This is my last Halloween-themed article to round out the spooky season, and a follow-up to my previous masking article. I’m combining the two to talk about taking off our masks and living authentically, unmasked, with the world. Unmasking is the goal for us as individuals, but also something that shouldn’t be needed in an inclusive society. I hope you find this article insightful.
Unmasking: What Halloween Teaches Us About Psychological Masking
Every 31st October, millions of people apply elaborate face paint, put on a mask, or step into full-body costumes to transform into someone—or something—else. Halloween gives us social permission to step outside our ordinary identity and hide behind an artificial face. But for many, hiding behind a mask isn’t an annual novelty. It’s an everyday survival mechanism psychologists call masking.
While Halloween masking is an intentional, creative celebration, psychological masking is a subtle process of concealing our natural selves to meet social expectations. Yet, looking at how we use costumes for Halloween offers a surprisingly clear lens into why, how, and at what cost we mask our true selves in daily life.
Understanding the contrast between physical costumes and our mental disguise helps clarify why social performance can feel so exhausting:
Halloween masking
- Primary motivation: It’s fun, a form of self-expression, and playful.
- Duration: A few hours for a party or event.
- Internal experience: Liberating and playful.
- Social context: Expected and celebrated by others.
Psychological masking
- Primary motivation: It’s generally done for a sense of safety, belonging, and wanting to avoid stigma or negative judgments.
- Duration: Nearly constant, happening every day, day after day, year after year.
- Internal experience: It’s mentally taxing, eats at our spoons, can be accompanied by hypervigilance, and will lead to burnout (Newport Institute Staff, 2026).
- Social context: Enforced by implicit social pressure or internal expectations. The latter is normally the result of a bad experience.
Why We Put On The Mask
In psychological terms, masking (often linked with social camouflage or persona work) involves consciously or unconsciously hiding traits, feelings, or neurodivergent characteristics, such as autism, ADHD, or anxiety, to match neurotypical or culturally accepted norms.
This is why it’s best known in relation to the autistic community, whereby they either consciously (mimicking facial expressions) or unconsciously (unintentionally suppressing aspects of their own identity) try to appear as neurotypical (Miller, Rees, and Pearson, 2021).
But masking isn’t just found within autism or the wider neurodivergent community.
A study by Miller, Rees, and Pearson (2021) used an online survey to understand the experiences of autistic people. The study had 144 autistic participants, 49 neurodivergent participants without an autism diagnosis, and 45 neurotypical participants. What they found was that many aspects of masking were found within all three groups. This was supported by Pryke-Hobbes et al. (2023).
This is supported by a study by Pryke-Hobbes et al. (2023). They had 272 autistic participants, 78 neurodivergent people without an autism diagnosis, and 61 neurotypical participants. Their study looked into masking in the workplace and found that all three groups masked to adapt to social workplace challenges. However, the masking would often come from unique pressures when compared to the other groups.
As you may have noticed in my first paragraph in this section, I mentioned that people mask their anxiety. This is just one of many ways mental health is masked. For example, there’s smiling depression, which is how people identify as masking while living with depression (Newport Institute Staff, 2026).
Someone with a form of anxiety may try to mask their symptoms by putting on a calm front, while internally they’re anything but calm. This is the classic floating duck analogy, where above water the duck appears calm, graceful, and effortless, while below the water they’re paddling furiously and working hard underneath to stay afloat. This can also present itself in self-medicating to cope or engaging in avoidant behaviours (Smart TMS, 2024).
This was what it was like living with my social anxiety and agoraphobia that triggered psychotic episodes in me. No one knew I was living with one anxiety disorder, let alone two and having psychotic episodes. It was the most important thing to me to be seen like nothing was wrong while fighting back a mind that was telling me everything was wrong.
Someone with depression may mask it by hiding their feelings of melancholy and a nihilistic mindset because of concerns about how others will see it (Newport Institute Staff, 2026). But also because they don’t want to feel like a burden to others. So people with depression can put on a good show of being happy, without actually feeling happy.
That always cheerful friend who seems to succeed socially and maintains a large circle of friends could be hiding behind that smile (Smart TMS, 2024). That’s smiling depression.
People from the LGBTQIA+ community might also be very familiar with masking to fit in, or so they can be straight-passing. In situations like this, the stress of masking can be less than the stress caused by discrimination (Pachankis, Mahon, Jackson, Fetzner, and Bränström, 2020).
We still live in a world where people can be attacked for simply being with their same sex partner or dressing differently from people’s expectations for their perceived gender role.
But it doesn’t stop there. Any stigmatised group will often have members who engage in masking to avoid prejudice, discrimination, and yes, violence (Khudiakova, Le Forestier, and Chasteen, 2024).
We see this in all kinds of ways within the Black community; for example, Black women will straighten their hair or wear wigs. Ethnic groups in general will also adopt names associated with the ethnic group in the majority or that has the most power.
Even White women can feel they have to act like men to be treated the same and to get ahead. When behaving like men in power is probably more harmful to society in general.
So why do all these different groups of people feel the need to mask? Social acceptance (Pryke-Hobbes et al., 2023; and Newport Institute Staff, 2026). That’s pretty much what it all boils down to, which, when you think about it, is ironic. Western society prides itself on individualism, but also doesn’t seem able to accept people as they are.
Unmasking: Taking Off the Costume
Unlike at the end of Halloween night, when we peel off the mask, wash away the makeup, and jump into bed and our masking ends, for others it’s basically Halloween every day because the danger of masking arises when the mask never comes off.
Constant self-monitoring requires immense cognitive energy. Suppressing natural responses and maintaining a performance leads to severe exhaustion, often referred to as masking burnout. Over time, the boundary between the “costume” and the self blurs, leaving us asking a core question: Who am I when nobody is watching?
A study by Bernardin, Lewis, Bell, and Kanne (2021) captures the crux of this issue. Their study looked into masking within adolescents aged 13-18 who didn’t have autism (35 female participants and 27 male participants) and who did have autism (23 female participants and 55 male participants).
They found that both those with and without autism who reported masking also reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. They also found that female participants who masked in both groups were especially prone to stress.
A similar finding was found in Pachankis, Mahon, Jackson, Fetzner, and Bränström‘s (2020) study. They performed a meta-analytic review of data from 193 studies. They found that there was a small positive association between masking of sexual orientation and mental health problems.
Although we mask for the purpose of social acceptance, that comes at a pretty high cost. Masking leads to burnout and can also lead to the loss of our authentic self. Over time, this will impact our mental health, hinder authentic relationships, and may even lead to physical symptoms like fatigue and headaches (Newport Institute Staff, 2026).
This exhaustion and sense of disconnection from others (Smart TMS, 2024) can cause us to feel isolated and lonely.
So what can we do?
Unmasking isn’t about suddenly dropping every social filter. Rather, it is a gradual, deliberate process of stopping the suppression of traits we feel people won’t like (Makewell Health and Wellness Clinic, 2026) and replacing automatic self-suppression with authentic self-expression.
However, unmasking isn’t an easy road to travel because masking often begins as a protective response to social pressure or past rejection; reducing it requires building safety, self-awareness, and clear boundaries.
Societal acceptance
I can’t stress this enough. The best way for people to stop feeling they have to mask is for society to become more accepting of individuality as it’s meant to be. No one masks because they want to; they do it because they feel they have to.
So creating a society-wide safe space is how we really stop masking. If we hear people make comments or behave in ways that aren’t inclusive and run counter to everyone starting their unmasking journey, then challenge those people and society. We can be other people’s safe spaces if we want.
Until that happens, I’ll provide other tips below for the people who feel they have to mask, so they can start unmasking while we wait for society to catch up.
Self-acceptance
There is no reason to repress our authentic selves, and society needs to do more about that. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of control over that, but we do have control over accepting ourselves for who we are (Bernardin, Lewis, Bell, and Kanne, 2021). This is the best way to improve our quality of life.
The things that may make us different aren’t bad things. We don’t need to mask to fit in with how others do things, because they should be accepting of us as we are and make room for us as we are.
Social support networks
It’s really important to find people, places, groups, or relationships where we can strip away the performance and exist as our unvarnished selves, because this is the ultimate form of self-care. This level of unmasking isn’t just for the spooky season.
So while enjoying the freedom of a costume this Halloween, take a moment to reflect on the invisible masks we carry, and grant ourselves permission to drop them when the party is over.
Remembering our authentic self
Some of us may have been masking for so long that we don’t know who we’ll be if we start unmasking. And it’s hard to start unmasking when that uncertainty is hovering over us.
Therefore, we can try noticing what we do when we’re relaxed, as this shows us who we are when unconsciously unmasking when we’re in our safe space. We can then use what we learn from this and bring more of that into other parts of our lives (Autism Society of Minnesota, n.d.).
For example, I often make weird noises when alone for no real reason other than it gives me something to do, and it entertains me. I’ve found a partner who has no issues with that quirk of mine and will join in, turning it into a playful bonding behaviour. I’ve also found friends who’ll do the same. The freedom that comes with not hiding that is immeasurable.
Audit our masks
Auditing our masking behaviour makes for an ideal journaling task. All we need to do is keep a log for a week or so, and note when we’ve felt drained, hypervigilant, or disconnected from our authentic self.
As part of the log, note down who we were with and what specific behaviours we were forcing or suppressing. For example, were we forcing eye contact, hiding stims, or suppressing a genuine reaction? It can also be useful to track how we change when we’re alone.
To understand our behaviour when we’re able to unmask, track our core needs, self-soothing behaviours, and natural communication styles. With that information at hand, we can then start to differentiate between protective masking and habitual masking. The latter might show that we’re automatically masking around safe people, and figuring that out can help us to start unmasking.
Safe people
When we know who the safe people are in our lives, then we can lay the groundwork for unmasking with them. However, that doesn’t mean we won’t still feel vulnerable. But starting with the most trusted safe people we have relationships with, we can start micro-unmasking.
We don’t have to unmask all in one go. For starters, we may not even be able to. So think of it like exposure therapy for masking.
Picking a few of our masking behaviours and working through them one at a time is a great place to start. For example, if we force eye contact as a masking behaviour, then we can start reducing the level of eye contact we make with this trusted person. Or, if we just say “I’m fine” when we’re not, we can start giving honest answers.
It can also be useful to express our needs with the safe person, but this is not an apology. We’re not apologising for being “weird” for not making eye contact. Instead, we’re expressing our need, which we have nothing to feel ashamed about.
Thus, we could say something like, I can focus on the conversation better when I’m not worried about maintaining enough eye contact.
As I’ve said in a previous article, men often find it easier to have deep and important conversations when sitting side-by-side and facing away from each other, rather than facing towards each other, which is more common in women.
After challenging our masking behaviours with our safe person and using micro-unmasking, give ourselves time to reflect on the experience. Notice how we feel after engaging in that micro-unmasking.
Think about how it affected or didn’t affect the social interaction. We may feel lighter for it, but at the same time, the other person may not notice or respond differently to our authentic self coming out more.
If things go well, acknowledge the win, as that’s how we rewire our brains.
Cognitive reappraisal
Much like above, when reviewing our interactions after micro-unmasking, it can be useful to reflect on our past experiences to see if there were situations where we didn’t mask and things were fine.
Even in situations that overall didn’t go well, being our authentic self at the time might not have been the reason it didn’t go well. This is called cognitive reappraisal, or looking for the silver lining, and makes for another good journaling task.
Self-esteem
Along with self-acceptance and learning to understand our authentic self, it can also be important to work on our self-esteem (Bernardin, Lewis, Bell, and Kanne, 2021). Working on where our self-esteem may be suffering can help us make room to improve it. With those improvements will come more self-acceptance and confidence.
For example, our past experiences are often the cause of low self-esteem. Therefore, we could face that trauma to strip it of its power and work or reflect on whether this may have caused us to develop unhealthy core beliefs that have shaped how we view ourselves and the world around us.
Communication user manuals
In a professional setting, it might be useful to create what is basically a “communication user manual” to help everyone quickly get on board with the unmasking. This doesn’t mean we have to share any diagnosis if we don’t want to. Instead, this can be framed as productivity optimisation. So we can frame our preferred ways of working and communication as being our best ways to be the most productive.
For example:
- “I do my best creative thinking when I can take notes while listening, so I might look down during our discussions”.
- “I process information best visually, so feel free to send documents ahead of our catch-ups”.
Protect our spoons
Allow ourselves regular breaks for unmasking, even in a professional setting. We only have so many spoons. Block out a 5-minute buffer between meetings to drop the professional face, stretch, or sit in silence.
It can also be useful to figure out when we need to go full professional performance and when we don’t, because if it’s necessary, we can step back to lower-energy unmasking or micro-unmasking behaviours.
Managing the transition
Reducing masking is not linear, because we will likely feel a temporary increase in vulnerability or fatigue as we drop long-held defences. It’s not uncommon to feel a little more stress before noticing positive changes.
Also, expect some internal and external resistance to our changes. People accustomed to our masked persona may occasionally be surprised by directness or changes in our energy levels. How could they not be? Thus, it can be useful to manage their expectations.
Lastly, it can be useful to keep a safe space. Having at least one space, whether it’s our home, a journal, or a session with an affirming therapist, can make all the difference, because we all need to be able to feel 100% free from any expectation to perform.
Summary
Masking, which was most associated with those living with autism, is a behaviour found in people from all walks of life. Because, as social creatures, we all feel we need to fit in to be accepted. Thus, masking isn’t as uncommon as we might believe. To one degree or another, we all mask our true feelings to hide our vulnerability (Newport Institute Staff, 2026). But none of us should feel we have to.
This makes it even more important to recognise that behaviours like needing processing time or avoiding eye contact when concentrating are non-harmful traits, not flaws. So let’s make society a more inclusive space, so no one feels they have to mask again.
As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, please share your experiences with unmasking and masking in the comments section below. Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, you can sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, click the red bell icon in the bottom right corner to get push notifications for new articles.
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References
Autism Society of Minnesota. (n.d.). Unmasking toolkit. Autism Society of Minnesota (AuSM). Retrieved from https://ausm.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Unmasking-Toolkit.pdf.
Bernardin, C. J., Lewis, T., Bell, D., & Kanne, S. (2021). Associations between social camouflaging and internalizing symptoms in autistic and non-autistic adolescents. Autism, 25(6), 1580-1591. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1303590.pdf.
Khudiakova, V., Le Forestier, J. M., & Chasteen, A. L. (2024). To mask or not to mask: The role of concealment behavior, stigma experience, and community connectedness in autistic people’s mental health. Neurodiversity, 2, 27546330241255121. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/27546330241255121.
Makewell Health and Wellness Clinic. (2026, September 7). Does Unmasking Cause Issues in Relationships? The Truth About Autism, Authenticity and Connection. Makewell Health and Wellness Clinic. Retrieved from https://wemakewell.co.uk/does-unmasking-cause-issues-in-relationships-the-truth-about-autism-authenticity-and-connection.
Miller, D., Rees, J., & Pearson, A. (2021). “Masking is life”: Experiences of masking in autistic and nonautistic adults. Autism in Adulthood, 3(4), 330-338. Retrieved from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8992921/pdf/aut.2020.0083.pdf.
Newport Institute Staff. (2026, January 12). Mental Health Masking: What it means and how to recognize it. Newport Institute. Retrieved from https://www.newportinstitute.com/resources/mental-health/mental-health-masking.
Pachankis, J. E., Mahon, C. P., Jackson, S. D., Fetzner, B. K., & Bränström, R. (2020). Sexual orientation concealment and mental health: A conceptual and meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 146(10), 831. Retrieved from https://psycnet.apa.org/manuscript/2020-52973-001.pdf.
Pryke-Hobbes, A., Davies, J., Heasman, B., Livesey, A., Walker, A., Pellicano, E., & Remington, A. (2023). The workplace masking experiences of autistic, non-autistic neurodivergent and neurotypical adults in the UK. PloS one, 18(9), e0290001. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290001 and https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10482295.
Smart TMS. (2024, August 1). Masking in mental health conditions. Smart TMS. Retrieved from https://www.smarttms.co.uk/news/masking-in-mental-health-conditions.