Unmasking: Or, Masking Part Deux

Summary

Podcast Summary: Feminist Survival Project – "Unmasking: Or, Masking Part Deux"

Release Date: July 10, 2025
Hosts: Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
Title: Unmasking: Or, Masking Part Deux

---

Introduction to Masking and Unmasking

The episode delves deep into the concepts of masking and unmasking, particularly in the context of autism and feminist experiences. Amelia begins by announcing upcoming live sessions on their YouTube channel to further explore these topics, inspired by Devin Price's books Unmasking A for Life and Unmasking Autism.

Amelia (00:00):
"We're talking about masking and unmasking because we got requested to talk about it more and in more detail."

Emily provides a concise overview, emphasizing that masking is a trauma response aimed at safety, but it leads to significant internal dissonance and health issues.

Emily (01:25):
"Masking is a trauma response. You do it in order to feel safe. And it's not good for you because it causes all this dissonance."

---

Personal Experiences with Masking

Both hosts share their personal struggles with masking, highlighting how it affects their sense of self and interactions with others. Emily discusses feeling alienated from the autistic community due to her unique manifestation of autism, which contrasts with common portrayals.

Emily (02:27):
"I feel alienated from the autistic community by books like this because even among neurodivergent people, I am in a minority in my How Autism Manifests for me."

Amelia echoes similar sentiments, noting that only about half of autistic individuals experience alexithymia, leading to a lack of representation for those who are highly attuned to their internal experiences.

Amelia (03:44):
"Truly, only half of people with autism have alexithymia."

---

The Consequences of Masking

The conversation shifts to the negative impacts of masking, including increased stress, physical illness, and mental health challenges. Emily shares her struggles with interoception and neuroception, making it difficult to engage in people-pleasing behaviors typically associated with masking.

Emily (04:00):
"I am hyper sensitive to interoception, which is body sensations... I think I am also quite sensitive to what Stephen Porges calls neuroception."

Amelia adds that masking leads to sacrificing one's true self for the sake of others' happiness, creating a persistent gap between who they are and who they present themselves to be.

Amelia (06:00):
"We have less of a sense of, like, self that stops at the skin. Does that make sense?"

---

Unmasking in Personal Relationships

The hosts discuss how unmasking affects personal relationships, particularly with family. Devin Price's experiences highlight both negative and supportive interactions during the unmasking process.

Amelia (10:45):
"If they're not all good, in which case they are no longer in his life."

They explore the emotional toll of revealing one's true self, which can lead to strained or severed relationships but ultimately fosters authentic connections.

Emily (11:28):
"As we began unmasking... As soon as I put on the mask, I would have to hard solve in the bathtub for half an hour because there's a profound incongruence."

---

Finding Community Beyond the Mainstream

Amelia and Emily emphasize the importance of finding supportive communities, particularly within the queer and kink communities, which are more welcoming to neurodivergent individuals.

Amelia (13:45):
"He talks about ways you can create social connection out of your special interests, you know, meetups."

Emily elaborates on how these communities embrace diversity in identity and preferences, making them ideal spaces for unmasking and authentic self-expression.

Emily (14:12):
"Neurodiverse people, specifically autistic people, are more likely to identify as kinky and participate in the kink community."

---

Structural Injustices and Professional Challenges

The episode highlights systemic injustices faced by autistic individuals, including employment discrimination and even deportation for immigrants with autism diagnoses.

Amelia (19:14):
"Turns out there are news stories about people being deported from the UK, New Zealand, Australia, because autism is seen as a medical burden."

Emily shares her personal experiences with job interviews and the challenges of masking to secure employment, only to face ongoing masked demands at the workplace.

Emily (21:44):
"If interviewers know that the person is autistic, they tend to hire that person more often and have more positive feelings."

---

Strategies for Unmasking

Drawing from both Devin Price's and Megan Anna Neff's work, the hosts discuss mindful and gentle unmasking strategies. Megan's Autistic Burnout Workbook introduces principles like the play principle and the pleasure principle to facilitate unmasking.

Emily (45:18):
"Play is the universal mammalian motivational system of friendship... it's fun and you can stop at any point."

Amelia reflects on reclaiming agency over masking, choosing when and how to wear the mask rather than doing it reflexively for survival.

Amelia (52:12):
"I now am much more conscious of the mask... it's a choice now."

---

Balancing Masking and Unmasking in Professional Life

Both hosts explore the complex balance between masking for professional effectiveness and the personal cost it entails. Emily discusses how her role as a sex educator relies on her ability to mask naturally, but unmasking leads to concerns about being taken seriously.

Emily (60:25):
"If I do that, I can't teach about sex. I have to be teaching about autism."

Amelia shares her fears of how unmasking could impact her career as a conductor, highlighting the persistent challenges in professional settings.

Amelia (53:25):
"Am I too off-putting for large groups of people? Am I not relatable enough?"

---

The Dual Costs of Masking and Unmasking

The conversation concludes by acknowledging that both masking and unmasking come with their own sets of challenges and consequences. However, the long-term benefits of unmasking—such as improved health and authentic living—outweigh the immediate discomfort and risks.

Emily (49:54):
"And the solutions are the same. Except even more so."

Amelia reinforces that unmasking requires embracing one's true self, even if it means facing societal rejection or structural barriers.

Amelia (64:53):
"The chasm is just bigger and the cost is higher."

---

Conclusion

"Unmasking: Or, Masking Part Deux" offers a profound exploration of the intricate dynamics between masking and unmasking for feminists and autistic individuals. Through personal anecdotes, research insights, and practical strategies, Emily and Amelia Nagoski provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and rewards associated with living authentically.

Amelia (69:15):
"We have never talked about this before... It's a relief that explains so much."

Emily (69:17):
"We don't have to do an episode about autistic burnout because we wrote a book. We did it already."

This episode serves as both a guide and a source of solidarity for those navigating the path toward unmasking and embracing their true selves.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Amelia (00:00):
  "We're talking about masking and unmasking because we got requested to talk about it more and in more detail."

• Emily (01:25):
  "Masking is a trauma response. You do it in order to feel safe. And it's not good for you because it causes all this dissonance."

• Amelia (06:00):
  "We have less of a sense of, like, self that stops at the skin. Does that make sense?"

• Amelia (13:45):
  "He talks about ways you can create social connection out of your special interests, you know, meetups."

• Amelia (19:14):
  "Turns out there are news stories about people being deported from the UK, New Zealand, Australia, because autism is seen as a medical burden."

• Emily (45:18):
  "Play is the universal mammalian motivational system of friendship... it's fun and you can stop at any point."

• Amelia (52:12):
  "I now am much more conscious of the mask... it's a choice now."

• Emily (60:25):
  "If I do that, I can't teach about sex. I have to be teaching about autism."

• Amelia (64:53):
  "The chasm is just bigger and the cost is higher."

---

Transcript

[Amelia]

Hi, this is Amelia. I'm going to be doing lives again Fridays at 4 in May and June at our YouTube channel, YouTube.coministsurvivalproject I'll be answering questions, singing songs, and talking about Murderbot. I hope you can join us. We're talking about masking and unmasking because we got requested to talk about it more and in more detail. So to prepare for that, I read a book. It's Devin Price's new book called Unmasking A for Life. And you read his second book, Unmasking Autism.

[Emily]

First book, Unmasking Autism. Second book.

[Amelia]

I thought his first book was Laziness does not Exist.

[Emily]

Oh, autism specific book.

[Amelia]

His autism specific book.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Amelia]

Okay. So I also was like, okay, get, like, how to be specific about, like, what are the steps to unmask? And he begins talking about how to stop people pleasing, basically, and living transgressively.

[Emily]

Okay, so let's. Let's start. First of all, if you're like, I don't know if I need to listen to a whole episode about masking and unmasking, and if that's the case, tldr. Tldl. I guess too long didn't listen. The moral of the story is that masking is a trauma response. You do it in order to feel safe. And the. It's. It's not good for you because it causes all this dissonance. There's a gap between who you truly are and who you're pretending to be. And that causes stress in the body, which causes all kinds of physical illness and mental health issues. And so you unmask in places where you feel safe enough.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And that is all in our first episode about masking.

[Emily]

Right. And people pleasing and awareness of safety in your body are. One of my struggles with these, with these books is that they're really good descriptions of Amelia's autism.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And they are. I feel alienated from the autistic community by books like this because even among neurodivergent people, I. I am in a minority in my How Autism Manifests for me, because, yeah, as we have said over and over, I am hyper sensitive to interoception, which is body sensations. And as a result of that, I think I am also quite sensitive to what Stephen Porges calls neuroception, which is a feeling of safety or safety's absence in the body.

[C]

Right.

[Emily]

And I am less tuned into people pleasing and performing according to the rules and sacrificing myself so that other people can feel happy.

[Amelia]

Those.

[Emily]

It's Just. It's just not how I do.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And. And when. When books matter about autism, don't talk about me. I mean, anybody would be like, well, that's. That makes me feel sad. I feel like anybody would be like, this is. I picked this book up expecting it to be about me in a way. I don't feel represented.

[C]

And.

[Emily]

And I.

[Amelia]

Yeah, that's understandable. And truly, only half of people with autism have alexithymia. There just isn't much talking about those who are on the absolute other end of the spectrum.

[Emily]

And my hype, my. We've talked about. In the car accident episode, we talked about how I experienced my hypersensitivity to interoception as a way that I felt different in a work setting.

[C]

Yes.

[Emily]

Because it was weird that I had so much body awareness and I didn't know.

[C]

Yeah. That.

[Emily]

That. That wasn't.

[Amelia]

You really didn't know that? That wasn't typical. I really didn't. You really didn't know.

[Emily]

How was I supposed to know? Because nobody ever fucking talks about it. They talk about. I mean, if you're tuned into this kind of conversation, you'll hear people talking about, I couldn't feel my feelings, I couldn't feel my body sensations. You don't hear people talking about. I was so very tuned. Like, my body would not shut up about how I felt on the inside. And I didn't know that nobody else in the room had had that experience.

[C]

How.

[Emily]

How was I supposed to know?

[Amelia]

There's no way you could have known.

[Emily]

No way I couldn't have known.

[C]

No.

[Emily]

Fortunately, there's me saying it. So anybody else who hears this, who has that experience can be like, oh, that's an experience.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]

Okay, go ahead.

[Amelia]

Sorry. So he begins with talking about, like, some actual concrete steps of unmasking people.

[Emily]

Pleasing and what we. Just.

[Amelia]

To stop people pleasing and to get comfortable with transgression.

[Emily]

Transgression, right.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

To get okay with being disliked, with recognizing that people are going to make you want to conform and you're going to have to be like, no. Right.

[Emily]

The reason we started masking in the first place was to pretend that we were what everybody was indicating what we needed to be.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And even to pretend that we want what people are telling us that we're supposed to want. And that's a.

[Emily]

Even so far as, like, we believe it is the thing we want.

[Amelia]

Even so far as we believe because we stop.

[C]

We.

[Amelia]

People like me, who have a hard time listening to their internal experience were trained and it is known that Alexithymia is partly, at least, learned socialized, where from a very young age, you learn that your feelings are what people tell you they are. Because, indeed, from infancy, our feelings are the feelings of the people around us.

[C]

Right.

[Amelia]

We don't understand that there's a distinction between who we are and who other people are. We have less of a sense of, like, self that stops at the skin. Does that make sense?

[Emily]

Yes.

[Amelia]

Right. So, like, other people telling us what we need and how we feel is our primary way of understanding our own existence. So as we come into, like, growing up and our brains kind of turning into actual human person identity brains, it's a. It's a transition to have to decide, you know, like, the terrible twos when you learn the word.

[C]

No.

[Amelia]

It's like this magical decision to get, like, oh, what other people say might not be. It might not be the thing. And I can be like, no. And, you know, decide that the thing that I have in mind is the thing that the way things should be. So you have always had that, like, internal voice that says, nope, what those people are saying is not true. Here's what I'm feeling. This is the thing that's true.

[C]

Right. Mm.

[Amelia]

And I have not. I have always shut down my internal voice and followed along with the thing that people told me. But I have always been comfortable with conflict. And I know. I guess most people are conflict avoidant. Is that accurate?

[Emily]

Yeah, I think people. The one way that I tend to be. Oh, one way that I tend to be more like sort of the general population than you is that whereas if you feel confronted with something, if you don't say something about it, you regret it later. Whereas if I ever do say something, I regret it. And I never regret it if I don't confront the person, because I only ever feel like I didn't improve anything by having the conflict. All I did was make everybody unhappy.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

I feel like even if I don't win or improve anything, at least somebody else who felt the way I felt, saw someone stand up, saw that this. I did not make this space safe and comfortable for someone who did something wrong. Does that make sense?

[Emily]

Yeah, sure. Of course.

[C]

Yes.

[Emily]

And.

[Amelia]

It doesn't matter. But the thing is that he is writing very much about people who are conflict avoidant. And, like, you're gonna have to face conflict. You're gonna have to ask for what you need, and when they tell you no, you're gonna have to insist on it.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Maybe the difference is that because I mask somewhat less, because I do Have a very strong. Have always had a very strong internal sense of what my own desires and interests and beliefs are. All of my early experience was with, like, saying what my point of view was and being smackdown for it.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And I have learned. Just. Just don't. Whereas all your early experience was not. Except for on those instances where it was just where. Where you actually were aware of feeling at odds with the people around you. On those occasions when it was that strong, when you were aware, you can't not say and do something about it.

[Amelia]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Whereas I'm just always aware of it, and it almost never makes a situation better.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And I think Devin Price is writing from a point of view of, like, who needs this information the most and addressing them and their needs.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So somebody who is both. Alexithymia. Alexithymic. Has alexithymia.

[Emily]

Is Alexithy. And is a people pleaser.

[Amelia]

And is a people pleaser. That's the person who needs this information.

[Emily]

The most because that's a person who both is not aware of their internal experience.

[C]

Right.

[Emily]

And has shut down their internal voice in order to make space for recognizing what other people need from them.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So he talks about doing this in personal relationships and at work. And in terms of personal relationships, of course, that begins with family. And he writes a lot about his own family and the ways that his unmasking journey was stymied by negative interactions with his family or supported by positive interactions and the ways that he can tell them, this is a thing that's true about me, and kind of, like, ride the wave of their denial and grief and anger and then just, like, get to the other side. And that means that they're his family and they now are all good. Does that make sense?

[Emily]

Sure.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

As we began unmasking.

[Amelia]

Except for the people who aren't all good, in which case they are no longer in his life.

[Emily]

Exactly. Yeah. That's.

[C]

Yep.

[Emily]

It's been.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

A challenge for people who know us pre and post diagnosis, as we've gone through the process of unmasking.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Like, I had an interaction with a family member. I was like, let me put on the mask and show you what that looks like. And then that person's response when I put on the mask, I put a little smile on. I made eye contact and, like, brightened my voice and talked and, like, talked about things they were interested in. And this person responded with, like, that's the person that I know. That's the person I want in my life. And then I dropped the mask. And I was like, this is who I actually am. If I did that for any extended period of time, I would have to hard solve in the bathtub for half an hour because there's a profound incongruence between who I truly am and who it feels much more pleasant for you to be around.

[Amelia]

Yes.

[Emily]

The reality is that me, all of me, as opposed to just like the concentrated, highly curated part of me that is my mask, it's. It's less fun for other people.

[Amelia]

100%. I have had specific requests from people also to be like, how can, how can you just be that other person?

[Emily]

Could, could you please just mask.

[Amelia]

Could you just be that other person for a little while?

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[Amelia]

Sure.

[C]

Yep.

[Amelia]

You bet.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

You're so much more autistic now.

[Amelia]

You're so much more autistic now.

[Emily]

You're acting more autistic.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And Devin Price has had these same kind of interactions. Just says, this is.

[Emily]

This is just who I am.

[Amelia]

And, and if they don't like it, like it's. That person is either in or out of your life.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So like these consequences of like losing people who are just not okay with your actual self, that's going to be one of the consequences. So he talks about how to find your people instead. So this is a thing where he goes further than other unmasking. I think conversations is. He talks about. So where do you find community when you're a weird ass person? Like, um, he's talking about you think of ways you can turn your. Because you need community and connection. Everyone does.

[Emily]

Everyone does.

[Amelia]

Finding it when you're a weird ass person is more difficult.

[Emily]

Thank God I'm an introvert.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Can you imagine? Oh, having to find. So he talks about ways you can create social connection out of your special interests, you know, meetups. He talks very specifically and a lot about the queer and kink community and how welcoming they are and how neurodivergent they are.

[C]

Yep.

[Amelia]

And you, you can explain better than I can, like how and why the queer and kink community are so welcoming to neurodivergent people and people who are just like weird ass people.

[Emily]

Okay, so people who are members of the queer community, LGBTQIA2 + folks, have themselves almost always had to go through a process of recognizing that who they truly are is different from who they were raised, that they were supposed to be. They were raised in the context of heteronormativity, of comp.

[C]

Het.

[Emily]

Compulsive heterosexuality, had to recognize who they actually are and decided to live that and live within the LGBTQIA2 + community. And so, like, game recognizes game. They're going to acknowledge that a person who is going through that process of disentangling themselves from compulsory heterosexuality is going through a process of figuring out who they truly are.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And that person is really different. And even more so in the kink community coming to acknowledge that, like, these are preferences that you have and desires that you have. Kink. Because one sensation, play. So there's three diagnostic criteria for autism. Right. There's the rigidity, like, having routines and doing things always the same way kind of thing. There is social differences and there are sensory differences. All three of those are pretty darn good fit with the kink community, particularly the kink community at its best. There's going to be explicitly negotiated rules for consent.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

There's going to be really different kinds of sensations than what most people are taught to expect from a sexual encounter or an erotic experience. And those sensory differences are welcomed and considered a normal part, which they absolutely are a normal part of human sexuality. So it may. It's absolutely. And there's research on this that shows that.

[Amelia]

Exactly.

[Emily]

Neurodiverse people, specifically autistic people, are more likely to identify as kinky and participate in the kink community.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Just as there's research that shows that more neurodivergent people are queer. Some kind of LGBTQIA plus identity. And he goes through the same explanation we understand, which is that once you are. Once you know how weird you are, like, you're just more open to being like. And here's all the rest of me.

[Emily]

Exploring all the dimensions of your weirdness.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If.

[Emily]

If you have the kind of brain that's, like, the rules don't. These don't understand these rules. Why are these the rules? You start recognizing the ways that you've internalized those rules, and you work on the process of dismantling the ways those rules have taken root inside you.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And he, like me, has a feeling like more neurotypical people, especially allistic people, are sort of limited by their natural acceptance of the rules.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Amelia]

And they would be more queer.

[C]

Yes.

[Amelia]

If they would be more out as queer if they. If they didn't just, like, find it so easy to follow the rules.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Okay.

[Emily]

So.

[Amelia]

So we talked about personal relationships that, like, as you come out as unmasked and start, like, stimming in public and, you know, finding community to obsess about your obsessions with, you're gonna change the people in Your life, some people are gonna come, some people are gonna go. And that, you know, that's gonna be a consequence of being unmasked. In real life, there's transgression has consequences. You might live further on the fringes of mainstream society and that's comfortable and good because your bubble is still your bubble. Just because it's not the uber bubble, you know, the, the like the main herd. You're in your own little herd and that's safe too. So then he talks about work consequences. Now with autism being classified as a disability, like in terms of the government and stuff, employers are mandated to make accommodations. But there are lots and lots of stories of the ways that autism is used as an excuse to fire people. He also mentioned in passing that if you are an immigrant, autism can be used as a reason to deport you from certain countries, which I did not know. And I googled that shit because I was like, what?

[C]

What?

[Amelia]

It's true. Turns out.

[C]

Yep.

[Amelia]

Turns out there are news stories about people being deported from the uk, New Zealand, Australia, due to like. Because apparently autism is like a, A burden medically.

[C]

Yep. Yeah.

[Amelia]

So that was intense to learn.

[C]

Yep.

[Emily]

Socialized medicine has a cost in terms of being an immigrant to a country because if you have a diagnosed disability, you are a higher support need and that means you're more expensive. And yeah, somebody like us could probably move to those countries and be okay because we're going to contribute to the economy in a way that pays for our presence.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

But, but what it has meant. There's a particular story that was told about like an 8 year old girl who's autistic and her mother is a doctor and her brother's developmentally typical and. And yet this eight year. So the eight year old girl alone was gonna have to be deported and the mom is like, how this is inhumane.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So that was a terrible story. But I. There are more structural injustices against autistic people than I even had known. And that was a, that was a disappointment to me. So there is a structure of work that is you interview for a job, you apply for a job, you interview for a job and then you get the job and you work at the job. And being an unmasked autistic person interviewing for a job. I have not interviewed for a job really, since I've been diagnosed.

[C]

Yep.

[Amelia]

With autism. But I definitely am feeling the feelings of like, if I'm unmasked in an interview, people will not like you. No. So apparently there's research that he cites that if Interviewers are talking to a person who is autistic, that person is less likely to get a job, to be offered a position, to get a second interview. That person is unlikable. And people can't articulate quite why. Yeah, she's like, that's kind of a weirdo. But if they know that the person they're talking to is autistic and they can be like, oh, that's why this person is weird, they tend to hire that person more often and to have more positive feelings about that person.

[Emily]

And it's. So if the person is high masking or not, the same is true. So if a high masking autistic person is masking and doing everything they can to appear heavy air quotes normal, they will still be perceived as less likable. But when people know that that high masking autistic person is masking their autism, they do have more positive feelings about that person.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amelia]

Which is great. And I have had. I have not had that experience. What I've had the experience of is people enjoying my mask in an interview and my mask being very effective. And then there's having the job. And that gets more complicated. Especially he talks about specifically if you're diagnosed while you're working a job and you're like, oh, turns out I'm autistic. And I, you know, if I'll. I'll do better, I'll work better, and I'll be more effective if I have these accommodations. And then the employer uses those accommodations as a reason to fire you.

[C]

Yep.

[Amelia]

Or. And a lot of times this. I've been fired from some jobs. I've been fired and fit. Not a good fit.

[Emily]

Not a good fit. For the.

[Amelia]

For the. For the. For the. For the social. For the vibes.

[Emily]

And you know what? They're not wrong.

[Amelia]

They're not wrong. I just didn't know that vibes were criteria. Were criterion for a job. I didn't know that. Like, yeah. And as Devin Price talks about, when you point out that part of a community culture is like, oh, being social at work is labor. It's emotional labor that you're requiring of me, but it's an unspoken requirement. You need me to be friendly in certain specific ways. So you're asking. That's another job responsibility that needs to be like, put in a job description.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Not, you know, but people take it for granted. Especially in America.

[Emily]

Yes. They don't know that that's a thing.

[Amelia]

That's labor. Except that when you. If you. Bryce points out, be like, hey, all this, like, social expectation is additional labor. And can we make it optional? Can we not evaluate people's performance based on vibes, but on, like, actual, like, whatever.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

That there are a lot of people who also don't want to do the social thing at work. They have social lives elsewhere, and they don't want to have that pressure of having to be friendly with their co workers.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

For no reason.

[C]

Right.

[Amelia]

These people that they have nothing in common with, that all they do is work in the same building, and they just want to go, like, do their job and get out.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Like people of color working in predominantly white institutions.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amelia]

It would be great if. If For a lot of people. More than just autistic people.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So as is the case with all kinds of universal design, when you make the world more accessible and you dispel things that we thought were kind of unwritten rules, everyone benefits.

[C]

Right.

[Amelia]

You put a ramp up to the door, everybody can access that door, you know?

[C]

Yep.

[Amelia]

So he also talks about, like, when he interviewed for jobs, he would wear, like, a purple jacket and have his hair dyed bright orange. And people were like, you're not going to get a job if you go like that. And he's like, yeah, I didn't get any of those jobs, but I went as myself. And that meant that I didn't have to go work at a place where I couldn't be who I was. And I remember my. The academic job I got straight out of doctoral school. I interviewed in a literal Brooks Brothers suit. Like, just as normie as possible. Like, just as. Just as holistic looking as I could possibly be.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

My hair was brown. I was wearing a structured, tailored thing. And.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And then as I worked there, I gradually wore less and less makeup and wore less and less structured clothes. My hair turned less and less natural colors. I got more and more tattoos. And it wasn't a problem because it was a kind of academia in the arts that, like. Okay, yeah, that's just how. That's fine. I was at a job where it didn't actually turn out that it mattered, but I could have been at a job where people objected.

[Emily]

And you have no way of knowing that if you had shown up at the interview looking that way, they would have hired you. They just accepted it from you because you gradually revealed yourself.

[Amelia]

Yes.

[Emily]

At the same time that you were revealing that you were good at your job.

[Amelia]

Exactly.

[C]

Exactly.

[Emily]

I did the same thing. I interviewed in a khaki cotton tailored suit and a pink and white windowpane check shirt from Brooks Brothers.

[Amelia]

So it's funny that we both remember exactly the outfit we were wearing.

[Emily]

Well, it's an important part of the mask.

[Amelia]

Oh, yeah.

[Emily]

My hair was brown in shoulder length. And in 2012, so I already like, I had a jobby job. I had a piece PhD. Then I got married and bought a house and I had like checked all the boxes of adulthood and I bleached my hair and started dyeing it blue. Purple fashion colors, not least because. So I had been wearing like heels and pencil skirts and literal cashmere and pearls to my job and makeup. For sure. During. During the school year. And I went to a meeting with somebody who was not in student affairs and I was wearing a literal fishtail pencil skirt and three and a half inch heels and literal cashmere and pearls. And my name tag that I had my name tag made to say Emily Nagaski, PhD.

[C]

Mm.

[Emily]

And so we're having a. We're having a conversation where someone else is asking for a favor from this person and I'm there to back them up in their request for this favor. And it's about alcohol consumption on campus. And this person who we're asking the favor of, the other person is asking for this favor. The person says, well, these have. Other people have been trying these kinds of things. What makes you think you're gonna make any difference? And I was, what. What makes you think it's gonna be different this time? And I said, well, I'm here. And she said, well, that's very arrogant of you. And I started backpedaling and was like, this is exactly the job that I've been training for since I myself was an undergrad starting in 1995. I have been doing this work and like, I already have data that suggests we're trending in a good direction. And I saw her eyes bloop. Flick down to my name tag and I watched her realize I wasn't a student.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[Emily]

Which is why I had my name tag made with Emily Nagaski. Emily. And yeah. Is because I know that I looked young.

[Amelia]

Look young.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Yeah. And she then began backpedaling. And I was like, as of this meeting, I realize there's literally nothing I can do that's going to cause people to take me seriously as a professional.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Other than have them see that I'm effective at my job. And I stopped dressing up. And like, there were days when I would wear three and a half inch heels and a blazer jacket and a button down Brooks Brothers dress shirt, but also jeans.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And my boss was informed that I was dressing inappropriately. And she, to her credit, was on my side. And she's like, she's not dressing for you. She is dressing for the students. She's dressing in a way that is connected to the students.

[Amelia]

That's a good boss.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Really good boss. And also, like, it just reinforced for me that, like, unless I masked perfectly and there's no such thing as masking perfectly, they were going to see through it and they were going to dislike me. And that's. That's. And not taking me seriously. And that's.

[Amelia]

That was real. I also had people talk about the way I dress. When I was a teacher, I wore jeans, and it was fine to wear jeans. A lot of people wore jeans, but apparently wasn't wearing the right kind of jeans. Like. Like.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And there were multiple, like, addressing a large crowd and kind of making eye contact with me. And I thought, I'm doing. They're not talking to me. I'm. I dress fine. And then, like, they would kind of list the things that were okay versus not okay. And they were talking about, like, definitely the stuff I was wearing. And I was like, really doesn't. I guess it matters.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

That's the thing is. I guess it matters.

[Amelia]

I guess it matters.

[Emily]

My therapist was talking about being attending a talk by someone and having her judgment of that person shaped by the lack of professionalism in the speaker's clothes. And I was like, that's a you problem.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I feel like you're the one who should have to change.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Because truly, what is the relationship between the ability to dress like a person who and the ability to be a person who.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

It's also classist and racist. It's a white supremacist ideal. Professionalism is an allistic white supremacist patriarchal ideal that is completely arbitrary. What we label as professional has nothing to do with work.

[C]

Right.

[Emily]

And we can tell that it's arbitrary because of how rapidly it has changed over the last hundred years.

[Amelia]

Yes. Yeah, exactly.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

There's clear evidence for it.

[Emily]

And.

[Amelia]

I struggle and I have struggled in my life. So the idea, though, that you're gonna unmask at your job and discover this is not a good fit. They can't tolerate me. I feel bad here. They refuse to make accommodations or you get fired. And there's not enough. You can't afford to sue them for wrongful termination or whatever the consequences are. The consequences mean that you might have to learn to live differently.

[C]

Yep.

[Amelia]

Than the, you know, standard American stereotype.

[C]

Yep.

[Amelia]

So Devin Price talks About different ways, transgressive ways of living in the world. He acknowledges that people who are neurodivergent are less likely to work full time, are more likely to live in poverty, have less access to disability benefits. Because the disability benefits are literally designed to keep people out of the system, provides resources. These are the people you go to. This is the number you call to get help. You know, go to your local library. Librarians can help you, you know, with the forms and the, and the whatever.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So he talks about ways to live kind of outside the mainstream, like tiny, tiny homes and van life and. And also different, like relational ways of living in the world. Multi generational families living together. He talks about autistic people who require support and cannot live alone being kind of at the mercy of a family who may or may not support them. This is a thing I had never thought about, being autistic and having to live potentially in an abusive home and like just how to tolerate abuse until you can get out. He talks about that, gives you some resources for that, which is like a little, little eye opening for me. But he also talks about ways of living in the world that are not just like you and your spouse and your kids, like it could be. He talks about polyamory and different structures of romantic relationships and you know, just some like unlabelable, specific examples of like how people live together and support each other that in ways that may be semiromantic or non romantic or sexual, but not romantic or romantic, but not sexual. And it's just like open your mind to all the ways of being. You don't have to do this, this just one way, which is great. And then talks about. And then he continues to talk about ways that like, it might not feel safe to live outside what the mainstream tells you that you should live. It might not feel safe. But you gotta ask your body, is that feeling real? Am I unsafe or do I just feel unsafe?

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amelia]

So. And as a result, you would end up living a life that doesn't look like any of the lives you see on tv.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

You started masking because you were unsafe and you need to protect yourself. So as you unmask and create life structures that are fit for who you truly are.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

You're going to feel unsafe because you were masking, because your mask was there to keep you safe.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

You unmask, you're going to feel vulnerable until you settle into the realization that you can live this different way and also be safe enough.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So really, the unmasking for Life thing is kind of like how our book is a book about stress in that the very beginning is like, here's how.

[Emily]

You deal with the actual stress in your body.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And then the rest is like how to deal with the consequences.

[C]

Yes.

[Emily]

Of living without a mask.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[Amelia]

Like here are, Here are our resources. Here are. Here's the big picture of what that's going to look like.

[Emily]

I love that he doesn't idealize it and then he doesn't assume it's going to go well. He doesn't even say that your current situation is tolerable.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And he doesn't. And the book is not a book about what are the steps to unmask. It's like, get comfortable with being disliked. Get comfortable with confrontation. And then here are the consequences of.

[Emily]

Transgressing, which of course there are.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So it's not like a. But, but how do I unmask? It's like you gradually peel away layers of falseness and you let yourself. You kind of let your freak flag fly fry.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And. And you just. And you just do it. And. And like.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

You're afraid somebody's gonna not like you and. Yeah, that's gonna happen. And that's for the best because you don't need that person in your life.

[Emily]

There is another brand new book by an Audi HD therapist, Megan Anna Neff, called the Autistic Burnout Workbook.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Which has a whole section on much more like specific how to unmask.

[Amelia]

I feel like I need to mention here that at the very end of Unmasking for Life, he quotes you as one of the authors of Burnout, the secret to unlocking the stress cycle. That like you say somewhere that your diagnosis came as a relief and you know, kind of explained why things are hard for you that aren't hard for other people.

[Emily]

When was this book published?

[Amelia]

This year? 2025.

[Emily]

Oh, I said it in the New York Times article.

[Amelia]

Oh, you said in the New York Times article.

[Emily]

Okay, that would be.

[Amelia]

That would be why. Okay, that would be why he's. Why he quotes you and your diagnosis instead of me who made a whole goddamn YouTube channel about autism and I.

[Emily]

Guess wasn't gonna like pause and be like the other co author that's an identical twin. There's a 90% likelihood that if one twin is diagnosed, the other twin will also be diagnosed. Maybe I should investigate whether or not the other author of this book who has a 90% chance of being autistic.

[Amelia]

No, he has no responsibility.

[Emily]

No, of course not.

[Amelia]

But when there's a nice, convenient New York Times article to quote. Of course.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[Amelia]

Anyway, so he does talk about autistic.

[Emily]

How does it feel to be my vestigial toe?

[Amelia]

It's, you know, it's totally fine. It's totally fine.

[C]

It's great.

[Amelia]

You paid for the cabin we stayed at for our birthday.

[C]

That's good.

[Amelia]

To be your vestigial toe. Very fancy.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And probably the last time I'll be able to go for many a long time.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

I'm not gonna fly again for a while.

[Emily]

Not for a while. So I thought I would say just like tiny little bits and pieces. If that's. If having a workbook about autistic burnout seems like something that would be helpful for you. I feel like this would be helpful. There's a whole section on sleep that I intend to dive into very deeply because as I've mentioned multiple times over the course of this calendar year, my sleep is, and has been for, I look back on it, about five years.

[Amelia]

Oh, really?

[Emily]

Yeah, it's been a while.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Since I have reliably slept well, there have been like windows of time when my sleep was better than at other times. But there's been a lot of awake for two hours in the middle of the night, unable to fall back asleep.

[Amelia]

Well, that doesn't seem. That's just like first sleep, second sleep, two hours in the middle.

[Emily]

Two hours is more than it should be.

[Amelia]

Is okay okay?

[Emily]

Yeah, it's. It's a lot. So masking the. The ways of unmasking. There's like cool things about like.

[Amelia]

Wait, you were going to tell us the author of this? It's a workbook called the Autistic Burnout Workbook.

[Emily]

Right. By Megan NNF.

[Amelia]

Dr. NNF.

[Emily]

Megan Anna Neff.

[C]

Okay.

[Amelia]

Megan Anna Neff is what I heard it is.

[Emily]

It's Megan Anna Neff.

[Amelia]

You need some glottal stops in there. Megan Anna Anna Neff.

[Emily]

Neff.

[Amelia]

Megan Anna Neff. That's what we both say. I'm sorry, we're not making fun of your name. It's just awesome.

[Emily]

So she writes about the masking paradox, how it makes it harder. This is a quote. It makes it harder to get the accommodations you need for handling daily stressors. Yeah, nailed it. A hundred percent. Masking requires overriding your natural instincts to self soothe. So one of the things I discovered about my mask happened very recently when I watched the Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which is a South Korean show on Netflix about, I would say ASD level 2 autistic attorney lawyer who Is a savant at the law who has memorized law books by the age of 10 and who is low. Masking, like, doesn't mask. Stims visibly in meetings. Struggles with the transition of stepping from, like, a hallway into a room, and manages that struggle of the transition from one space into another space by, like, counting to three, taking several steps, and then stepping in. And like, every doorway, we see this happen over and over and over again. And the way that young Woo walks was a revelation to me because it was how my body feels on the inside, which is a contrast to the way that I attempt to move my body. You and I had dance lessons our whole childhoods. We had dance lessons our whole childhoods. And I learned how to move my body in a structured way so that I wasn't moving my body in an autistic way, to be honest. So that a lot of times I would notice that I was swaying, and I would stop myself from swaying. I would notice that I was, like, walking too fast. I would notice that I was moving my body, stimming with my hands, unable to sit still in my chair. And a lot of that stuff, particularly as I transitioned through college and into grad school, I learned how to mask my whole body. And it was only this year, watching the extraordinary attorney Woo and feeling as I watched how her body moved, that's what my body feels like on the inside. That my mask is not just my face and my vocabulary and, like, that sort of, like, social performance. It was my whole. It was my posture, it was my walking gait. That my mask is all of this stuff. And a lot of it was denying my body the stimming that it was longing for. And the reason I was so dysregulated after spending a bunch of time in public is because I was masking that stuff, and I wasn't even masking it that well.

[Amelia]

Yeah, that's the thing about masking.

[Emily]

People who were paying attention absolutely could tell, like, if I'm leading a whole day workshop, I'm not going to be able to mask my whole body all day.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And I teach. I train a lot of therapists, and, like, occasionally therapists would come up to me and be like, have you ever investigated blah, blah, blah, kind of intervention? Because they could recognize all, like, the great big giant ball of energy that felt to them like anxiety, and, like, partly was anxiety. They could recognize it in a way that. And, like, label it and talk to me about it in a way that, like, a general audience maybe couldn't. Does that make sense?

[Amelia]

Yeah, that's the thing about masking is that even when you mask really hard.

[Emily]

And make yourself acceptable, people can still tell you're different.

[Amelia]

People can feel, even subliminally they respond to the work you're doing rather than to the result you come up with.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

So just to. Just to give people sort of broad strokes about the process specific process of unmasking as opposed to the consequences of unmasking, which is what Devin Price writes about. First of all, Megan nnf Megan NNF writes about two tactics for mindful unmasking. First of all of unmasking when you're by yourself, a lot of the reason why we mask has to do. A lot of why we unmask has to do with feeling socially connected and.

[Amelia]

A sense of belonging.

[Emily]

So it's easier to begin the process of unmasking for a lot of us when we're by ourselves. And that was certainly my experience. And also becoming more strategic and thoughtful about when you do mask because again, masking is survival strategy. It's about being safe enough.

[Amelia]

Absolutely.

[Emily]

And there are some places where you're not safe enough if you don't mask. And then she absolutely speaks my language when she talks about two principles of gentle unmasking. And those principles are the play principle and the pleasure principle. Play is the.

[C]

Oh, there you go.

[Amelia]

Literally your language.

[Emily]

Yeah, literally my language. So play according to Jaak Panksep's seven primary process emotions. If you've read Come Together, you'll recognize this from the two big chapters about the emotional floor plan. Play is the universal mammalian motivational system of friendship. So play is any behavior you engage in for its own sake because everybody involved just like, likes it. It's fun and you can stop at any point. And there's no consequences to anything that happens in a state of play. I suck at play. I have always sucked at play. And so this has been a challenge for me for like a whole bunch of years. But I really appreciate that she's like, this is the state you get to where there's no consequences, where it's just exploring with curiosity to see what feels fun. And the pleasure principle is similar, where it's just like what feels good. There's a, there's, there's a section heading that makes me feel personally called out, which is stunted play leads to stunted identity formation. Megan nnf how dare you?

[Amelia]

Yeah, Megan Anne. But do, do, do, do, do. Megan Anne.

[Emily]

I will just read this one very short two sentence paragraph. Many of us develop what I call Play shame.

[C]

Ah.

[Emily]

Feeling ashamed of how we play.

[Amelia]

Okay, can I. Okay, I'm gonna say something right here. Before you say anything else, I'm just gonna say, when you and Rich started going to Disney World, I was a little like, how dare you? Yeah, how dare you? Fun. How dare you? Silly.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]

How frivolous. What a waste of time and money.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And also, like, how. How do you just go and be and do fun things? How do you just go and do childish things?

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Play shame.

[Amelia]

Aren't you.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Aren't you ashamed of the childish? Because I was ashamed of the childish when I was a child.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Stunted play leads to stunted identity formation. Did you know?

[Amelia]

Fuck you, Megan.

[C]

Nrf.

[Emily]

Here's the second sentence. Since play and self are so interconnected, this shame affects your ability to flourish and find your true self. So the process of unmasking is sort of inherently the process of exploring what play feels like in your body and mind. And so there are exercises about reflecting on your experiences of play. If you can even identify, like, what. What kind of games you like to play, like, creativity, things that you are passionately interested in, social play, nostalgic play, being in nature, using your body, making a plan to play, which is always necessary. I struggle less with the pleasure one, but I think you probably struggle more than I do with the pleasure one, which is that when your radio signals about your. When your sense of what other people want and desire overwhelms your sense of what you want and desire, it's difficult to cue into your own signals and even know what feels good, which is the thing that a lot of people who are raised as girls experience. So quote, the pleasure principle is the process of getting in touch with your pleasure and delight and learning to take your pleasure seriously. So a big chunk of unmasking, while a lot of my experience of unmasking was, like, grief and pain, how wonderfully helpful to be, like, a big part of the process unmasking is getting in touch with what feels good in your body also.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]

And, like, there's not a lot that you talked about in Devin Price's book that's like, the potential consequences of living transgressively. A lot of the potential consequences are unwanted consequences, painful consequences, the suffering from which you've been protecting yourself all this time with your mask, you are trading the suffering the mask causes for the suffering that unmasking causes. Exactly. And the reason we do that is because it actually ultimately, yeah, on balance, is better for us to unmask.

[Amelia]

Right. Because Masking is so bad for our.

[Emily]

Health, our literal, so bad health, physical health.

[Amelia]

Not just a I don't feel good, but like, it will eventually destroy your organs.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

So there's a masking pro cons table, which is incredibly helpful. So when you do motivational interviewing, which is the thing I did a lot in my job, you ask, what are some of the good things about X? And what are some of the not so good things about X? Because there's always not so good things. And then you say, here's what makes it a double pro con list. It is. What are some of the good things about not X. Yeah. And what are some of the not so good things about not X. That way, you are fully exploring the cost benefit ratio of all of the things. This is also a worksheet in chapter two of burnout.

[C]

Right.

[Emily]

In chapter two. Good things, not so good things.

[C]

Yes, yes.

[Emily]

About it. Good things about not this and not so good things about not this. And then there's a worksheet for a thing that I've been working on with our Covid provider about strategies for managing times when you have to mask. Like, bringing in your whole self, having a sense of agency about it. It's not being forced on you. You're making a deliberate choice to do this.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And you are in control of when the mask goes on and when you take the mask off.

[C]

Yes.

[Emily]

And you have a plan in place for minimizing the damage to you you're doing to yourself while you mask and for caring for yourself when you take the mask off.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

This is a major change that I've made in my life that I now am much more conscious of the mask. Like, I was always aware of the show. I mean, I've called it the show, but it was much more reflexive. And as I have practiced, what's it like when I don't mask? Like, who even am I under the mask? It's a choice now, and that feels better because I'm like, I'm choosing the mask right now. And when you do it with agency, as opposed to out of reflex, for survival, it's a different experience. It's still tiring, but it's not that soul grinding, scraping out your insides.

[Emily]

I'm gonna say out loud a thing that I have not said out loud in public before, which is that since I have gotten better at unmasking and I have made masking more of an autonomous choice, I find it much harder to mask. I find the experience of choosing to put it on, it's like choosing to put on a bra. It's like choosing. Choosing to put on a corset. It's like choosing to put on some hard pants. It's like, why? Like, I don't want to choose that.

[Amelia]

I don't want to do it.

[Emily]

It's gonna hurt.

[Amelia]

And my.

[Emily]

My livelihood, my, like, sense of purpose and meaning is derived from the show I put on. I'm effective at my job because of how good my mask is. And now I am aware of the cost.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Like, I have a hard time wanting to do it.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

I am getting well enough now to go back to conducting, and I'm applying for conducting positions and, like, wondering.

[Emily]

Can.

[Amelia]

I be a conductor who is autistic? Am I too off putting for large groups of people? Am I not relatable enough?

[Emily]

I really take comfort in that research that shows that masked autistic people are perceived more negatively when they are not known to be autistic and they are perceived as being weirdos. Our masks are not as convincing as we thought.

[Amelia]

No, no, no.

[Emily]

We got away with it because of how charming our weirdness was.

[Amelia]

Okay. But the research also shows that that is only true for, like, first impressions.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And that over the long term, and.

[Emily]

I have had this experience, you're just autistic, and people get tired of it.

[Amelia]

People get tired of the autism.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And it's no longer, like, long term. It's not as good. People don't like it as much. But I also feel like it's very possible that now that I know that I'm autistic and I know when I'm masking and when I'm not masking, that it could also be true that I could be a conductor who is.

[C]

We.

[Amelia]

No. God, I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid.

[Emily]

Well, the only way to know is to put yourself in front of a choir and see.

[Amelia]

I've done that.

[Emily]

Oh, yeah, you have done that.

[Amelia]

I have done that. And it's good in the short term. That's what I know for sure.

[Emily]

You know for sure that you can go in and, like, lead a rehearsal.

[Amelia]

A single rehearsal or a clinic or romancing. I know. I call it romancing the choir.

[Emily]

I'm.

[C]

People.

[Amelia]

People really enjoy that for me. And I've had choirs that I've conducted for many, many years. Many, many. Like eight or nine years, the same choir.

[Emily]

That's a lot of years.

[Amelia]

And it goes great, right? It goes fine. But there's definitely. I stay the same as, like, my. I stay the same. And. And the response to it is different over time.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And that doesn't take into account the everything that's part of the job that doesn't happen in front of the choir, that happens in front of like, other people, like administrators and.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Parents and whatever else.

[C]

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[Amelia]

I am, I'm so afraid it is.

[Emily]

Only through I have, I have come to recognize that the reason why I would count a job as starting from the moment I park my car.

[Amelia]

Right.

[Emily]

Is because, like, I'm counting the total hours I have to wear the mask. And it is from parking my car to getting back in my car. So the, the work day is not merely however many hours I am in front of people at the job. It is as soon as I am. Like when we give a, you know, a two hour talk, but we have to spend half an hour with people before the talk starts. We're already in the mask.

[Amelia]

It's usually more than half an hour.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]

And it's. Ouch.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

So. So here we are. Neither. We have never talked about this before. I think I could still be a sex educator if I continued to mask and just have it be Emily's really wacky and it would be really nourishing because it is my something larger. But I think the more unmask, the more aware I am of the cost of masking. And I don't know that I can do it anymore.

[Amelia]

The more you mask, the more aware.

[Emily]

The more I unmask, the more I wear. I am of the cost of masking.

[C]

Right.

[Emily]

And the less certain I am that it's worth it. And I, I, I mean, all the workbooks, everything is like, you have to make choices about when and where and how hard you mask. And I have tried giving talks where I don't mask as much, and people come up and tell me they're worried about me. You laugh?

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

People think I'm not okay, and it's.

[Emily]

Like, I'm better than I was.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

So I. One of the worst situations for an educator like me is for your students to be worried about you while you're trying to teach them.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And when I don't mask, people are like, what's wrong with Emily? I think that's I'm autistic is what's wrong with me, if you want to put it that way.

[Amelia]

Black Lady Sketch show has this sketch of, like, what happens when you go into work not wearing makeup. And like, everybody's like, God, you look terrible. With you.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Are you sick?

[Amelia]

Should you be here?

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[Amelia]

It's very Funny. But it's also like.

[C]

Yeah. Mm.

[Amelia]

Because the thing is that the mask is.

[C]

We.

[Amelia]

We put so much value on the appearance of health, the appearance of wellness, and that means more to people than. It's blinded them to the act. Okay, I'm not gonna say blinded, because people.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

It has inured them to the reality of what wellness can look like, and they think that there's the. There's only one way that wellness can.

[C]

Look.

[Amelia]

And that's just not true. And I think. Okay, here is. When you unmask in public and you. Me, as the physical toe, I don't matter. But you, as the famous one who gets quoted in the New York Times especially, have an opportunity to be a role model, to be a person who is unmasked in public. And, like, not that you have a responsibility or a duty to do that.

[Emily]

It's not what I'm here, is it?

[Amelia]

Is that you. You could. You could.

[Emily]

If I do that, I can't teach about sex. I have to be teaching about autism. Because the only context where me unmasked is an educational experience is when the topic is my mask.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

That might be like, I can't be talking about. I can't just be teaching about, like, anorgasmia, which is my very. One of my very favorite things to talk about. And if I'm not wearing my mask, people are worried about me and whether or not I'm okay, instead of listening to the science and the strategies and the. Yeah, because. So here's. Here's a more detailed explanation of why that's the case. My job as a sex educator.

[C]

I.

[Emily]

Deliver a lot of information, and that's very important. But people have told me for 20 years that far more important than the information I deliver is the normalizing way that I deliver it. I can say these words and talk about these things with truly without having a negative internal experience myself. It feels very normal. And, like, look, it's okay to talk about these things. It's normalizing. You help to make it normal. You help people to feel normal. I found out that I'm normal when I listen to you talk. And if the way I'm presenting is. Is not. Is atypical, normal people will be worried about me, which means they're worried about themselves, which means they're worried. And they're not learning that they're normal. They're just thinking about whether or not I'm normal or if I'm sick.

[Amelia]

That's a good point. That's a good point. But over time, maybe in A few generations, the idea of normal and healthy will be expanded to include.

[Emily]

No, I absolutely believe that it will.

[C]

Yeah. But.

[Amelia]

And the only way that'll happen is.

[Emily]

If people are doing it and someone who enters the profession out as autistic and comparatively unmasked.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And like, their whole brand is built on their autistic presence.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Like, that's so much better.

[Amelia]

Well, there's good news. Devin Bryce quotes you as being relieved to be autistic. So he is, like, hyping up your brand as.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

As the autistic science person. And he does not. He does not, weirdly. Because the New York Times article was about come. Come Together.

[C]

Right. Yeah.

[Amelia]

He doesn't say that you're the author of Come Together. He says you're one of the authors of Burnout.

[Emily]

Well, yeah, because autistic burnout is a conversation particularly among autistic people.

[Amelia]

And he's. And he quotes us in the Conte context of talking about autistic burnout.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Equals you, I should say.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Not talking about burnout, but talking about my own autism diagnosis, which, like, he's.

[Amelia]

You're. You're the author of this book about burnout, and you later found out you were autistic.

[Emily]

So that sort of, you know, post hoc makes it a book about autistic burnout.

[Amelia]

I mean, it kind of does, though.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And there are. There are people who are like, no, autistic burnout is really different. And when they talk about autistic. We should do an episode about autistic burnout.

[Amelia]

No, we shouldn't, because it's the fucking same. Even Devin Price is like, yeah, so they're basically the same. The only difference is that for autistic people, it. Burnout can lead to, like, regression of skills.

[Emily]

Right. Regression of skills. And, like, sort of more like the stuff you struggle with as an autistic person.

[C]

Right.

[Amelia]

Becomes worse.

[Emily]

Vastly more difficult when you are burnt out. And burnout is facilitated by masking, which is also true for people who are holistic, who are just like, masking because of gender and masking because of classism and masking because of racism.

[Amelia]

We don't have to do an episode about autistic burnout because I literally made a YouTube channel.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And said all the things about autistic burnout.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I also feel like they're the same. I mean, like.

[Amelia]

No, they are the same.

[Emily]

Certainly. The physiology.

[Amelia]

Yes. The physiology is the same. The solutions are the same.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Except even more so.

[Amelia]

It's just amplified is all.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And, like, maybe it's going to be.

[Emily]

Less of, particularly because we did such a good job of like, there in the last chapter. We're like, there is a gap between who you truly are and who the world expects you to be. And you got this mad woman whose job it is to try to, like, fill that chasm.

[Amelia]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We do not need to do an episode on autistic burnout. We like name because we wrote a book. We did it.

[Emily]

We did it already. We did. We did it.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Emily]

So just. If you're autistic, just. Just add the word every time we say burnout at autistic.

[Amelia]

And like autistic, you're good because there.

[Emily]

Is indeed a chasm between who you truly are and who the world expects you to be. And the. The chasm is just bigger and the cost is higher.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And your strategies are slightly different. And as Devin Price talks about, the consequences might go a little further. You might like, all the things we say are true, and it might go a little further into, like. It's not just that you might live as like a different, you know, home structure, but it might be like one of these home structures that people think are weird. You might live in your car and that might be okay with you.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

You might turn to sex work, and that might be your solution. And that's. That's what's. That's your deal for now.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

That's a great example of cost benefit analysis. Because if you live in a place where sex work is illegal, but it's a way to be able to do work that is a fit for your energy maintenance and choices about when to mask and when not to mask, like it's better for you and it brings this extra legal risk and.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

That may be a beneficial net balance.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]

So both of us are in a situation where we're beginning to confront how to do our work.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

In a way that, I mean, so.

[Amelia]

Far, every time we work, I still.

[Emily]

Do the show 100%. Our show that we did in Cambridge.

[Amelia]

Yeah, that was our show. My show is less physical now. I have to do a lot more, like sitting in stillness and like going to my. To my. To my wise old lady place. I do a lot more wise old lady. I feel I can get away with it now because I'm fatter now and have a little gray in my hair.

[C]

Little. A little. A little.

[Amelia]

A little tiny bit. So I feel like I can. I can, I can give wise old lady. I can give my. I can give some crone.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And. And not have to be quite so Muppet. I can be Muppet crone.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Anyway, that's just. That's because of the physical disability that has nothing to do with autism.

[Emily]

I don't want to end on, like. I feel like we need a better way to end.

[Amelia]

So people asked about unmasking, and I saw that Devin Price was putting out this book, and. And I was listening to it, and at the very end, he's like, one of the authors of Burnout the Secret to It. And I'm like, oh, shit. I'm so glad I read all the way to the end.

[C]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Because if I had not acknowledged the fact that he.

[Emily]

What's it.

[C]

Why.

[Amelia]

Because he's talking about autistic burnout. Okay. How masking leads to burnout. How autistic burnout is basically the same as burnout. And here's this book about burnout, written by an author who didn't know she.

[Emily]

Was autistic and then found out she was and was like, it's a relief.

[Amelia]

And then told the New York Times, and it was.

[Emily]

It was a hundred percent, like, a huge relief. This explains.

[Amelia]

This explains so much.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Hannah Gadsby has talked about what the diagnosis did for them.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

They describe my experience very well. That, like, there are some things I am just never going to be good at and I can stop beating the. Out of myself.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

For not even being able to get up to, like, baseline with those particular skills.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I can fully embrace my strengths, the thing that I am good at, and allow myself to be terrible at these other things that I have spent years in therapy trying to understand.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Why it was so hard and how come I could be so good at these things and just, like, so struggle so hard with these other things and try so hard and still fail so much.

[Amelia]

So that's.

[Emily]

That's why it was an enormous relief, is because I could stop beating myself up for the things I am never gonna be good at because I have a disability at that thing.

[Amelia]

I think this is a good way to end.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Amelia]

Unmasking for Life. The book has the highest incidence of the word orgy of any book I've ever read.

[Emily]

I bet that's not true for me.

[Amelia]

I bet that's not true for you. Right. But it's surely true for me.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I can't imagine how an autistic person would navigate an orgy just because there's so many people to keep track of, so many people's feelings to accommodate. Like, I have. You don't want to know about.

[Amelia]

I don't know, and I don't want to know.

[Emily]

You don't want to know.

[Amelia]

I don't know, and I don't want to.

[Emily]

I'm just gonna say I struggle with groups.

[C]

Jeez.

[Amelia]

I don't want to know.

[Emily]

You don't want to know, and I'm not gonna tell you because. Okay.

[Amelia]

That's boundary. We'd end. That's for sure.

[Emily]

That's for sure.

[Amelia]

Struggle with groups.

[C]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Thanks for listening.

[Amelia]

Cue the ukulele. He does talk about autistic.

[Emily]

How does it feel to be my vestigial toe?

[Amelia]

It's, you know, it's totally fine. It's totally fine.

[C]

It's great.