Masking at Work: The Hidden Impact of Burnout Neurodivergent Employees Face

The concept of Masking and Camouflaging at work, is sometimes considered to be a new idea; something that we have only recently become aware of and therefore need to consider.

However, for many neurodivergent people, masking is sadly a long-held tradition.  Maybe what is new, is the awareness and the long-overdue conversations about how neurodivergent individuals are hiding themselves in plain sight; this hiding can be particularly prevalent at work.

For many employees, the working day involves far more than completing tasks, attending meetings and meeting deadlines. For neurodivergent employees, work can also involve a continuous, often invisible performance: an ongoing attempt at appearing ‘neuro-normal’.

Rehearsing conversations before a meeting, maintaining eye contact, suppressing stimming movements, monitoring tone of voice, copying social behaviours or hiding how overwhelmed we might be feeling. Spending enormous amounts of energy trying to fit into neuro-normative workplace cultures that have not considered neuroinclusion can be truly exhausting.

Rosie Weldon, an autistic advocate, shared with the National Autistic Society;

“When I am masking the vast majority of my brain function is going to that masking. It is taking almost all of my mental energy to just stay in absolute control and only let through the behaviours that are acceptable in that situation.”

Sounds exhausting, but is masking actually a bad thing?

Masking can help neurodivergent individuals navigate environments where being different may attract misunderstanding, judgement or even exclusion. The mask can therefore feel protective. It could even help us secure a job, build relationships with colleagues or avoid being labelled as difficult.

As Paul Miscallef of Autism From The Inside explains:

“Before I realised I was on the spectrum, masking was just called coping. It was just called fitting in and having friends and keeping a job.”

Masking does however come at a cost.

I have encountered many neurodivergent employees who call their mask ‘a toxic friend’ a friend because sometimes the mask can protect and serve, but toxic as sadly it can also harm and hurt.

As autistic educator and advocate Yo Samdy Sam, puts it:

“Masking is not relaxing; it’s this constant state of, basically, performance.”

When maintaining a professional persona requires someone to constantly suppress their natural ways of thinking, communicating and regulating themselves, the emotional and cognitive load can become exhausting. Over time, this can contribute to stress, disengagement and burnout.

For organisations increasingly talking about wellbeing, neuroinclusion and psychological safety, understanding the impact of masking is essential. Sometimes the employee who appears to be coping best may be struggling the most.

What is masking – and what does it look like at work?

 Masking is the conscious or unconscious process of hiding or suppressing aspects of ourselves in order to fit social expectations.

Although anyone can feel pressure to behave differently at work, masking is particularly significant for neurodivergent people.

Masking can take many forms. An autistic employee might consciously remind themselves to make eye contact during a conversation, even though it feels uncomfortable or distracting. They may suppress stimming movements, carefully monitor their facial expressions or rehearse what they intend to say before speaking.

Amythest Schaber, autistic educator and creator of Ask an Autistic shares;

“Unfortunately, masking is kind of necessary … because of the ableist attitudes in our society and in our culture.”

An employee with ADHD might develop elaborate camouflaging systems to conceal difficulties with attention, organisation or working memory. They may overprepare for meetings, work significantly longer hours than necessary or avoid asking for help because they fear being perceived as incompetent.  A common form of masking can be hiding the impact of sensory overwhelm. Bright lights, background conversations, office noise or busy environments can be genuinely dysregulating, yet an employee might continue working without telling anyone because they do not want to appear “too sensitive”.

Masking is often a learned survival strategy in the workplace.

Neurodivergent individuals can learn, that certain behaviours are rewarded while others are criticised, this learning journey often begins in childhood. Over time, then a neurodivergent individual may become exceptionally skilled at adapting themselves to whatever their environment expects.

As autistic advocate Purple Ella explains;

“Masking happens in the context of being given the message at quite a young age that who you are and your natural, instinctive way of being is not okay, and that you will only be accepted if you shape yourself into something else.”

Why do Neurodivergent Employees Mask at Work?

The workplace can create powerful incentives to conform and ‘fit in’.

Most organisations have explicit expectations, often linked to performance targets.  We of course should accept and respect these expectations as part of being an employee within that organisation. However, what may be less obvious are the unwritten and invisible rules.  This working-life ‘subtext’ could be categorised as workplace culture and social norms. These unwritten rules are less about measurable performance but rather the invisible neuro-normative playbook of what ‘good’ look likes.

Get the playbook wrong and we could find ourselves being labelled as ‘difficult’ ‘unprofessional’ and ‘not a good fit’ for our role.

This playbook could manifest as expectations to make small talk, participate enthusiastically in meetings, maintain a particular level of eye contact, respond quickly to messages, tolerate open-plan offices or demonstrate confidence in a particular way.

These expectations can create difficulties when someone’s natural communication or working style differs from the neuro-normative playbook.

A neurodivergent employee may quickly learn that asking for clarification is interpreted as lacking confidence. Taking a break to regulate may be interpreted as disengagement. Avoiding unnecessary social interaction may be seen as unfriendly. Working quietly and independently may be discouraged because it is not collaborative.  The individual may then get a reputation of not being a team-player.

The result therefore can be a difficult choice: be yourself and risk being misunderstood, or mask and risk exhausting yourself.

For some employees, masking may also be connected to fear.  Fear of disclosing their neurodifference being treated differently.  This may be connected to worries about discrimination, being overlooked for promotion, damaging relationships with colleagues or being stereotyped about their neurodivergence.

If someone has previously experienced bullying, exclusion or negative assumptions, the workplace can feel like somewhere they need to constantly manage how others perceive them.  The individual can become hyper-vigilant about needing to ‘fit-in’ at any cost. This fitting-in, which is often the opposite of feeling like we belong, carries a huge and hidden personal energy cost. One of the biggest problems with masking is the underestimation of how much personal energy it consumes.

“It is EXHAUSTING. It’s like trying to solve mathematical equations in your head all day long while carrying on as normal.” Participant in research on autistic adults’ experiences of camouflaging.

Imagine therefore spending an entire working day monitoring and second-guessing yourself.

Experiencing a running commentary and self-critiquing ‘noise’ running on repeat, playing in the background of our working day.

• Am I making enough eye contact?
• Did my response sound rude?
• Should I contribute to this conversation?
• Was that joke appropriate?
• Am I sitting strangely?
• Do I look interested enough?
• Should I ask them to repeat that?
• Can anyone tell I’m overwhelmed?

For someone who is masking, this self-critiquing can happen continuously, sometimes even without conscious awareness.

The employee may still be completing their work and performing well, but behind that performance is a significant amount of mental effort.

This is particularly important as workplace performance is often measured through visible outcomes rather than invisible effort.

An employee who completes every task on time may be assumed to be thriving. Their manager may not see the hours spent recovering after work, the exhaustion caused by constant sensory stimulation or the effort involved in carefully managing every interaction. And this is where masking becomes particularly important when we talk about burnout.

Masking and Burnout

Burnout is more than feeling tired after a busy week.

It is associated with prolonged or excessive stress and can involve emotional exhaustion, reduced effectiveness and even a growing sense of detachment or cynicism; burnt-out neurodivergent individuals often share about having ‘checked-out’ at work. This can often be a self-protection mechanism.

For some neurodivergent employees, sustained masking can become one of the key factors contributing cumulative stress and exhaustion associated with burnout.

The employee may spend the working day suppressing discomfort, compensating for difficulties, navigating sensory overload and consciously managing social expectations. They then return home with little energy left for relationships, hobbies, exercise or basic self-care.

Over time,  the coping strategies that once worked may stop working. Someone who previously managed to arrive early every morning may begin struggling to get out of bed. Someone known for being enthusiastic may become withdrawn. A highly organised employee may suddenly miss deadlines. A person who rarely asks for help may reach a point where even small tasks can feel overwhelming.

From the outside, this can appear sudden. From the employee’s perspective, it may have been building for months or even years.

This is why high performance should not automatically be interpreted as low support needs. In reality, exceptional performance can sometimes conceal exceptional effort.

A neurodivergent employee may develop extensive compensatory strategies that allow them to perform at a very high level. They might work longer hours, obsessively check their work, prepare far more than colleagues or avoid delegating because they fear mistakes.

Their organisation sees the outcome – the deadlines met, work completed and the expectations consistently exceeded. But what they don’t see is that the effort required to achieve it may be unsustainable.

A dangerous cycle can develop; the employee is succeeding through overcompensation, which reinforces their masking. The organisation sees their success and raises expectations. The employee works even harder to meet those expectations. This is unsustainable and burnout occurs.

When burnout occurs, managers can be surprised because they believed the employee was coping well –  but an important issue has been overlooked, appearing to manage just fine is not the same as coping sustainably.

Understanding the difference is an important part of creating workplaces where people can perform well without having to continually compensate, mask or push themselves beyond what is sustainable.

Don’t Forget, Disclosure can be Daunting

We should aspire to create workplaces where people can work authentically and sustainably, without feeling that they have to hide fundamental aspects of who they are.

But that does not mean employees should feel pressured to disclose everything about themselves.

In our previous article, Can You Really Bring Your Whole Self to Work?, we explored the tension between encouraging authenticity at work and recognising that employees should still have choice over what they share.

That distinction matters here too.

Although disclosure can be valuable, it is not always straightforward. Many neurodivergent employees worry about the consequences of sharing their neurodivergence at work. There can be concerns about confidentiality, career consequences or being treated differently. Some may have had negative experiences in previous workplaces. Others may not have a formal diagnosis or may simply not feel comfortable attaching a label to their difficulties.

A genuinely neuroinclusive workplace should not require employees to reveal deeply personal information before receiving reasonable support.

Instead, organisations should focus on creating an environment where employees can talk about barriers, needs and what helps them work effectively, whether or not they choose to disclose a diagnosis or neurodivergent identity.

True workplace neuroinclusion is not only about hiring neurodivergent people. It is about creating environments where employees can remain their true authentic self after they have been hired. That means looking beyond recruitment statistics and asking harder questions.

• Can employees ask for adjustments without fear?
• Can people communicate differently without being judged?
• Are managers trained to recognise hidden forms of burnout?
• Are flexible working arrangements genuinely accessible?
• Does workplace culture reward sustainable performance, or does it reward people who are best at masking their struggles?

These questions matter because masking does not only affect individual wellbeing. It can affect retention, engagement, creativity and organisational performance.

When talented employees spend enormous amounts of energy managing how they appear, less energy is available for solving problems, developing ideas and doing meaningful work.

Often the most important shift is cultural.

Neurodivergent employees should not have to choose between authenticity and career progression.

Of course, everyone adapts at work. But there is a difference between adapting to collaborate effectively and suppressing fundamental aspects of yourself simply to avoid being judged.

The employee who seems exceptionally productive may just about surviving through unsustainable levels of effort.

And the employee who eventually burns out may not have suddenly become less capable. They may have reached the point where masking is no longer possible.

If organisations want healthier, more inclusive workplaces, they need to look beyond what employees show on the surface. The goal should not be to make neurodivergent employees better at masking.

It should be to create workplaces where we have less reason to mask.

Because neuroinclusion is not asking employees to become better at hiding who they are.  It is about creating a safe space where they don’t have to.