Social ADHD Masking

The performance no one sees

Have you ever walked into a room already bracing yourself? You smile, you try to make eye contact, you sit still, you try to say the right things, but the whole time your brain is sprinting laps and your body feels like it is buzzing under your skin. From the outside, you look calm, but on the inside, you are working really hard, and no one has a clue!

That is ADHD masking.

Long before I understood anything about ADHD, I knew that social situations felt like a shift I had to clock into. I could not just arrive. I had to prepare, manage, and adjust. I had to be switched on, and nowhere was that more obvious than in noisy places for me.

Noisy social situations

I would struggle in busy restaurants, bars, pubs, work events, open plan offices, the list goes on. Multiple conversations, constant noise happening at once. For many of us these environments are not just lively, they are way too overwhelming and over stimulating.

Someone could be talking to me, another person laugh loudly behind me, others in the group that I am in, chatting across the table, music playing, cutlery clinking. My brain would be trying to follow one thread while five others are pulling at it's attention. I would become confused and not catch the whole conversation I am trying to have. It's as if the background noise has become the foreground and the conversation I am so desperately trying to engage in, is now in the background and I am only catching half the words. It feels like wading through mud, trying to piece it all together. I would find myself laughing along in group conversations while scrambling to keep up and then trying to cover up the fact that I had just zoned out.

Instead of saying, "I am struggling to follow this", I found I would just nod and smile, silently praying I didn't look like an idiot and hope I had at least caught the gist of the conversation. The constant effort to track the conversation, filter the noise, monitor my reactions, and appear engaged and switched on was soo utterly exhausting. I would leave an event tired and drained wondering why something that seemed so easy for everyone else was so hard and frankly often not even enjoyable.

I learnt that zoning out, interrupting, or asking people to repeat what they had just said was met with frustration and "that look". The look that says “what is wrong with you?” I became hyper aware of how I was coming across so I eventually just found that in bigger group situations it was easier to stay quiet, I would prefer to let people think I was shy or just uninteresting, over time it became automatic.

The affects

Here is the part that seems to be rarely acknowledged. When you mask in social situations, you are not just trying to participate in the conversation, you are managing the conversation and managing yourself at the same time. You are tracking the topic, filtering background noise, watching your body language, editing your responses, scanning for signs that you missed something important.

Afterwards, there is often a crash. The quiet car ride home, the overloaded nervous system that is hard to regulate, the need to lie down in a dark room, the sense that my brain had just run a marathon. Then there is the replay of the event in my mind. All the cringable moments replayed again and again. The wondering what people thought, did I pretend well enough? did I look like a fool? did I come across as boring?

That is a tremendous cognitive load and it would often lead to chronic social exhaustion. I would cancel plans not because I didn’t care, but because I just could not face another evening of high alert listening. I began to dread events that I knew I “should” enjoy.

Questioning the need to perform

After my diagnosis and subsequent realization that I had been masking most of my life, I asked myself “What would happen if I just stopped pretending?”

I started small and chose people I felt safe with and thought would understand and support me. I told them I have been diagnosed with ADHD and what a difference to my life just knowing had made. I was working on myself and really trying to understand myself and what works for me and what doesn't.

Some people reacted well and applauded me for the work on myself and bravery to speak up. Some even admitted that they struggle in noisy places too, and seemed to be visibly relieved that I had brought it up. A few, seemed to just slowly fade out of my life. And that is ok, I realize now that they were just “not my people”. The shame I had been carrying began to loosen its grip, my body softened. The constant internal buzzing dialed down.

I have became very selective about situations I will put myself in. If I know it will be super noisy and too much stimulation, I will often avoid the event instead of powering through, and most importantly I don't feel guilty declining the invitation.

I started to invite others out to quieter, lower pressure situations, I allowed myself to say, "I missed that, can you say it again". Guess what? The sky did not fall, I did not look like an idiot. I was with people who understood me and my challenges and supported me.

Choose Consciously

I have learnt to choose consciously instead of automatically. I take notice when and where my energy drains the fastest. I might experiment with new places in small shifts, but take notes and work out how to make it work if I want to. If it's not for me, then I don't put myself in that situation again.

I choose the situations I want to put myself in without guilt, without worrying what others think. I position myself in quieter spots, I ask for clarification in conversations without apology and sometimes will even take short breaks outside just to move my body.

I have learnt that to just be honest with myself and the trusted people around me has lead to a much more fulfilling and less stressful life.

Does ADHD masking resonate with you?

If you too have found yourself nodding along in conversations, hoping you have caught enough to look “normal.” I see you. If you leave social events feeling like you need a day to recover, I see you.

Masking in noisy, fast moving environments requires intense effort, that effort adds up. You are not broken because you find it hard to track five conversations at once, or foolish for needing repetition. You are not less capable because your brain processes differently, you have been adapting and you don't have to.

You get to decide where you can lower the volume, literally and figuratively. You deserve connections that do not require a constant performance and you deserve spaces where you do not have to pretend you heard every word.

It's not easy, but it is so worth it, to take off the mask and show everyone unapologeticaly who you are. Be proud of who you are.

"I am me, I am just wired a little differently, let me tell you how"