neurodivergent life Archives - untypicable.

Masking 101: The Hidden Curriculum of Being Socially Acceptable

AJ Wright — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

They say all the world’s a stage, but for some of us, the performance starts before we’ve even left the house.

Take last Tuesday, for example. I’d barely made it out of bed when I realised I was already rehearsing. Not for anything in particular—just for being perceived. The spotlight doesn’t wait for an invitation; it flicks on somewhere between brushing your teeth and wondering if cereal counts as a proper breakfast.

The morning started with the usual mental checklist: Shirt? On backwards, but passable. Smile? Set to “pleasant but non-threatening.” Tone? Calibrated through 17 pre-rehearsed scripts. Eye contact? Just enough to say “I’m listening,” but not so much that Sandra from HR accuses me of trying to read her soul.

By 9 a.m., I’d already given the performance of a lifetime—and I hadn’t even clocked in. It’s a miracle I don’t have an agent.

Learning the Lines

This, dear reader, is masking. It’s the subtle, exhausting, often absurd art of pretending to be the version of yourself that makes everyone else comfortable. It’s neurodivergent stagecraft at its finest: no script, no director, and definitely no union benefits. There’s no interval. No exit stage left. Just the relentless curtain call of yet another social scenario.

No one teaches you how to mask. There’s no school module titled “How to Not Make People Uncomfortable with Your Face.” You just… pick it up. Slowly. Painfully. Usually after a few dozen encounters where people look at you like you’ve just licked a light switch. One awkward silence too many, one “Why are you being weird?” and you realise: ah. There are rules. I just never got the manual.

So you start observing. Mimicking. Testing lines in your head like a stand-up comic workshopping material. You learn to smile when you’re supposed to. Nod thoughtfully. Laugh at jokes that make no sense. Stifle the urge to talk about your latest hyperfixation—even though Victorian sewage systems are genuinely fascinating, and frankly, people are missing out.

It’s the hidden curriculum of being socially acceptable, and neurodivergent people are expected to pass it without ever being shown the syllabus. Everyone else seems to coast through the group project that is human interaction while you’re clinging to your metaphorical PowerPoint slides, praying you remembered to include a conclusion.

Scripted Encounters

There’s a script for every occasion. At work: “How was your weekend?”
Default response: “Quiet one, you?” (Never say “I reorganised my LEGO by emotional colour wheel.”)

At meetings: Rotate through weather, traffic, coffee. Don’t mention how your brain staged a full mutiny at 3 a.m. over an email you sent in 2019. And when someone says, “Let’s touch base offline,” you nod sagely while your inner monologue asks, “Touch what, now?”

Even casual chats are rehearsed. You watch people for clues and cues, mirroring their expressions like you’re doing some low-budget improv exercise. All the while, your brain is running diagnostics: Am I smiling too much? Was that laugh too loud? Is this what interested eyebrows look like?

It’s not interaction. It’s performance. Except the costume is your personality, and the script keeps changing. One wrong move, one misread cue, and the illusion cracks.

The Comedy of Errors

Despite the effort, things go wrong. Often hilariously wrong. You say “you too” when someone wishes you Happy Birthday. You try to leave a conversation and accidentally become its host. You laugh at a statement that wasn’t a joke and then try to cough to cover it up, which only makes things worse.

You nod at a rhetorical question. You wave at someone who wasn’t waving at you. You misjudge the appropriate reaction and end up looking either disinterested or manically enthused—no in-between. Social nuance is less of a grey area and more of a black hole.

Idioms become landmines. Someone says, “Let’s circle back on this,” and you’re halfway through imagining two colleagues rotating in a car park before you realise it’s just office jargon. You spend an entire networking event pretending your drink is interesting so you don’t have to talk, then end up giving a five-minute TED talk on cutlery design to a passing intern who just wanted a sausage roll.

When the Mask Comes Off

The moment you get home, the mask slips off like a too-tight pair of shoes. Relief floods in, followed almost immediately by exhaustion. Masking fatigue isn’t just tiredness. It’s the kind of brain-deep weariness that makes you stare at a wall for twenty minutes wondering if you remembered how to blink. It’s crawling under a blanket, lights off, ears ringing from silence. You’ve performed all day. And now, the curtain has fallen. You just hope there’s no encore tomorrow.

And if someone texts you to go for drinks, you pretend you didn’t see it. Not because you don’t care. But because you’ve used up every single shred of your social capacity on nodding at the right moment and not saying something you’ll lie awake cringing about later.

Choosing When to Perform

We mask to fit in. To avoid awkwardness, confrontation, or becoming That Person in the office who gets quietly excluded from group chats. It’s about survival. And yes, sometimes it helps. Sometimes it keeps us safe. But it also chips away at us—little by little. Because masking means hiding the parts that make us, well, us.

We’re told to “just be yourself” by people who’ve never been punished for doing exactly that. They mean well. But they don’t get it. To be authentic in a world that demands conformity is a rebellious act. And some days, it’s a risk we’re just too tired to take.

Slowly, gently, we learn where we can unmask. In certain friendships. In quiet spaces. With people who don’t flinch when we stim, or ramble, or go quiet without warning. People who don’t need you to translate your joy into something digestible—who let you be weird, or blunt, or enthusiastic about moths.

Unmasking isn’t about rejecting people. It’s about reclaiming our own pace, our own patterns. Our quirks aren’t flaws—they’re fingerprints. It’s a slow process, like thawing. But it starts when someone sees you, really sees you, and doesn’t ask you to tidy up first.

So if you see someone who seems a bit “off-script,” give them a moment. Maybe they’re just taking off the mask. And maybe that mask was never hiding something broken—just something brilliant, waiting for air.

Cue the standing ovation.

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AJ Wright

AJ Wright is a quiet yet incisive voice navigating the surreal world of sociology, higher education, and modern life through the unique lens of a neurodivergent mind. A tech-savvy PhD student hailing from South Yorkshire but now stationed in the flatlands of Lincolnshire, AJ writes with an irreverence that strips back the layers of academia, social norms, and the absurdities of daily life to reveal the humour lurking beneath.

As an autistic thinker, AJ’s perspective offers readers a rare blend of precision, curiosity, and wit. From dissecting the unspoken rituals of academia—like the silent war over the office thermostat—to exploring the sociology of “neurotypical small talk” and the bizarre hierarchies of campus coffee queues, AJ turns the ordinary into something both profound and hilarious.

AJ’s unassuming nature belies the sharpness of their commentary, which dives deep into the intersections of neurodiversity, tech culture, and the often-overlooked quirks of human behaviour. Whether questioning why university bureaucracy feels designed by Kafka or crafting surreal parodies of academic peer reviews, AJ writes with a balance of quiet intensity and playful absurdity that keeps readers coming back for more.

For those seeking a blog that is equal parts insightful, irreverent, and refreshingly authentic, AJ Wright provides a unique perspective that celebrates neurodiversity while poking fun at the peculiarities of the world we live in. Also a contributor at Thinking Sociologically.

untypicable.co.uk

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The Great Executive Dysfunction Heist: Stealing Productivity from My Future Self

AJ Wright — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0000

You know those thrilling heist movies where a group of criminals meticulously plans a high-stakes robbery, only to have everything fall apart at the last moment? That’s me trying to get anything done.

I have a lot to do today. I’m aware of this. I have a list. I have sub-lists. I have even written something down in a notebook that I will never check again.

And yet, instead of doing any of these tasks, I am suddenly deeply invested in researching the history of lighthouses.

Welcome to executive dysfunction—the fine art of knowing exactly what you need to do, having every intention of doing it, and still not doing it.

The Mastermind: Future Me, the Sucker Who Has to Deal with This Later

Future Me is an optimistic fool. They always assume that things will somehow just happen.

“I’ll get up early and do it first thing.” (I will not.)
“I’ll have way more energy tomorrow.” (I will not.)
“I just need to get started.” (I will not start.)

This is the core principle of executive dysfunction: stealing time from Future Me and forcing them to deal with the consequences.

Future Me is a poor, overworked soul, constantly dealing with a backlog of tasks that Past Me swore would get done “later.”

But here’s the problem: Future Me is also Present Me.

And Present Me wants a nap.

Step One: Making the To-Do List and Feeling Productive About It

The first step in not doing something is to prepare excessively for it.

Write a detailed to-do list.
Make a colour-coded version of the to-do list.
Spend half an hour deciding which task should be done first.
Take a break, because all this planning is exhausting.

At this point, I have accomplished nothing tangible, but I feel very busy and important.

I reward myself with a quick scroll through my phone, where I lose 40 minutes and somehow end up watching a documentary about otters.

Step Two: The “I’ll Just Do One Quick Thing First” Trap

I’m about to start a task. I really am.

But first, I’ll just check one thing.

And suddenly, I have:

Rearranged my bookshelf.
Started researching medieval sword-making techniques.
Deep-cleaned my entire desk, which has been messy for months but is, apparently, urgent now.

I am hyper-fixating on a task that is absolutely not the task I needed to do.

But now, I feel accomplished, so I reward myself with a snack and a little lie down.

Step Three: The “There’s Still Time” Delusion

As long as the deadline is not immediately upon me, my brain treats it as a vague, distant concept.

“I still have a whole day!” (False confidence.)
“I’ll do it this evening.” (Lying to myself.)
“I work better under pressure!” (No, I just only work under pressure.)

At this point, I am still mentally prepared to do the task, but I have not physically moved towards doing it in any way.

Step Four: The Sudden Panic of Realising I Have No Time Left

The deadline is now imminent.

Future Me, who I have spent all day ignoring, is screaming in terror.

I am now:

Frantically working at double speed.
Muttering “why am I like this” at regular intervals.
Performing mental gymnastics to justify why I put this off for so long.

This is the productivity equivalent of breaking into a vault at the last second, dodging lasers, and sprinting out with the stolen goods just before the alarms go off.

It is both horrifying and weirdly exhilarating.

Step Five: The Post-Crisis Reflection (That Changes Nothing)

The task is finally done, but I am emotionally drained.

I now reflect on my choices, vowing that next time, I will start early, pace myself, and be a responsible, functional human being.

I will absolutely not do this again.

(Spoiler: I will do this again.)

The cycle repeats forever.

Final Thoughts: The Heist Will Happen Again

I would love to say I have figured out how to break this cycle, but the truth is, this is just how my brain works.

Yes, it is stressful.
Yes, it makes no logical sense.
Yes, I have Googled “how to fix executive dysfunction” and then immediately ignored the advice.

But hey, the heist always gets pulled off in the end.

And that’s what really matters, right?

Is this not just a fancy name for procrastination?

Procrastination and executive dysfunction may look similar from the outside—both involve not doing the thing—but they come from entirely different places.

Procrastination is a choice, even if it’s not always a good one. It’s when you could start a task but delay it because something else is more appealing (or because scrolling your phone suddenly becomes a matter of national importance). Executive dysfunction, on the other hand, is not a choice—it’s your brain hitting the brakes on a task even when you desperately want to do it. You’re not avoiding it out of laziness or preference; you’re stuck, like pressing the gas pedal on a car that just won’t move.

Procrastination is putting something off because you don’t feel like doing it. Executive dysfunction is wanting to do it, needing to do it, and still somehow not doing it. The difference? One is about motivation; the other is about an internal, invisible wall that refuses to budge.