Words by Georgia Fields
“Oh, that’s just my face!”, I reply, jauntily.
It’s my third week of unmasking, and it’s going great.
The late afternoon sun throws thin rectangles of light onto the carpet in the university staff room. I’m on a short break between lectures, staring quietly into space and thinking my thoughts, when a teacher from another department walks in and asks if I’m okay. They say I look glum. They’re well-meaning, and I’m not offended – because this is evidence that I am relinquishing the obligation to consciously adjust my facial expressions in public. It’s working! After receiving my long-awaited official autism ‘diagnosis’ in my forties, I am dismantling the learned habits that require so much energy to maintain. I am returning to who I was before I began The Great Construction.
It’s been almost two years since that interaction in the staff room – and I’m still untangling the enigma of my identity (although with more self-compassion and gentleness these days).
Masking, or as Dr Wenn Lawson calls it, “adaptive morphing”, is when an autistic person reshapes themselves to read as neurotypical. It can look like holding back stims, forcing eye contact, brightening your voice, or arranging your face into something more pleasant. It’s a thousand tiny edits happening in real time, and it’s exhausting. I mask to fit in, but it’s important to acknowledge that black, brown and queer autistic people are at a significantly higher risk of violence and harm. Many autistic people mask to stay safe, and alive.
My new single Chameleon was born out of my frustration with masking. Lyrically, I wanted to convey the emotional cost, as well as the humour and absurdity of it. “I mean what I say and I say what I mean, but it’s not enough, it seems. I gotta fill it out with pleasantries.” I write songs to express my inner world, but also to connect with people – and I guess I was hoping this song might reach some other autistic folks and help them feel less alone. Because the more I’ve come to understand my own experience, the more I’ve realised how much of it is shared.
Over the past few years I’ve become increasingly interested in autistic culture. A love of repetition, pre occupation with texture, fixation on small parts and details, the deep satisfaction of putting things in order… These are a few of my favourite autistic aesthetics. Through actively unmasking in my creative practice, I have embraced what the pathology paradigm calls ‘restricted and repetitive behaviour’ (and what I call ‘a really good time’) as a vital and vibrant manifestation of autistic culture. I’m giving myself permission to dig deeper into the sounds and patterns that activate my senses, and make me feel alive.
Unmasking as a creative person is a joyful act. Chameleon grew out of that process, and the music video by Kalindy Williams is a kinetic continuation of it – a visual conversation between us.
Unmasking hasn’t given me a clean, fixed version of myself. If anything, it’s made things messier. But it feels more honest. And these days, you can take my face at face value.
