What would it take to accept myself exactly as I am?

Especially since my formal AuDHD (Autism + ADHD) diagnoses this winter, I’ve been thinking a lot about Bobbie Haro’s Cycle of Socialization and Cycle of Liberation, and processes of unlearning and unmasking.

AuDHD psychologist Dr. Megan Anna Neff defines “masking” as follows:

“Masking is a survival strategy that many Autistic people unconsciously do. This is where they hide their Autistic traits and mimic allistic behavior in order to present as non-Autistic to others.”

In other words, masking is a process through which neurodivergent folx — consciously or unconsciously — suppress the behavioral expressions of their different brain wiring and needs in order to appear “normal.” Usually because — implicitly and explicitly — it has been messaged to them that those behaviors and needs are abnormal, inappropriate, unacceptable, et cetera.

I have conflicting feelings about masking. On the one hand, Autistic PDA-er Sally Cat’s reflections on the complexity of masking and how they experience it as a positive communication tool resonate for me. Masking as an adaptive process that can bridge lines of difference. Yet I also know firsthand how masking plays out, more often, as mandatory, non-reciprocal form of code switching that centers neurotypical needs and norms — and/or as a form of Internalized Oppression (aka the fourth “‘I’ of Oppression”).

In “Reflections on Unmasking Autism Traits”, Neff describes their experience of masking/unmasking as follows:

“So much of my life has been spent ‘bracing for impact.’ If I am walking to get mail, I am sprint-walking, head down, shoulders tense, and actively working to block out the sensory world around me. If someone approaches me, I feel the tension in my body build as I brace for social contact.

Once I realized I was Autistic, I stopped bracing for impact. I let myself feel the impact of the sensory world. I let the sensory inputs come, roll through me (sometimes thunder through me), and be released. I needed to understand my body and what was happening before I could tolerate letting down the hypervigelent guard. Before I could stop fighting my body, I needed to understand it. After 37 years of being at war with my body, I finally made peace with it. […]

I don’t know how to describe the process of unmasking, but I think the whole ‘stop being at war with my body’ was a big piece of it. Once I stopped fighting my body, and began attending to its needs, wants, and desires, unmasking naturally started happening.”

What strikes me about Neff's description is how they link the change of unmasking not to additive action (doing or trying harder), but rather to releasing behaviors that weren’t serving their needs, wants, and desires. For example, they made a decision to stop resisting and allow themselves to fully experience their sensory differences. And then unmasking “naturally started happening.” As Carl Rogers wrote: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

I know that we inevitably internalize the systems we’re born into — and that part of the work of social change is identifying the oppressive beliefs and scripts that we’ve internalized and unlearning them.¹ Yet that doesn’t make me immune to the specter of shame that accompanies the realization that one’s behavior is being driven by a mindset that runs counter to one’s values.

In honor of all of the ways I’ve been grappling with the drive to better attend to my neurodivergence — while simultaneously holding the complexity of masking as both survival strategy and communication tool — this month the inquiry question I chose was:

What would it take to accept myself exactly as I am?

And I pulled the Queen of Cups:

“Queen of Cups” tarot card from Sonia Lazo’s deck The Rainbow Tarot

The interpretations of this tarot card vary, but all revolve around themes of compassion, connection, healing, and (I think) solidarity:

• “How will you cultivate the most nurturing parts of yourself?” (Rainbow Tarot)

• “Deep listening is where healing becomes possible.” (Tarot for Change)

• “The ability to suffer with another person even when you don’t have to is a truly radical act of connection and love. […] An individual cannot single-handedly heal the pain of the world, but keeping the heart open to connection and compassion is vital or else all motivation for change is lost.” (Radical Tarot)

• “Love is a free choice, and to be able to make such a choice we may need to release desires that would compel us toward disempowering dependence.” (Red Tarot)

That last interpretation returned me to this powerful passage about love — and masks! — from James Baldwin’s book The Fire Next Time:

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace — not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

I recently realized that I often default to reading tarot cards through an interpersonal lens that centers my relationships with others. However, I was recently challenged to consider a different perspective.

Instead of reading the Queen of Cups as being focused on interpersonal dynamics and reflecting on how I might relate to others more compassionately or empathetically, what if I read this card through an intrapersonal lens? Then the Queen of Cups becomes a nudge to relate to myself with more compassion, empathy, deep listening, love. An invitation to accept my own needs, wants, and desires. To allow the energy I allocate to masking to move in more nurturing and empowering directions.

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1. I recently started reading The Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism by Robert Chapman, which traces the history of one such script — the myth of the "normal" brain — and how this has been used to categorize people into oppressive hierarchies that advance capitalist agendas.