Masking, Code Switching, and How to Go Unnoticed

A Guest Blog by Sabrina Longley, MSW LCSWA

Many of you may know the terms masking and code switching independently, but when reflecting upon the intersectionality of race and neurodivergence, I think it is important to explore their similarities and differences especially when it comes to being Black and neurodivergent. As a multiply neurodivergent, Black woman living in the American South and a practicing clinical social worker working primarily with neurodivergent teens and adults, I believe this exploration is crucial to support Black neurodivergent people. While I hold a multitude of other identities which are less directly relevant to this particular blog, these also shape my worldview, so I will share those as well. I am also a large fat, queer, disabled, cis woman which continues to inform my exploration and understanding of these issues. 

What is Masking?

Masking is the process of covering or changing behaviors to fit in with a group and maintain safety and it can be detrimental to neurodivergent people. According to Dr. Hanna Belcher writing for the National Autistic Society, “masking may involve suppressing certain behaviors we find soothing but that others think are ‘weird’, such as stimming or intense interests.” They go on to explore how mimicking, copying, and scripting are methods used to avoid judgment and othering. 

What is Code Switching?

Code switching is the process of covering or changing behaviors and language used to fit into a group and maintain safety and it can be detrimental to Black people. Courtney L. McCluney, Kathrina Robotham, Serenity Lee, Richard Smith, and Myles Durkee wrote for the Harvard Business Review that code switching is used to “navigate interracial interactions and has large implications for their well-being, economic advancement, and even physical survival.” They continue to point to the ways in which code switching aims to optimize the comfort of the powerful in exchange for respect, opportunity, and safety. 

Code Switching Played Out In My Life

It is important to acknowledge these are distinct and discrete concepts with masking applying more specifically to neurodivergence and code switching applying to racial and ethnic groups. While masking can make it impossible to see or notice a neurodivergent person, code switching will never make a Black person not Black (nor do we want to be anything else). Race, unlike neurotype, is visual and not something that will ever not affect how we are seen and interacted with. The goal of code switching is not to blend into whiteness, it is to gain any piece of safety, fairness, or equality that we as Black folks are so often denied. 

For me, as a Black neurodivergent person these topics come up frequently, and they have impacted my life as long as I can remember. When driving with my best friend one day, I got a work call, a white therapist from another practice wanting to update me on a shared client’s current crisis and possible impending hospitalization. In that moment, I code switched automatically to ensure I came across professionally and was taken seriously in my clinical recommendations. My best friend commented on it when I hung up, how strongly I code switched and how quickly. It can become instinctual. 

Exploring My Neurodivergence and My Own Masking 

Learning that I was neurodivergent at 22 changed so much about the way I engage with the world and myself, but the masking remained. It took active effort to identify what me unmasked looked like, what I sounded like, what I did (and I had some privilege in this arena as I lived alone and could more easily unmask in my home alone). High masking individuals are less likely to be diagnosed with neurodivergence, especially at an early age. 

Masking, for me, is how I got through classes, in middle and high school, in college at my HBCU, in grad school (though, by that point, I had my diagnosis and was working to unpack some parts of my masking when it felt safe). Code switching for me happened much more often in grad school, internships, jobs, and especially in the first practices I worked for, run by white women in a white woman dominated field. The differences can be hard to spot, even for me sometimes, but they are different. 

Code switching makes me feel like I’m putting on a costume. Masking feels like I’m burying myself. Both make me claustrophobic in my own skin. 

The Intersection of Masking and Code Switching 

The unfortunate truth is that for a long time now, neurodivergence, and especially autism, has been hard for many to gain access to as a diagnosis. I tell my clients who are struggling to access diagnosis, unless you are 5, white, male, and non-speaking that shit is rough. These days it is becoming more common for more folks to gain diagnoses, and assessors are learning different ways autism can show up in different people. However, high maskers still sometimes struggle, and  I have seen a pretty big barrier for us as Black ND folks.  We learn the adaptive skill of code switching so young and to such an intense degree that  we mask much more intensely as well. It is hard to feel safe unmasking, especially if it is still important to code switch, as it can be with the battery of neurological psychometric measures used to assess and diagnose autism. The field of assessment still skews distressingly white (a whole other topic). 

We end up with these increased masking behaviors related to our code switching and our overall safety. Black parents don’t play that shit (again, they are watching out for our safety in broader society). The school to prison pipeline is, at large, looking for any little sign that a Black child isn’t assimilating well enough. Between masking, code switching, and assessors not knowing what to look for culturally we go significantly under diagnosed.  

And How Does This Play Out in Mental HealtH

Undiagnosed and late diagnosed neurodivergent folks often struggle with low self esteem, depression, anxiety, difficulties related to invalidation, anger, isolation, and many other difficulties. We are told we are lazy, that we are weird, that we are too intense and so many things that turn out to be very common, understandable, and supportable experiences of neurodivergence. Because invalidation is so painful we mask, we try to be “more normal”, “less intense”, “work harder” when our issue was never work ethic but executive disfunction. We mask, so we can try to reach that all important belonging that all humans need, but then we are missed, not diagnosed, we lose out on access to support. It’s a painful cycle. 

So Listen Up Assessors!

If you’re an assessor, please read up on how different neurodivergencies show up in different identities.  Learn the way that clients may show up and be code switching with you and how that could affect the assessment measures you use. If you’re a Black therapist or considering becoming an assessor, get some training in neurodivergence and in assessing if that has any interest for you. If you’re a white therapist, advocate advocate advocate, don’t leave your Black clients out there alone to get access. If you’re a client, advocate, advocate, advocate. Get second, third, fourth, and so on opinions, recognize that self diagnosis is valid. And remember, I’m rooting for everybody Black. 

Happy Black History Month.

This month’s blog was guest written by Sabrina Longley, MSW LCSWA. Sabrina is a therapist with Resilient Mind Counseling in North Carolina. She specializes in Neurodivergence, Communication Skills and Boundaries, Life Transitions, Depression, is BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ affirming, and works to support Fat Liberation. In college, she learned more about neurodivergence, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and her identity as a Black woman. She found that learning Black psychology at an HBCU was deeply impactful in building her identity and helping her to feel close to her community. Shortly after graduation, she was diagnosed ADHD and with a math learning disability. As an adopted, fat, Black, undiagnosed neurodivergent young woman with a deeply unsupportive family, she worried she could never help anyone in the way that she had needed help, but now she supports folks each and every day. Thank you Sabrina for your work and your willingness to share your skill and knowledge with the world.