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A first-person essay published by Tiny Buddha describes an autistic writer’s decision to stop hiding traits and needs to appear “normal.” The writer says reducing that effort eased exhaustion and helped him focus on relationships and activities that felt genuine, while noting that sensory overload and difficult days remain.
Tiny Buddha published a first-person essay in which an autistic writer describes how he began reducing the effort he spent appearing “normal,” saying the change left him with more energy and helped him build more genuine connections. The account offers a personal perspective on masking—the writer’s term for hiding or suppressing traits to meet social expectations—but does not establish that the same experience applies to all autistic people.
The writer says he spent years studying social behavior, practicing expressions and jokes, and monitoring his eye contact and conversation. He describes these efforts as a sustained performance that often left him exhausted after ordinary social interactions. As that strain grew, he says he began dreading activities he had once enjoyed, avoiding calls and invitations, and canceling plans because he lacked the energy to keep performing.
He describes making changes gradually: allowing himself to look away from eye contact that felt uncomfortable, not pretending to laugh, stimming through movements such as rocking or hand fidgeting, and asking for quiet without apologizing. These are details from his own account, not clinical findings or a prescribed approach. The essay does not identify the writer by name in the supplied material.
The writer says some friendships changed when he stopped maintaining the same social performance, while others improved. He also reports choosing quieter settings and smaller gatherings, and says he had more energy for activities he enjoyed. He stresses that accepting his autism did not remove every difficulty: sensory overload and hard days still occur, but he says he is less likely to treat those experiences as personal failures.
The essay puts a personal account behind a term often used to describe efforts to conceal or compensate for traits in social situations. Its central point is that appearing to cope may not reveal how much effort a person is expending. The writer says he seemed functional to others while privately feeling depleted, a gap that shaped how he interpreted his own needs.
For readers, the account may help explain why social expectations can feel tiring for some autistic people, and why small adjustments—such as choosing a quieter setting or communicating a need for time alone—can matter to an individual. But the piece is one person’s experience; it does not measure how common masking-related exhaustion is or show that reducing masking will have the same effects for everyone. The value of the essay is its description of how this writer understood his own experience, not a universal rule about autism.
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From Performance to Self-Acceptance
The essay’s account follows a personal sequence: childhood teasing and a sense of being different, years of trying to learn expected social behaviors, growing exhaustion, and a gradual decision to stop forcing some of those behaviors. The writer says he did not always have language for his autism while growing up, and describes interpreting his difference as a problem he needed to fix.
He presents the change not as a sudden breakthrough but as a set of small choices. His account also distinguishes self-acceptance from a claim that the outside world changed: he says difficult sensory environments remain, while his response shifted from self-blame toward recognizing that some settings do not suit him. The source is a personal essay, rather than a reported study or a clinical assessment.
““I had been trying harder than anyone around me for years, and it was breaking me.””
— The writer, in the Tiny Buddha essay
Limits of One Personal Account
The essay does not provide the writer’s name, a publication date in the supplied source material, or independent reporting to corroborate his account. It also offers no data on how frequently autistic people experience masking or exhaustion, and does not compare outcomes for people who mask less or more.
It remains unclear how the writer’s relationships and daily life have changed over time beyond the examples he gives. His experience should not be read as a clinical recommendation or as representative of every autistic person; individual needs and responses can differ.
What the Essay Leaves Open
The source material does not announce a follow-up study, policy change, or next reporting milestone. The essay ends with the writer encouraging readers who recognize their own exhaustion to consider small, safe ways of being less guarded, rather than changing everything at once. That suggestion is the writer’s personal advice, not a one-size-fits-all instruction.
Further reporting could examine how autistic people describe masking across different settings and what support they find useful, with input from autistic people and qualified researchers. For now, the confirmed development is the publication of a personal essay and the writer’s account of its effects; broader conclusions remain outside what the piece establishes.
Key Questions
What does the writer mean by masking?
He uses masking to describe performing expected social behaviors and hiding traits or needs so others will see him as normal. His examples include practicing eye contact, expressions, and conversation.
What changes does he say he made?
He says he stopped forcing some eye contact, allowed himself to stim, chose quieter settings, and stated his need for quiet without apologizing. He describes these as gradual, personal changes.
Did reducing masking solve all of his difficulties?
No. The writer says sensory overload and hard days continued. He says the change was in how he understood those experiences, with less shame and self-blame.
Does the essay show that masking affects every autistic person the same way?
No. It is a first-person account, not a study of autistic people generally. The essay does not establish how common the writer’s experiences are or whether others will have similar outcomes.
Source: tinybuddha.com
