Not all diversities are visible: Living in a world that demands masks
June 30, 2025
Neurodiversity
Disability Pride Month
An intimate look at invisible autism, masking, and the need to reshape the world so no one must hide in order to exist.
By Tania Pecina – Ogury Mexico / Billing Specialist
When we talk about disability, most people picture physical access, medical diagnoses, or visible barriers. But there’s another side we often overlook — especially when we’ve learned to use something called masking: a survival strategy to resemble what’s considered “normal” and protect ourselves in a world designed for neurotypical people.
This is the experience of living with an invisible disability.
I’m an autistic woman, diagnosed in adulthood after becoming the mother of an autistic child.
For years, I felt like I was always “too much” or “not enough”: someone who could feel more than she could express. Too sensitive. Too quiet. Too logical. Too structured. Too intense — with an endless need to understand everything, but never in the “right” way.

I often felt like my soul didn’t fit in my body. I would implode in the silence of a classroom — an environment that felt aggressive to me. Or, on the other end, I wasn’t social enough, flexible enough, or “normal” enough.
My childhood was filled with sort of wrong diagnoses — and with hurtful labels like “lazy,” “spoiled,” “weird.” Autism was never considered because I “spoke well,” could “look people in the eyes,” and didn’t “look like the autistic kids on TV.”
But autism isn’t always visible. It’s lived from the inside out.
It wasn’t clinical depression — it was an autistic burnout.
It wasn’t panic attacks — it was meltdowns.
It wasn’t just anxiety — it was often sensory overload.
It wasn’t laziness — it was executive dysfunction.
This compliance came at a cost: depression, exhaustion, overstimulation, emotional crises, more burnout, more meltdowns, shutdowns… and a constant sense of not belonging. Of betraying and hiding myself. Of living in effort, not in peace.

For years, I didn’t understand why things that seemed effortless for others felt like breathing underwater to me. Like greeting people with kisses and hugs. I didn’t understand why noise, people, unexpected changes, or pretending to be okay while I was drowning inside could leave me so drained and in pain.
The hardest part was the weight of expectations — I learned to monitor myself constantly to survive. To mask my traits. To adapt. To meet every demand. I forced myself to memorize the “right” answers to social questions, even when I wasn’t emotionally available to respond.
Until I realized I wasn’t broken.
As a mother and a professional, I was “supposed” to have it all together. But even as a single working mom, I had my own way of experiencing life. I wasn’t failing. I didn’t need fixing. I was navigating a mold that wasn’t built for me.
What I needed were spaces that respected the way I experienced the world.
My son’s diagnosis changed everything. Something clicked. I saw myself in him. I hyperfocused on understanding him — and in the process of researching, learning, and advocating for him, I began reclaiming parts of myself.
I started to find my way back. I finally understood: I was never broken. I’m just… different.
That’s where stoicism appears: in accepting that our way of processing the world doesn’t need to be corrected — it needs to be understood.
Today, I’ve finally accepted myself. And that’s the real challenge: transforming the world around us.
Ableism — the belief that there’s only one “right” way to function or to be — is often unintentional but deeply rooted. It shows up in dismissive comments (“You don’t look autistic”), in the lack of workplace accommodations, in parenting standards, and in the constant pressure to “fit in” to be valued.
People fear what they don’t understand — it’s part of our most primitive instincts. But we’ve evolved in so many ways. It’s time to evolve in this, too.
Because if you don’t “look” disabled, then you must not “deserve” support. If you express yourself well, then “it can’t be that bad.” If you don’t act the way people expect an autistic person to act, then “you must be exaggerating.”
This isn’t about blame — it’s about awareness. About recognizing that there are many valid ways of being.
Supporting neurodivergence goes beyond ramps and tools. It means listening with the heart to our, sometimes, unsound voices. Making room for our ways of thinking, feeling, and relating. It means understanding that empathy may look different — yes, we do feel empathy. Often more deeply than we can show. That silence can be communication. That structure can be a source of safety.

As part of the autistic community — and as a woman, a mother, and a professional — my existence defies norms. And yet, here I am. With my rhythm, my ways, and my strengths.
Being autistic doesn’t make us any less capable of living fully, of feeling love, of being a mother, of working, of finding joy.
This is not just for myself, but for my beloved son, Demian — who has taught me how to come home to myself.
So he can grow up in a world that doesn’t punish him for being who he is.
So he never has to wonder if he’s broken.
So he always knows it’s okay to be himself.
And that he can do and be anything he dreams of — in his own way.
I also speak for those without a diagnosis. For those who feel out of place and don’t know why. For those who still believe they need to mask to be accepted.
If we can start seeing neurodivergence not as a flaw, but as a richness — a different way of perceiving, feeling, and living — maybe future generations won’t have to fight so hard just to exist.