ADHD Masking, Fitting In and Exhaustion

You can look calm, capable and sociable whilst using an enormous amount of energy to appear that way.

Perhaps you get through the working day perfectly well, but collapse when you get home. Maybe you enjoy seeing friends but still need hours of quiet afterwards. Or perhaps people describe you as confident and organised whilst you privately feel as though you're constantly working to keep all the plates spinning.

For some people with ADHD, or who recognise ADHD traits in themselves, part of that effort may involve masking.

Masking is essentially the process of hiding, suppressing or compensating for parts of ourselves because we've learned, consciously or otherwise, that they may not be particularly welcome.

And that brings us to a distinction I think is really important:

Fitting in isn't necessarily the same as belonging.

You can become extremely good at fitting in whilst never quite feeling that you belong.

What do we mean by ADHD masking?

Masking is perhaps most commonly discussed in relation to autism, and the research specifically around ADHD masking is still developing.

However, many people with ADHD describe learning ways to conceal or compensate for difficulties they experience.

That might mean rehearsing conversations before having them. You might force yourself to sit still when you'd rather move, carefully watch other people for clues about how you're expected to behave, or develop elaborate systems so nobody notices how easily you forget things.

You might arrive ridiculously early because being five minutes late feels unbearable. You might repeatedly check your work because you're frightened of making the sort of mistake you've previously been criticised for. Or you may simply become very good at saying:

"Yep, that's fine."

...when internally it really isn't.

None of these things proves that somebody has ADHD. We all adapt our behaviour depending upon the situation we're in.

The more interesting question is perhaps:

How much energy are you spending trying to appear okay?

For a broader look at ADHD traits, patterns and support, you may also find my guide to understanding ADHD traits useful.

Why do we learn to hide parts of ourselves?

If you've repeatedly been told you're lazy, careless, too loud, too sensitive, disorganised, rude, forgetful or simply too much, it isn't particularly surprising if you eventually start monitoring yourself.

We learn from experience.

A child who repeatedly gets into trouble for forgetting things may become an adult who checks everything five times.

Someone criticised for interrupting may become so conscious of when they're allowed to speak that they're barely listening to the conversation anymore.

Someone who has repeatedly been told they're too sensitive may learn to smile and say they're fine whilst experiencing something completely different internally.

These adaptations can be incredibly useful.

The difficulty comes when adapting becomes so automatic that we're constantly performing a version of ourselves designed primarily around avoiding criticism.

Fitting in and belonging are not quite the same thing

This is something I explore in Authentic Living because I think the distinction matters.

Fitting in can mean working out what a particular environment expects from us and becoming good at providing it.

Most of us do this to some extent.

I behave differently sitting with a client than I do sitting in the pub with an old friend. That's not necessarily masking. It's simply part of being human and understanding context.

But belonging feels slightly different.

Belonging allows room for us.

Perhaps you can say:

"Sorry, I didn't take that in. Can you explain it again?"

Or:

"I'm going to head home. I've had a lovely evening, but I'm exhausted."

Or:

"If you tell me that verbally there's a reasonable chance I'll forget it. Can you send it to me?"

Nothing dramatic has happened. You're simply allowing some of your actual needs into the relationship rather than constantly trying to conceal them.

What masking might look like socially

Social masking can be surprisingly exhausting because we're trying to have a conversation whilst simultaneously monitoring ourselves having the conversation.

Am I talking too much?

Have I interrupted?

Was that joke inappropriate?

Am I making enough eye contact?

Have I been talking about myself?

Do they look bored?

Should I say something now?

Why did I say that?

And then, of course, sometimes the conversation finishes but our brain hasn't finished with it.

We replay it.

Perhaps we think of something we should have said differently. We wonder whether somebody's expression changed. We worry that we offended them.

But it also illustrates how much invisible work can surround an apparently ordinary social interaction.

Everyone else may simply remember having a coffee.

You may spend another two hours analysing it.

Masking at work

Workplaces can create another layer of pressure because there may be genuine consequences attached to forgetting something, missing a deadline or misunderstanding an instruction.

Someone struggling with executive functioning might compensate by working longer hours, creating endless reminders, checking work repeatedly or taking on far more responsibility than they comfortably have capacity for.

From outside they may appear extraordinarily conscientious.

Internally, they may feel permanently one mistake away from being discovered.

This is also where perfectionism can sometimes creep in.

Not because everybody with ADHD is a perfectionist, or because all perfectionism is related to ADHD, but because "I must not make mistakes" can become one way of protecting ourselves from the shame we've previously associated with making them.

Support isn't the same thing as masking

This distinction matters.

Using a calendar isn't masking.

Setting reminders isn't masking.

Asking somebody to write something down isn't masking.

Taking five minutes somewhere quiet isn't masking.

Creating routines that make your life easier isn't somehow admitting defeat.

Those things may simply be you understanding how you function and giving yourself appropriate support.

A question I quite like is:

Does this strategy make my life easier, or does it mainly make my difficulty less visible to everybody else?

Sometimes it will do both.

But it's an interesting thing to become curious about.

Why can masking become so exhausting?

Imagine running an ordinary day whilst also running a second programme in the background constantly checking whether you're doing the ordinary day correctly.

That's potentially a lot of cognitive and emotional effort.

Add work, relationships, sensory demands, poor sleep, responsibilities, anxiety and the normal unpredictability of life, and eventually there may simply not be much energy left.

Some people use the term ADHD burnout to describe periods when they feel completely depleted and their usual coping strategies stop working. ADHD burnout isn't a formal medical diagnosis, but the experience people are describing can nevertheless be very real.

Someone might become irritable, withdrawn or emotionally overwhelmed. Tasks they could normally manage suddenly feel enormous. Messages go unanswered. Washing accumulates. Making dinner feels ridiculously complicated.

And sometimes that leads to another layer of self-criticism:

"Why can't I even manage this?"

Which, unfortunately, adds still more pressure.

It's also important not to assume persistent exhaustion is simply ADHD. Anxiety, depression, sleep difficulties, physical health conditions and prolonged stress can all contribute to tiredness, and significant or persistent changes are worth discussing with an appropriate healthcare professional.

What happens when nobody realises you're struggling?

One of the peculiar consequences of becoming extremely good at appearing fine is that people may believe you.

That sounds obvious, but it can create quite a painful situation.

Other people see somebody functioning perfectly well.

Meanwhile you're wondering why everything seems to require so much effort.

You may even start using other people's perception as evidence against your own experience:

"Everyone thinks I'm coping, so perhaps I shouldn't find this difficult."

This is where I think self-compassion becomes important.

Not as an excuse.

Not as a way of saying that ADHD means we have no responsibility for our behaviour.

Simply as an acknowledgement that something can genuinely be difficult even when other people cannot see the effort involved.

Do I need to stop masking?

No.

And I'd be wary of anybody suggesting that everyone should simply remove every mask and be completely authentic in every situation.

We live in the real world.

Sometimes adapting is useful. Sometimes it's polite. Sometimes it's professionally appropriate. And unfortunately, there may also be environments where showing certain vulnerabilities genuinely doesn't feel safe.

Authenticity doesn't have to mean telling everybody everything.

For me, it's much more about having greater choice over when we adapt, rather than feeling we must constantly perform in order to be acceptable.

You might start very small.

Perhaps notice which people leave you feeling relaxed and which leave you exhausted.

Notice situations where you're monitoring yourself constantly.

Allow yourself to fidget during an online meeting.

Ask for something important to be written down.

Leave a social event when you've genuinely had enough rather than staying another two hours because you think you should.

None of that needs to become a grand project of self-improvement.

It can simply be curiosity.

Becoming curious about the effort

If this subject resonates with you, you might spend a week noticing when you feel particularly depleted.

You don't need a complicated worksheet.

Just ask yourself:

Where was I?

Who was I with?

How much was I monitoring myself?

What was I frightened might happen if I relaxed a little?

How long did it take me to recover afterwards?

You may begin noticing patterns.

Perhaps there are environments where you're remarkably comfortable being yourself and others where you feel as though you're performing constantly.

That information can tell you something useful about both yourself and the environments you're spending your life in.

Making life slightly easier

The goal doesn't need to be becoming perfectly authentic or never adapting again.

Perhaps it's simply creating a life where you need to spend a little less energy pretending that everything is effortless.

That might involve clearer boundaries, more recovery time, written instructions, different working patterns or simply being more honest with trusted people about what you find difficult.

If ADHD traits are significantly affecting your life and you've never been assessed, the NHS provides information about adult ADHD symptoms and diagnosis. NICE also publishes UK clinical guidance for ADHD diagnosis and management.

Counselling, masking and feeling more comfortable being yourself

This is also something that can be explored in counselling.

My own approach isn't about teaching somebody how they should live or trying to turn them into a more organised version of somebody else.

I'm much more interested in curiosity.

What have you learned about yourself?

What are you trying to protect yourself from?

Which coping strategies genuinely help you?

Which ones are exhausting you?

And perhaps most importantly:

Whose expectations are you measuring yourself against?

If that way of working resonates with you, I offer counselling in Cheltenham as well as online across the UK.

You can book a counselling session or contact me if you'd like to explore whether working together might suit you.

A little more room to belong

Masking isn't necessarily something bad that needs to be removed.

For many people, adapting has been useful. It may even have protected them at times.

Perhaps the aim isn't to throw away every adaptation we've ever learned.

It's to become curious about which ones we still need.

There is a difference between being able to fit into a life and feeling that the life actually fits us.

And sometimes progress might be as small as noticing one place where you don't need to work quite so hard at being acceptable.

Perhaps belonging begins when we discover that there are people and places where we can simply be a little more ourselves. Kind regards, Ben