how to explain masking to your partner or family
"but you seemed fine on Saturday."
that's what a family member said to me. and they weren't wrong. I did seem fine.
what they didn't see was how much it took to seem that way. or everything that happened inside me during Saturday ... and after it.
that's the tricky thing about masking. it's hard to explain something that's designed to be invisible.
why it's so hard to explain
masking works by hiding effort. so the better we are at it, the less the people around us can see.
they're not ignoring what we're going through. they're seeing the mask doing its job.
which means the conversation isn't really about convincing them. it's about showing them what's underneath.
pick your moment
not in the car on the way home. not when we're already flat. not in the middle of an argument about why we want to leave early.
a calm, ordinary moment works best. a walk, a quiet dinner, a lazy Sunday. low stakes, no audience.
words you can borrow
to explain what it is ... "a lot of what you see when we're out is me working really hard to come across a certain way. it's not fake. it's just effortful."
to explain the after ... "when I go quiet after we've been out, it's not about you or the night. it's the bill for all that effort."
to explain why it doesn't show ... "the better I'm doing at it, the less you'll be able to tell. so 'you seemed fine' is kind of the whole problem."
to ask for what you need ... "it would really help if we could plan a quiet day after big events, and if you could check in with me without asking 'what's wrong?'"
we're not asking them to fix it. we're asking them to see it.
make it concrete
big ideas can slide right off. specific moments stick.
"you know how I'm always first to clear the plates at your mum's? that's partly so I get a break from the table." one real example often lands better than ten minutes of explanation.
it might take a few goes
they might not get it straight away. they might get defensive, or feel like they missed something for years.
that's ok. the first conversation opens the door. the understanding usually comes from the moments after, when they start to notice it for themselves.
before you go ... the relationships guide is a three-part set for the misunderstandings that keep happening between two people who communicate differently ... including what to actually say.
written by Laura ... a speech pathologist and late-diagnosed ADHDer. read my story →