Jess has ADHD, but their description of how challenging it is to lie, cheat, and steal your way through a neurotypical-looking life when you lack the accommodations you need is just as relevant to life as a masked Autistic person. Regular life is more cognitively and emotionally demanding for neurodiverse people than it is for neurotypicals, but we have to hide that fact from other people on a daily basis. To prop up our façade of being “high functioning,” we build a messy, unstable scaffolding of flawed coping mechanisms. It’s no wonder we report anxiety[7] and depression[8] at elevated rates.

Though masking is incredibly taxing and causes us a lot of existential turmoil, it’s rewarded and facilitated by neurotypical people. Masking makes Autistic people easier to “deal” with. It renders us compliant and quiet. It also traps us. Once you’ve proven yourself capable of suffering in silence, neurotypical people tend to expect you’ll be able to do it forever, no matter the cost. Being a well-behaved Autistic person puts us in a real double bind and forces many of us to keep masking for far longer (and far more pervasively) than we want to.

— Unmasking Autism by Devon Price (Page 91 - 92)