Masking is the effort of hiding how your mind really works. When the effort is high, the crash afterwards is high too, and that is when many people reach for something to switch off.

If masking is new to you, start with masking as an adult and masking as a child, then come back. This post is about the second half of the story: what happens after the performance ends.

How masking builds up

Many of us learned early that being ourselves got us in trouble. So we learned to rehearse conversations before having them, sit still when our bodies did not want to, over-work to cover mistakes, say yes to everything, and stay calm on the outside while things were loud on the inside. It works. It also costs a great deal.

The word researchers use is camouflaging, and most of the studies are about autistic people, though many ADHD and AuDHD people recognise themselves in the description. A 2024 systematic review of social camouflaging found that people camouflage to protect themselves and to connect with others, and that the behaviour may put people at risk of poorer mental health. A 2023 review that combined 58 studies described camouflaging as mainly a socially motivated response, connected to feeling overlooked, under-supported and burnt out. The National Autistic Society's masking guide explains the experience in plain words.

I want to be careful, since most of that research is on autism rather than ADHD alone. But the shape of the experience is familiar to a lot of ADHD readers, and it is the shape that matters here.

The crash

After a day of performing, the body and mind often need to release. Some people go quiet for hours. Some cry. Some get irritable with the people they love most. And some drink, smoke or use something to finally feel off the clock.

That is not laziness, and it is not a character flaw. It is a switch-off that the day did not allow. If you have held a face for nine hours, the need to put it down is enormous, and a substance is the fastest way many of us found.

Why it becomes a loop

The more you mask, the more you need to recover. The more you use a substance to recover, the less energy you have for the next day, which makes masking harder and more tiring, and so on around again. The mask and the escape feed each other.

There is a second loop inside the first. If a substance is what lets you keep masking at work, then it becomes tied to your ability to function. That is a frightening thing to look at, and it is a common reason people stay stuck. I do not think the answer is to remove the recovery. I think the answer is to move it somewhere kinder.

Choosing where to take it off

You do not have to drop your mask everywhere. That can be unsafe at work or in some families, and nobody should pretend otherwise. A more workable idea is to choose where to unmask, one place at a time.

  1. Is this place safe? Will I lose anything real by being myself here?
  2. What is the mask costing me here? Energy, connection, honesty?
  3. What would I do with the energy I get back? Rest, make something, spend time with someone real?

If a place is safe, the cost is high and you have a plan for the energy, it is a good place to start. Begin small. Say the true thing about your day to one person. Leave the meeting a minute early. Stop pretending you enjoyed the loud restaurant.

Give the recovery a better home

Recovery itself is not the problem. What I want is a version of it that does not depend on a substance.

  • A regular, protected time to do nothing after a social day. Put it in the diary so it survives.
  • A person who knows the real you. One is enough. It does not have to be a partner.
  • Movement, water and daylight. These are dull answers because they work quietly, over weeks, not minutes.
  • Creative work with no audience. Something you make that nobody will judge.
  • Sound that lets your nervous system come down. For me that meant slow, familiar audio. You can try the listening previews and see whether they suit you. They are not a treatment, only one of the easier things to try.

Once recovery is built into the week, the switch-off does not have to come from a bottle or a joint. You still end the day exhausted. You just have somewhere to put the exhaustion.

Masking and people-pleasing travel together

Many of the people who mask hardest are also the ones who say yes to everything, because both come from the same fear of being rejected. If that sounds like you, read why people-pleasing is a symptom, not kindness. For the substance side of the story, ADHD and drugs covers the question that helped me most: what were you seeking?

If you want company

Unmasking is much easier with witnesses. The ADHD MindFlow community is a place where being unfiltered is the norm and nobody needs you to perform. Come and read for a while first if that feels safer.

I am not a professional and this is not medical advice. It is my own experience and what I have read.

Educational content from lived experience; sound sessions are not a treatment for ADHD. Read our sources, commercial disclosure and editorial approach.