Yes, Masking and More

In this piece, Rachael writes about the difference between everyday social adaptation and the sustained, often unconscious masking that many neurodivergent people experience. Rachael speaks to hope here identity as a cisgendered autistic and her ability to mask shaped her identity long before she had language for it. The piece moves from the dismissive "but everyone masks" response toward a more textured account of what unmasking actually involves: not erasure, but gradual permission to exist without constant self-monitoring.

[Read the full essay here] to understand the true cost of the mask and how to finally drop it.