Rethinking Integrity in Neurodivergence: A Theology of ‘Masking’

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Integrity is a huge deal. Integrity matters. At ministry training college, you knew you were in loads of trouble (or someone had seriously not understood you) if an “integrity matter” came up. But, I think that the way we often speak about integrity can actually cause more harm than good. I think we need to rethink integrity through understanding a theology of masking.

A note of caution: everything I am saying here is in very broad strokes and is based on my reading, on my encounters with others, the lived experience of my friends, and my own experiences in life. It is not a universal experience. Some elements are disputed, but this is what I believe about them. It will not apply to people who are neurodivergent with diminished cognitive capacity for whom the opportunity to mask, camouflage, or pass, in normalcy is largely impossible.

Thinking About Integrity

Integrity means something that is holding together, the whole thing expressing every other part of that thing. But is that how we should think of integrity when it comes to people?

Integrity is normally understood to mean that how a person is in private is the same as someone is in public. Or that what someone says, how they act, and what they think, are all the same thing. Or it means treating everyone the same way, or having a consistent set of morals for every occasion. But I don’t think this always works.

There are simple examples. For example, the way you behave with your spouse will (hopefully) be different from how you behave with your work colleagues, friends and family, or strangers. You will behave differently in each relationship because each relationship has its own dynamic.

Does this mean you are a different person in each situation? Or rather that different people get different access to who you? Or is it that the way you express yourself, and the different aspects of you are expressed differently depending on who you are with? You can maintain the same core principles and morals, but act very differently depending on who you are with.

The key point for this article is whether a person can still have integrity if they act differently depending on who they are with. This matters, because I believe I am a person of integrity, but I absolutely act differently depending on who I am with, and different people get different levels of access to my personality and inner life.

When we think about integrity in the context of people with Neurodivergence, we need to think about the phenomenon of masking.

What Actually Is Masking?

Masking is the common term used to describe a particular kind of behaviour for people who are neurodivergent. It is generally used to describe when a person puts on a particular persona, or mask, which enables them to interact in a community or setting in a way that is expected.

There is a word I hate, and which can both hurt and anger me in a way few others do. It is the word ‘Normal.’ The assumption of normalcy – that there is a generally acceptable and expected set of behaviours and modes of communication – is what creates the necessity of masking for many Neurodivergent people.

If no one has asked you “why can’t you be normal” or no one has criticised you because you do not think or act in a way that is “normal” then you may not appreciate what I am trying to explain. But take it from me, there are fewer things more likely to make you want to pretend to be someone else than being told who you are and how you think isn’t normal.

Normalcy is the accumulated assumptions which guard and inform belonging and acceptance. If someone falls outside of those norms, then they struggle to belong, and thus struggle to be seen or heard as equals. So people who do not fit within those acceptable norms, who recognise that they do not fit in those norms, and who want to be able to pass as acceptable in those norms, will often create, consciously or unconsciously, a social or work mask to fit in.

But masking is not the only kind of social camouflage adopted by Neurodivergent people.

Different Kinds of Camouflage

Masking is actually part of three behaviours that make up a set of safety systems. Safety is the key word here. People do not do these things for fun. They do them to be safe.

Compensation: This is the use of active strategies to make up for difficulties in social situations or with communication. The key point is that these are active strategies. They are things that people choose to do, and often learn how to do, to be able to pass within normalcy. This can include forcing yourself to make eye contact, copying body language, practicing scripts for small talk etc.

Masking: This is the conscious or unconscious suppression and monitoring of Neurodivergent traits. This can include not stimming, not talking about things that interest us, and generally acting in a way that would allow a person to pass within normalcy and so avoid negative judgements or assumptions.

Assimilation: This is the intentional decision to adopt behaviour associated with normalcy which is different from the person’s natural behaviour and feelings of safety. This can include adopting a performance to fit with social activities or communal situations, forcing yourself to get through uncomfortable situations or conversations, allowing hugs or other forms of physical touch etc. to be able to pass within normalcy.

All three types of behaviour are forms of social camouflage, and are designed to help keep a person safe.

The Veiled Self

The self is hidden behind practiced communication, forced interaction, and hidden behaviours. A friend of mine described it as like drawing a veil over themselves whenever they left their house. By the time they got home they were exhausted.

Every day was a struggle. Not because they were incapable. But because the small, everyday acts that people take for granted cost them a huge amount of energy.

Imagine what it is like. Imagine having to be constantly aware of your behaviour. Of what your body is doing, of how you are standing or sitting. Of what you are saying, or not saying. Of your expressions, of your gaze.

Then imagine that you are put into a social situation where you do not understand the rules of the game everyone else is playing, but you are expected to understand them without being told because it is “obvious” and “normal.”

So instead you have to learn, you have to practice, you have to concentrate. Because if you get it wrong, you don’t belong, and you already learned long ago that you don’t really belong anywhere anyway.

Imagine what it might be like for everyday to be like that. At work. With friends. At home. Someone once described it to me as being like carrying heavy shopping home in cheap carrier bags. You know the feeling when the plastic handles are stretching, they are digging into your fingers, but you can’t let go of them, even though you know at any moment they could break. But you can’t stop. You have to keep carrying those bags, and hoping they don’t stretch too far before you get home.

If you can imagine that, then you can start to grasp what life is often like for people who are neurodivergent. You might wonder why people would chose to do it. But that fails to understand the reality that for most people, social camouflage is not actually a choice.

An Illusion of Choice with Masking

Is masking, or social camouflage in general, actually a choice?

To start with, a lot of those behaviours are subconscious or learned survival mechanisms and adaptations. In that sense, it isn’t a choice, because many people do not intentionally choose to camouflage themselves. They simply learned to do it to try and get through life.

It is the kid who learned not to answer every question, who made themselves smaller and quieter, who was told to be still, and not to be silly. It is the teenager who didn’t have relationships because the emotions were overwhelming, or who avoided social situations without structures and rules because they were too confusing. It is the adult who learned to get on at work meant not answering rhetorical questions, not outperforming their colleagues, not saying when they were bored.

Maybe you can identify with some of that? Or maybe you know someone who did those things.

However, for some people with Neurodivergence, to camouflage themselves was absolutely a choice. One that came with a cost attached. Learning social cues and behaviour. Practicing small talk, facial expressions (especially when no one can tell when you are smiling), and how to read body language and micro expressions.

Trying to explain why when they made a connection with someone special they gave all of themselves to that person, to the exclusion of almost everything else, while they only had passing friendships with everyone else. Why some connections are incredibly intense and fulfilling, and others are forgotten as soon as they stop seeing each other.

Or shutting down your emotions because of the sheer overwhelm that hyper-empathy can create. Because those feelings are too big. Because keeping track of everyone’s micro expressions is exhausting.

And all of that is because of external expectations. The cult of normalcy, where belonging and acceptance is dependent upon fitting with a certain degree of shared behaviour and assumptions.

Let’s be clear about this. No one wants to social camouflage. Or at least, no one I’ve spoken to, listened to, or read. Maybe there are some people out there who love it. But I don’t imagine there are many. Camouflaging is exhausting, painful, sad, and lonely. People only do it because if they don’t, they won’t be accepted, and they won’t be able to exist in the world in the same way that others do.

When Can I Be Me?

Part of this comes down to knowing when I can be me. When am I safe to be myself. The self that only the people closest to me will ever see.

But does that mean that other people don’t really know me?

I am always me. People who mask and camouflage are always themselves. They just reveal different degrees of themselves depending on the level of safety they feel or perceive in that environment and relationship.

Whether you think of it in terms of putting on or off a persona or mask, or veiling, or shrouding, or whatever image works for you, ultimately it comes down to self-protection.

Many Neurodivergent people have learned that being too open, too themselves, leaves them getting hurt or rejected. So social camouflage protects them until they know if they are safe to be themselves with a person or in a situation.

This means that we need to rethink what we mean when we talk about integrity in the context of people who are neurodivergent.

Rethinking Integrity in Relationship to Neurodivergence and Social Camouflage

I am who I am. My core identity, my beliefs, my faith, my ethical systems, my memory, and my relationships, all shape who I am, and they are not changed depending on my context.

However, how I present myself, how I behave, and how much of myself I share with someone, absolutely does depend on the context I am in.

To act one way with one person and another way with a different person is not a lack of integrity. It is a matter of safety, security and comfort. Social camouflaging, in all of its various forms, is what allows me to be me in different contexts. It allows me to be the me I am comfortable being.

Being forced outside of that camouflage, those veils of safety, is incredibly scary and takes huge amounts of emotional energy. When someone asks me why I can’t just be me with someone, I try to explain what a vulnerable experience that is, when so many times being me has led me to be hurt.

We need to create space for the kind of integrity that allows for different expressions of self without thinking that takes away from a person’s wholeness or makes them a liar. If I don’t let you into my world, it’s not because I am pretending or lying to you, it is because at that moment I do not feel safe enough to share myself with you.

We need to think really carefully about the kind of spaces, communities, and places we are creating when it comes to safety for people who are neurodivergent. But we also need to recognise that it is not the leader or the community that gets to determine whether someone should feel safe or not in that place.

We can invite people to be who they truly are. But we need to recognise that we cannot force it, we shouldn’t always expect it, and that isn’t a failure. It is a matter of making everyone feel safe. Safety includes changing our assumptions about what integrity looks like.

Accepting a Veiled Identity

So, for people who are neurodivergent, including the people reading this who might be Neurodivergent, or for those reading who support, love, and care for those who are, what does that mean for self-acceptance?

It means that I have had to learn to accept that who I am is not always something that everyone will accept or understand.

People mask because otherwise they will have a label stuck on them that reduces their personality and behaviour to that label. Their achievements are discounted, their intelligence reduced, their quirks become symptoms.

People mask because other people’s social expectations can be a physical weight. And when you do make a genuine connection with someone where you can be yourself, you get labelled as obsessive, or people think you’re making favourites, and so it’s easier not to make those connections in the first place.

People camouflage because otherwise they would not be able to exist in a social world. This is especially true of the church.

The church can be a dangerous place to be different. Whether in a congregation, or as a church leader. Sometimes especially as a church leader. You exist in a highly specialised environment, filled with unwritten rules about behaviour, purity, and expected presentation. Having to navigate that without camouflage and without practice can be very very painful.

But this is the really important bit.

Known and Loved by God

You may not be known by the people around you. You may have to hide at work, protect yourself from family and friends, and guard your heart and mind from the people you serve. But you don’t need to do that from God.

You are a beloved child of God. You do not need to mask or camouflage from God. In Genesis, Adam and Eve hide from God. But we don’t need to do that (and they didn’t need to either, by the way). God knows who you are in a way that no-one else ever will. God accepts you as you are in a way no one else ever will.

In the New Living Translation, Ephesians 2:10 says that we are God’s masterpiece. You may not be able to act like it in the world, but that is not your fault. You are who God made you to be, in all your Neurodivergence and beautiful uniqueness. You are God’s masterpiece.

Being in the world can be difficult and painful. But you never need to feel that with God. God sees you, the real you, past the veils, and knows you, and loves you, as you are.

When we can learn to accept that, then we learn to live more healthily and safely in the world. We can stop feeling as guilty for protecting ourselves, and maybe we can accept who we are a little bit easier, when we recognise where we sit in the world.

In The World But Not Of The World

John 17:14 talks about disciples being not of this world and being hated for it. I think that’s not just disciples, it’s often anyone who is different. But that specific verse, in its specific context, can be really helpful to understand how we look at integrity and Discipleship in Neurodivergence.

The Greek word that is translated as “of” is the word ek which means out of, or in this context, originating from. In other words, it is not saying we do not belong to this world, it’s saying we are not something that originates from this world.

The experience of Neurodivergence is often one of feeling outside of the world. Of not fitting into its systems and structures. Of not belonging. Jesus is telling us that the reality is that anyone who follows him does not belong in those systems and structures.

But you do belong in the Kingdom of God. In fact, it’s those people who seem to be the weakest, the strangest, the most outside of the norm, that are most essential to the kingdom. 1 Corinthians 12:22 tells us that it is those members that seem weakest that are most necessary to the body.

The church is incomplete without Neurodivergent people. We need to make space and change our systems and structures to accommodate the difference. And part of that includes changing how we perceive integrity.

I am who I am in every situation of life. But how I present myself in each context will be different. That isn’t a matter of integrity. It is a matter of safety.

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