice to people who work behind desks.

[Amelia]

There's kind of a meme in the world about, like, how everybody hates talk, small talk. Everybody hates, you know, party conversation and everybody.

[Emily]

That kind of thing is why I didn't know I was autistic until I was 45.

[Amelia]

Right. So, like, it's a matter of degree for sure. And yeah, everybody's like a little bit awkward at. Maybe not everybody, but, like, some people.

[Emily]

Truly love small talk.

[Amelia]

Some people truly don't find it awkward or difficult at all. But like, if you're like, oh, yeah, I find small talk, this does not mean that you're like, have a clinical deficiency that's going to harm you. But if it, if it makes you cry after, if you come home, if you have a meeting with your peers where you have to like, be part of like a big table conversation and you are at a conference planning meeting and you're at. Then you go back to your. And you like, they plan the conference so that like two people. The conference would pay for hotel rooms. But you have to double up. And you're like, fuck that. I need my own hotel room so I can go back after the meeting and cry. And I need that space and I will pay for it myself.

[Emily]

That's an indication of a difference.

[Amelia]

This is when this.

[Emily]

Hey, that.

[Amelia]

That's a real story of a thing that happened to me, in case you couldn't tell. And I went to my psychiatrist and was like, I don't know what. This. This was not okay. And I. What do I do? And he was like, this sounds like social anxiety.

[Emily]

And social anxiety was my first. So I was diagnosed with depression in the way back. In the way, way back.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I got social anxiety while I was working at Smith because of. I went to a non. Obligatory, slash, obligatory sort of social work event and I made up a lie about why I had to go.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Because I didn't feel good in that room.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

And I wanted to go.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

So I made up a lie and I left and I told my psychiatrist about it and he said, that sounds like social anxiety.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And that's when we got prescription medication.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Jesus. So helpful. But I have to say that when you research, like, social anxiety and what the actual symptoms of social anxiety are like, I have no problem with public speaking. I have no problem being a teacher. I have no problem leading a meeting of my peers.

[Emily]

Right.

[Amelia]

I. All of that is fine. I don't have social anxiety. What I have is autism. What?

[Emily]

I have autism. You know what? So let me tell the story about the problem with having only one mask.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And my mask was developed first in food service, working at Chuck E. Cheese.

[Amelia]

Yep. Yep.

[Emily]

And then was enhanced, greatly refined, even teaching at the college level. So I had one professional mask. I had one mask. I had one mask. It was very entertaining. And then one day I was asked to do a presentation about some data I had about the students at the school where I worked. And it was at a committee meeting for faculty and staff. This committee that meets once a month and had been meeting once a month for Christ only knows how long. And they ran long. And I got started late, so my presentation time had been squashed, like, cut by a third. And I compensated by going faster. So I put on the show, but it was like, speed it up.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I was very entertaining. I was extremely informative. And the head of the committee contacted my boss to ask if I was on drugs. That's a real thing. That really happened to me. Yeah. And I. It was. It was a major confrontation of like, oh, I'm gonna have to develop like a different Persona for being in like professional meetings. That's not the same as my Persona for keeping 200 college students awake from 6 to 9pm on Wednesdays. That was hard. I had, I never successfully developed a meeting Persona. So I was a member of a professional organization that would have once a semester meetings on a different campus. A different campus. Every semester we would drive and a bunch of the Western Massachusetts health educators would all drive together and they'd be like, emily, do you want a carpool with us? And I'd be like, no, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be stopping at my sister's house afterward. I need to take my own car. And. And I did not realize that it's like. No, I need the two hours of silence.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Because that's, that's a six hour meeting.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

With 50 people.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And I'm gonna, I'm gonna need. I'm gonna need the silence. I'm gonna need to cry.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]

I'm gonna need to like talk my way through the meeting on my way there, and I'm gonna need to cry my way home.

[Amelia]

Yeah. How many conferences did I attend where 30% of my time at the conference was spent in my hotel room crying? Yeah. From the exhaustion of interacting.

[Emily]

Yeah. And let me add, because so I don't, I don't mask as hard as you do. I have very intense interoception. My body will not shut up. It will not stop telling me what it wants and needs and likes and doesn't like. And so when I was in grad school at a conference where like I was presenting a poster and I was socializing with other grad students and like trying to network.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

There was a talk given by Steven Pinker, who is. I apologize if there are fans of Steven Pinker. He's a blowhard. And my body was like, you need to go sit by the pool and read. That is a much better use of your time. And when I was, I was, I was in the elevator with my book and my towel and someone said, are you going to the talk? And I was like, no, I'm going to go sit by the pool and read. And she said, you're going to do great in this profession. And that is not the fact. That is not. No, no. The fact that I was able to skip the keynote talk by the big fancy speaker and go read is a sign that I was not going to succeed.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

In academia.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

The fact that I was unwilling to sacrifice my. Well being on the altar of Steven Pinker is exactly the reason why I was never gonna make it in academia.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

God. That's the same conference where some, like, very hotshot researchers were studying STIs in China in men. And, well, so it turns out men were reporting having more sex partners than women were reporting. And I raised my hands and I was like, did you ask about sex with men? And they said, everyone is heterosexual. Everyone in this. In this study was heterosexual. And I was like, come on.

[Amelia]

Did you ask, though?

[Emily]

But you didn't even. You didn't even ask.

[Amelia]

Yeah, give me a.

[Emily]

And you wanted to, like, make a joke about how, like, men are reporting having more partners than women are reporting because of cultural blah, blah, blah. Like, you did not even ask if they were having sex with men.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Give me a break. Yeah, so that was a. That was a conference where I learned a lot, but not about the topic of the conference. Yeah, mostly I learned about masking, but I didn't know that's what I was.

[Amelia]

So living with this. So. But people like me, who do not have a loud and clear voice from their internal experience telling them, this is bad for you.

[Emily]

This is.

[Amelia]

This is. This is not just awkward. This is so uncomfortable for you, that it's like the stress response is happening in your body and you're just ignoring it. And you're just letting all of that stress state turn into chronic state.

[Emily]

Right.

[Amelia]

Which will damage your organs. Yes. In the long run. Those of us who don't have that alert going on keep doing it, and it turns out bad for our health. And that's why. That's why masking leads to such negative health outcomes. And that is the most important thing I learned, I think, from burnout, is that it's not just about the things that happen to you, about the stress that happens to you and, like, the effort you put in. It's also about the constant, ongoing pressure to conform to a very narrow, socially constructed ideal.

[Emily]

The chasm between who you truly are and who the world expects you to be.

[Amelia]

The abyss such that even though I knew consciously that that's what the problem was, I knew they need me to be this kind of person, and that's not who I am. I knew that that's exactly what was happening, but I didn't understand what that pretense was doing to my body. I didn't understand how that pretense was so harmful.

[Emily]

Oh, fuck. I just realized something.

[Amelia]

What?

[Emily]

Oh, I'm an idiot.

[Amelia]

What?

[Emily]

When I was at Smith.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I knew that they wanted me to be something else.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

But I had quantitative evidence that I was very good at my job.

[Amelia]

Oh, yeah.

[Emily]

I cut the dangerous drinking rate in half.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

And I thought, I can prove that.

[Amelia]

Who I am works. Yeah.

[Emily]

Like, is effective. Like, this thing is effective at my job. And even if you don't like it, you can respect, like, games respects game. Right. Like, I'm good at my job, you're good at your job. We don't need to worry about territory. We're on the same team.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

And no.

[Amelia]

More than they needed me.

[Emily]

To be good at my job. And my job was life saving. They needed me to behave myself.

[Amelia]

Yes. Yes. More. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

[Emily]

Which is why I had that one meeting. Surprise. It was supposed to be with one person who was not my boss, and instead it was with two people who were not my boss and they were trying to tell me how I should be doing my job. And my body was in flames in that meeting. I'm sitting there trying to behave myself and explain quantitatively why I do things the way I do them and why these are my priorities and why that's not a priority.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And I walked out of that meeting and I was crying before I was out of the building, and I was heavy sobbing in the car ride home. I walked into the house, I went upstairs, I planted my face against the mattress, and I screamed until I hurt my vocal cords. And I just now realized.

[Amelia]

Yeah, that's what that was. That the reason that happened.

[Emily]

And it happened, my actual boss brought in a consultant to mediate between me and these other people who were not my bosses. They were not in charge of me. They just really didn't like how I did my job. Brought in, like, paid for somebody $10,000 or something for somebody to come mediate. And it didn't do shit. And the reason why. And that mediator loved me, thought I was, one, real good at my job, two, really charming and easy to get along with because my mask is fun. My mask is so fun. My mask starts to crackle when I get exhausted and I start to overshare. But, like, especially like when I'm doing physically really well and mentally pretty well, my mask is really entertaining and fun. And I'm good at listening because I have a master's degree in counseling psychology, for fuck's sake. So, like, you know, the consultant really liked me, but it didn't do shit because those other people, they didn't care how good I was at my job. They needed me to behave myself. And I didn't have access to the kind of mask they needed me to wear.

[Amelia]

Yep.

[Emily]

Because my mask was cultivated at Chuck E. Cheese and then college students.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Fuck. I have to say, though, my mask was cultivated with, like, conducting, and it ended up being very similar to yours. So I don't. I think there might be some, like, sort of just like we both ended up with the same kind of mask because we're both the same kind of people. I don't think it has to do with exactly where the mask evolved. I think because you used the same mask when we worked at a country club as you did at Chuck E. Cheese mostly. Yeah.

[Emily]

I really loved playing the fancy country club game. I really loved never pointing with one finger, but gesturing with a whole hand or pointing with two fingers. I really loved.

[Amelia]

It was really nice that there were explicit rules.

[Emily]

Oh, I loved it. I requested that they give me a table crumber so that I could scoop up breadcrumbs off of the table between courses.

[Amelia]

I. Yeah, you go play fancy waiter lady.

[Emily]

Yeah, I loved it. So it was. It was. It was a flavor of the same mask.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

But. But a food service mask just isn't going to cut it.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Yeah. At a higher education student affairs meeting. Well, no, most of student affairs is very fun and is like, they're. They're totally down.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

For some Wacky.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Which. That's. The mask is wacky.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Muppet academia is the brand.

[Emily]

Muppet academia is the brand. And these. These two boomers.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Could not get on board with the wacky, even though I was demonstrably effective at my job.

[Amelia]

And you enjoyed the work you did. And yet, because there was this pressure, that's really the reason you quit, Smith. Is that okay to say? I loved my job. I was really good at it.

[Emily]

I loved my students. I think it's the most important job I'll ever do.

[Amelia]

And you. It was fuck bad for your health. And then the other job that you could not do, even though you were really good at it, was, can we talk about the podcast? Or is that too fresh?

[Emily]

Oh, yeah. So it turns out their contract was all kinds of, like, up. So the NDA is. Doesn't matter.

[Amelia]

Oh, good. So from my perspective, it was the same issue when you were working with a podcast production company and you're. You put on a very entertaining show and they could just, like, have you talk, and that's your podcast. And instead they were like, no, let's do all these things. And you were like, no, they wanted.

[Emily]

Me to do interviews. Like, let's guess. Let's. Let's have Conversations. And I'm like.

[Amelia]

You're like, I'm autistic.

[Emily]

What I do. I am a teacher.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Have guests who come on and ask me questions.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

My whole job is answering people's questions. Yeah.

[Amelia]

Yeah. But they had ideas of, like, how you should be and what the content of the show should be. Not based on your strengths, but based on their expectations, based on the show.

[Emily]

They wanted to make. Using my intellectual property.

[Amelia]

Right. So instead of harnessing what you had to offer, they were trying to make you fit in different boxes.

[Emily]

Yeah. And I worked hard to compromise with them. We started working in October. By the first week of May, it had become obvious in retrospect that it was never going to work. It was a bad fit. It was never going to work. By August, Content warning. Suicidal ideation.

[Amelia]

Yeah. You were a mess.

[Emily]

So I talk about my suicidal ideation as my zombie leprechaun.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Ho, ho, he, he.

[Emily]

Hi, diddle Eddy. It's dead. You're wanting to be.

[Amelia]

This is just dark humor. It's more dark humor than actual, like, you know. Yeah. No. Feel like that's just. Just like.

[Emily]

Think about. Think about the reality of, like, I'm making a pod. I'm making a fucking podcast.

[Amelia]

A thing that you are demonstrably, like, good at.

[Emily]

And it makes me. It makes a part of my brain be like, you could make this podcast or you could be dead. What do you think about that option? Like, that's nuts, because it was that.

[Amelia]

Podcast with those people who had these expectations of you and that you told them repeatedly who I was and how I work. Yeah. And they were just. And they. Yeah. So this is the sense where, like, you and your inability really to conform as hard as I used to be able to conform.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Like, when you try, it is to torture for you.

[Emily]

It is absolutely torture for me. It is just as bad for me as it is for you. But my threshold is lower.

[Amelia]

Yeah. And Rich and I were trying to be like, you need to quit this.

[Emily]

Yeah. Everybody.

[Amelia]

Everybody was like, not do this anymore.

[Emily]

You need to quit. It's obvious that you need to quit.

[Amelia]

Like, it doesn't matter if there's a contract and you're violating it and you might have to, like, pay to get it. Like, this is what I would have paid.

[Emily]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a bad scene. And it's because they had expectations that I told them very clearly I was unable to meet.

[Amelia]

Yeah. And they just.

[Emily]

And they just kept.

[Amelia]

Didn't listen.

[Emily]

Needing me to be someone I wasn't. And this, you're you are absolutely right that it's the same thing as with my job.

[Amelia]

Job.

[Emily]

That they kept on needing me to be the thing that I could not be until they needed me to be that thing so hard that I left. Which was their goal.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Their goal was to get me to leave.

[Amelia]

Yeah. And you know what they did? Exactly. They did it exactly the right way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Emily]

They could have just said, like, the podcast could have just been like, they. They could have been like, it's not gonna work. I also could have been like, it's not gonna work.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I cannot believe that it took until now. I left that job in 2016. It has been. Yeah, you did eight years. And I only just now realized that the problem was I thought being good at my job was enough.

[Amelia]

No. Yeah. You have to put on the show they want you to put on.

[Emily]

You have to obey. You have to behave yourself. You have.

[Amelia]

Yeah. It's the same problem I have with working in academia. Like, when I have a job where I do what I call romancing the choir. I go in, I conduct. I am good at that short term or just really focused in the way where I just do this job that I'm good at. But if you need me to, like, be in committees, do anything else, I need, number one, explicit instructions of exactly what that anything else is. I need support for, like, interacting with other faculty members or, like, if you just need me to go be a teacher or go be a conductor, I will. I will knock their fucking socks off. But if you need me to. To be a certain kind of way or interact with people who are not my students or my singers.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Like, you need me to. You either need to, like, let me do whatever it is that I naturally do, or you need to give me very specific instructions about how to accomplish those things that you want accomplished and not assume that I know you know how to be in a meeting. Like, and I might be in a meeting in a way that you don't like me to be in a meeting. And these. Look, this is very new for me in my life, like, less than 20% of my life now here at the, you know, approaching the second half. Like, am I learning that this is an obstacle for me and learning to decide, like, do I just not do it or do I learn how to do it? And at this point, because I'm too.

[Emily]

Disabled to work, physically disabled from long Covid.

[Amelia]

From long Covid. I don't have the energy to do more than a few hours at a time. I can still do romancing the choir. I can still do. Teaching, you know, a class that is focused with a thing. I can still do that.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

But I physically don't have the energy to do a job that is sprawling into, you know, work work where it's, you know, meetings and coordinating with other people. Like, that's just not. That's just the kind of work that I'm physically able to do right now. Assuming I get my, my energy back and my health back, like, would I, I definitely wouldn't go back into academia in that capacity. I have definitely already decided that that's not worth it for me. I had already decided that in 2013 when I finished my doctorate. I swore I would never fucking do it again. And I stand by that based on the way that Even still today, 11 years later, that still hurts me so much that, like, it makes me cry in a podcast about how hard it was that, yeah, I'm definitely, I'm definitely never going to be a full time tenure track academic professor, director of choral activities at a college. That's never going to happen for me. I am not. It would not be good for me to do. I can't imagine there being a department of music where my autistic ass would be accepted as is and not have to fight.

[Emily]

Yeah. You know, I have actually thought about, like, what if I had had my diagnosis and the meat, the consultation and the mediation hadn't been like, Emily's good at her job. What's the problem here? But if it had instead been Emily's fucking autistic and you need to accommodate her differences.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Director of counseling services.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

You have immoral and legal obligation to accommodate the differences that make you dislike this human in front of you.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Like, exactly. And I think that what would happen for me is that in the interview process, now that I know I'm autistic and I'm assuming that I would disclose this to, you know, the committee, what's happened is they would just not hire me.

[Emily]

They would just not hire you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Last thing I want to say about masking.

[Amelia]

And they'd say it was about fit. Oh. Just not a good fit. Just not the right fit for us right now.

[Emily]

I. I want to make sure that we say out loud that masking is not fake. Oh, no, masking is a hundred, like, it's 100% real. Emily. The Emily show is made up.

[Amelia]

It's not about deceit.

[Emily]

100% Emily. It's just like a very specifically curated collection of Emily traits.

[Amelia]

Yeah. It's not Deceit and it's not manipulative. It's not intended to do something to the other person. It's a survival strategy for the person who's masking.

[Emily]

It's a. Yeah, it's so that you don't hate me.

[Amelia]

Yeah. It's putting on lubrication so that our movement through the world has less friction. Has less friction, damages us less. It's not at all about trying to do something to the other person.

[Emily]

Yeah. And because everyone masks, we're all just trying to like get through the day to day. People who work behind desks and behind counters deserve for us to be nice to them. Yet even when we're in a bad mood, if we're having a hard day, just like, just, just be as nice as you can to that other person who. We don't know what kind of day they're having either.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Just, you just, you just smile, make a little eye contact, chit chat. As little as you just, just. I mean that's, that's not fake. That's just being nice.

[Amelia]

Yeah. When I used to share, I was conducting a community choir while I was in doctoral school and the president of the choir would hear some of my, like, this is how it's going in school and it's really frustrating and I'm pretty. She was a lovely, lovely person and would say things like, you know, you can think whatever you want. You just smile and nod and think whatever you want. And I was like, how do you do that and have it be enough? Or okay, how, how do you do that and not have it eat you from the inside out?

[Emily]

And yeah. That's the part where it's autism and not just regular human mess.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

So let me add just my thing about my critique of camouflaging as.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

The way it's assessed for autistic people. What I have discovered is that yes, there is a chunk of my masking that is about what I experience. Not everyone uses the word deficit, but I experience it as a social deficit. I consider it like people. Most people have like the, a sense of other people's states without having to try to be aware of other people's states. I. It's like a person with low vision, you need corrective lenses. Sometimes your vision is not correctable with lenses and that's a person who's blind. My capacity to understand other people's internal experiences is so bad it is not correctable. And I just need people to tell me explicitly how they feel. So a lot of my masking is about what I experience as a social deficit. It is a lack of a sense, by I mean an actual extra receptive sense that I think humans have. I don't have it. And I only know that other people do because it's pretty obvious that other people do. But even more of my masking is about compensating for sensory differences, like my inability to tolerate most shopping venues. Like I compensate by not doing the shopping at venues where I find it intolerable or by sharply limiting the amount of time that I spend in those. And the masking instruments, the camouflaging instruments, only assess for social compensation and camouflage. And they don't talk about the sensory compensation. Like me having to pretend that I am not bothered by that, by the sound of the H Vac at a restaurant.

[Amelia]

Oh, I see what you're saying.

[Emily]

I'm like sitting there trying to be a nice person, trying to like, have a chat, and my body is so uncomfortable because of the humming of the H vac or the quality of the light. The quality of the light just makes it so wonderful.

[Amelia]

I would say that should fall into the category of specifically trying to cover up autism.

[Emily]

Specifically trying to cover up autism.

[Amelia]

But nothing in the questionnaire. Yeah, this is, includes that.

[Emily]

Yeah, My thing is about, like, it.

[Amelia]

Doesn'T, the questionnaire does not.

[Emily]

And it took me a long. Because it didn't assess that, it took me a long time to realize that part of what I do, part of the way that I fake being allistic is hiding sensory differences, which is one of the diagnostic criteria.

[Amelia]

Right. So you'd think the questionnaire, I mean. Yeah, if the questionnaire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The questionnaire is clearly not intended just for autistic people. It's just one of many parts of the assessment. Yeah, but if there were an autism specific masking assessment, it should include that.

[Emily]

Yeah, it's like, how do you, how do you mask your social differences? I mean, but it all. Yeah, it also doesn't ask about, like I, it actually does ask about, like, I tell myself, like there are topics I avoid discussing because I know other people won't be interested and shit like that.

[Amelia]

Yeah, I, I, People ask you a question about a thing that happens to be your special interest and, you know, they don't really want to know everything, you know. So you answer in a lighthearted, don't get me started. And they go, no, really, What a blah, blah. And you're like, well, if you're saying, really, here's a little slice of that. And then now that you've Started. How do you turn off the tap 15 minutes later? Like. Yeah, that's really. That's really hard. Oh. I also wanted to talk about the fact that the mask is not a lie. And I want to talk about Persona. Especially when we started doing public talks, I sort of wrestled with this same kind of, like, how big is the aperture? How much do I. How much do I allow out of myself?

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And my therapist at the time talked about it like a pie. Like, the audience gets a slice of the piece. It's real, it's the pie. But they don't get the whole pie.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Yeah. It's not that it's inauthentic. It's just this is the slice you get. Nobody gets to eat the whole pie except for the. You know.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Maybe you and my husband get the whole pie at times, but, like. Yeah. That your. Your job is to just be like, here's a slice of the Amelia.

[Emily]

Here is the slice that is relevant to the true structure of our relationship in.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

In this, like, social interaction that we are in.

[Amelia]

Yeah. It's completely genuine and authentic.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

It's the truth. It's just not the whole truth.

[Emily]

And I know what the slice is. What I'm teaching. I do not know what the slice is. If I'm at a party.

[Amelia]

Yeah. I don't even know what the slice is. Like with my step kids.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

I've been working for literal decades to figure out what the slice is.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

I don't know. I don't know. So masking was important to talk about because it's directly, very closely associated with wellness.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Amelia]

And for people to understand, like, everybody masks. Some people mask super hard. And honestly, if you're non male, non CIS male, you mask harder.

[Emily]

Yeah. And therefore experience the physical and mental health consequences of the mask. If you don't recognize and choose it deliberately and have places where you can go. Mask free.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Mask off.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Yeah. If you can. If you can choose consciously.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

To what degree do you mask and also recognize that when you mask, it initiates a stress response because it is a physical challenge.

[Emily]

Yeah. It's effortful.

[Amelia]

So you need to. You need to complete that stress cycle. You need to, like, manage the stress in your body.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

That was a result of you having to mask.

[Emily]

Most of y'all are not going to need to, like, heavy SOB for half an hour or more, but some of y'all might need to heavy, so. For half an hour.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Or more. Yeah. And there is also a social media piece of this, which is like, Have a Persona. Have an online Persona. Have a part of you that's online be really clear about like what parts of you go online to whom. Yeah. You don't have to comment about everything. Above all, for 2025, let us live in a world where people think about stuff before they post about it on the Internet or just think about stuff and then maybe don't post about it on the Internet. Maybe don't even. You don't do social media anyway, so.

[Amelia]

No. One of the reasons I don't do social media is because I decided that A, it was unnecessary. Okay. So our grandmother taught us this thing about whether or not to. To make any kind of statement in public which is A, is it necessary? B, does it. Is it necessary to be said by me? C, is it necessary to be said by me? Now do you remember this?

[Emily]

That is a thing I have heard not from grandma. What I remember from grandmom is is it necessary? Is it kind? And there was a third thing.

[Amelia]

Maybe I'm getting them conflated. But I kind of, in terms of social media, I kind of felt like the world doesn't need me to say things and like the effort of making sure that the social media presence was consistent.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

With the Persona, with the mask, with the Amelia show. It was unnecessary.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And therefore not a valuable use of my resources.

[Emily]

Some people very much want a couple of things. Some people really like, they want the audience. They just like. Hank Green is really explicit about that.

[Amelia]

He's like number go up.

[Emily]

He just likes the attention. He truly just, he likes getting more. He like sets goals for himself to like have the most followers on any given platform or some shit like that. Like he decided he was going to get big on TikTok and then he did. He just number go up. Some people just love number go up. And some people really need to feel relevant and connected and to be part of the conversation. And neither of us has that.

[Amelia]

I. Okay, I kind of assumed that the need to feel relevant to part of a conversation was a social construct that was placed upon me and that I rejected. So I wonder how many other people haven't even considered that they are allowed to reject that.

[Emily]

That they are allowed to be not part of the conversation. They can just be an audience member.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I don't. Some people, some people truly like love the attention.

[Amelia]

Sure. Absolutely. Of course. And the world needs all kinds of people and the world needs people who are going to be the out loud part of the conversation people. But doesn't need awe. Does. Does the world need all of us to be that. I. I think because that is the people who. Whose content we consume. We think that that's the ideal and the thing to be and that.

[Emily]

And that it's like, I mean, everybody.

[Amelia]

We're saying this literally on a podcast. So, like, so how. Yeah. So maybe this podcast is gonna be.

[Emily]

Over an hour long. But I don't feel an appetite to be relevant or have an audience.

[Amelia]

I don't. I don't.

[Emily]

I truly believe that we have something unique to contribute. Like, there are people who are interested in hearing from us the specific things that we have to say and in.

[Amelia]

The way that we have to say it.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Amelia]

Cause we're.

[Emily]

Cause we're. God knows we're not the only people talking about, like, feminism and well being.

[Amelia]

Yeah, of course not.

[Emily]

We are the only autistic identical twins talking about it. That's right.

[Amelia]

With the brand Muppet academia. Oh, God. But so my point is that, like, I'm not on Facebook anymore because they are complicit in genocide, but also because I didn't feel like I didn't get any Genesis. I don't feel like the world needs to know what my status is.

[Emily]

Yeah. One left genocide One because they're complicit in genocide. But also I would have interactions with friends on Facebook that were so unpleasant. People would talk to me on Facebook in a way that was totally different from the way they would ever talk to me in real life. And I was like, this is bad. Yeah, this person is my friend. I know that they don't actually think or feel this way. They would never treat me this way in person. So I'm not gonna interact with this person on this platform because the way they interact with me is bad.

[Amelia]

So you brought up social media and I. And like, hey, maybe this is the year we don't need to do the same as in the past. And I.

[Emily]

So for.

[Amelia]

In terms of, like, the cost for me in terms of masking and Persona construction was too high. And that's why I don't. I don't. I don't.

[Emily]

You don't.

[Amelia]

That's why I don't. Yeah. It is directly related to the expense of the mask.

[Emily]

Yeah. And the consequence of neither of us having an appetite for number go up is that our numbers don't go up.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

They stay. They've been very stable for a long time.

[Amelia]

Yeah. That's fine with me.

[Emily]

I do have an appetite for our work to find its audience.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I want. If. If there's somebody who can find, like, Comfort and assistance tips and tricks just, like, to help get through. The reason we're doing this is because this is going to be a very hard year. And it's not the only one that's going to be hard.

[Amelia]

And because the research says that, like, connection and feeling like you. You aren't alone and somebody else is going through what you're going through. Yeah. If there's somebody else who needs to know that they're going through the same thing that. That we are, and we have the capacity to make that happen, I feel like that's. That's worth it.

[Emily]

Rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts. Like, and share. Yeah.

[Amelia]

But only share with people who are gonna.

[Emily]

Like, if you hear something and you're like, I think this person could really use it. You could just be like, I heard a thing. Let me tell you about it.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

You don't have to share a podcast.

[Amelia]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I made a series of YouTube videos about autistic burnout, and in none of them do I ever like. Like and subscribe. Because I don't care if you like and subscribe. I care that you, who needed this information found it, and here it is.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And it's fine if five people watch a video, and they're the five people who needed to hear that information. Great. That's enough for me. Number go up is not a. Is not a desire. Like, neither of us had a wedding with a poofy dress and walking down an aisle and a bunch of. Like, neither of us did that because I think neither of us really understand.

[Emily]

It because of the kids.

[Amelia]

I did have. We did stand in a church, and.

[Emily]

I had a panic attack in the church during your wedding.

[Amelia]

I know. Which is weird.

[Emily]

Churches make me feel uncomfortable.

[Amelia]

Yeah. No, we did. So, like, our wedding was at a church. It was the church where my husband was the organist, and we were. The wedding was facilitated by the minister of the church, who was, like, a personal friend of ours, and we talk with him in advance. Like, don't talk about Jesus. Because. No, I mean, it was as unchurchy.

[Emily]

A wedding as a wedding in a church can be.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Like, we both, like, sat up in the front, and then we counted heads and was like, everybody's here. Let's start, like, 10 minutes early.

[Emily]

Yeah. There was.

[Amelia]

There was no audience waiting to see the bride.

[Emily]

Why did I have to stand up with y'all then?

[Amelia]

Because I. Cause Malin's kids were standing up with him.

[Emily]

Okay.

[Amelia]

And I needed a person on my side.

[Emily]

Aunt Sally took a whole bunch of Pictures, and I'm not in any of them. And I appreciate that she did that. That's funny, because I was, like, rocking back and forth from one foot to another. Like, if I had had an autistic diagnosis, then everybody would have been like.

[Amelia]

Emily looks real autistic today. Yeah, Emily's autisticing hard.

[Emily]

Like, look at her self regulating her body with that rocking.

[Amelia]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, the point is, neither of us needed to put on that show. Yeah.

[Emily]

We didn't need to be a princess. We didn't need to have a special day.

[Amelia]

We did the bare minimum church things so that my husband's kids would recognize that what was happening between him and me was a marriage. We needed them to see it. But, like, I didn't. I would have been happy to go to city hall and sign the papers and be done. Right.

[Emily]

We didn't even do that.

[Amelia]

Oh, oh, oh. Oh, my God. It just occurs to me now that because the. The wedding, the show is. Would just be more masking, and that's exhausting and tiring. And why would anyone choose to do that? That occurs to me just now that, like, that might be why neither one of us was like, I don't want.

[Emily]

To have to put on a show.

[Amelia]

I don't want to have to put on a show for people. Whereas, like, normal people are like, I want to put on a show for people.

[Emily]

I want to be in the spotlight. I want to have my one special day. Like, the one time when everything is all about me, I guess, and us and our families having this moment. But it's about me in the dress.

[Amelia]

And for you and me, that would only be a burden because it is. It is. It is. It's another day, another demand to put on a show.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

To conform to a thing. It occurs to me just now that masking is directly related to why neither of us wanted to.

[Emily]

Why neither of us. Why? I got married in gray leggings and a T shirt.

[Amelia]

It was a heart T shirt that your husband designed.

[Emily]

Yes. And he wore a matching one.

[Amelia]

Yeah. I wore a dress that I had worn for Easter Sunday that same year.

[Emily]

I wore a dress from Old Navy that I bought three years previously.

[Amelia]

Yeah, but, like, we bought the kids new clothes.

[Emily]

Clothes.

[Amelia]

Right. We took them shopping to buy new.

[Emily]

Stuff so that they would have the experience, so that they would know that.

[Amelia]

So that they could. Yeah, yeah. Because the show is an important part of the process for, like, recognizing.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

That's why people have ceremonies and rituals. But I also, like, didn't attend my Graduation ceremonies after undergrad. Because rituals and ceremonies don't mean anything to me because they're about showing. And my experience of show is that it's only work.

[Emily]

Yep. I tried participating in a couple of ritual things and got to the end of them, and I was just like, what was that for?

[Amelia]

Exactly.

[Emily]

I do not feel the thing that people feel.

[Amelia]

Nope. Nope. I think it's related to the show and the mask. That's my guess.

[Emily]

It's just so much harder work for us.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]

Than people who can get through a situation like that and feel like they can be quite a lot of their full selves. A whole lot of the pie can walk across the stage.

[Amelia]

I think we both learned things today.

[Emily]

The whole pie in a veil walking down the aisle.

[Amelia]

Yeah. I don't. Yeah. Anyway, I think I. I learned things today just by talking it through. Yeah.

[Emily]

I also learned things. Things that I'm going to have to go cry in the tub about.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Because it was never going to work. And if I had had a diagnosis, it might have gone different.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And what I was experiencing was ableism.

[Amelia]

Oh, yeah. Looking back in retrospect at jobs I've had where I did my job really.

[Emily]

Well, I was so good at my job. I had quantitative evidence because I'm fucking autistic. Of course I did.

[Amelia]

But. But my interactions with, like, bosses and were bad were. I didn't understand. I didn't understand.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I don't know why you need me to pretend that you'd be better at my job than I am.

[Amelia]

Literally. That's what happened with that. With that teacher who gave me his ensemble for my recital. I needed to pretend that he was competent to evaluate me as a conductor.

[Emily]

I literally said to people at that job, like, no one. There's no one on this campus who's qualified to supervise me at this task of my job. At this specific task of my job. No one here is qualified to supervise me. Yeah. That's.

[Amelia]

That's not a thing you say.

[Emily]

Not a thing you say. Nope. Okay. Well, this has been fun, man.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Okay. Nope. Thank you all for listening. Is that believable?

[Amelia]

No. Well, we both learn things and we both learn things.

[Emily]

And I truly. If anybody has bothered to listen to all of this, I hope it has been because either you were learning something or it was at least entertaining, or you were getting some kind of insight into something or other.

[Amelia]

Thank you for listening. Yeah. Or no, no, no. Here's how I want to say it. Thank you for listening.

[Emily]

That's true. And that's nailed it. You did it.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Yeah, that's true. Thank you for listening. Nope, you did it better.

[Amelia]

I'm not sure that's true. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. It might just mean you're a woman. It might mean you're non binary. It might mean that you're a person on Earth. Because everyone masks. We have to.