The Good-Girl Mask

Everyone who masks pays a price, but women's masks are often built on top of a lifetime of gendered training: be nice, be easy, smile, don't make a fuss, put others first. So the autistic woman's mask isn't only 'act less autistic' — it's 'be the agreeable girl everyone wants.' That's a heavier, more invisible mask, and research links this kind of sustained camouflaging to real costs: anxiety, depression, and burnout.

My good-girl mask

Which of these did you learn to perform? Tick what rings true.

• [ ] Smiling / agreeable when I'm overwhelmed or upset
• [ ] Saying yes when I mean no
• [ ] Making myself small, quiet, easy to be around
• [ ] Mirroring others so I don't stand out
• [ ] Hiding my needs so I'm not 'difficult'
• [ ] Apologizing constantly, even for existing

What it costs me

How drained does maintaining this leave me?

Rate from 0 (A little) to 10 (Completely): ____

Where the cost shows up (exhaustion, resentment, losing track of what I even want)

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Underneath the mask

Something true about me that the good-girl mask hides

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One safe place to set it down

Unmasking is gradual and safety-first — not everywhere, not at once.

One person or place where it feels safe enough to be a little more myself, and what I'd let show

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Pleasant isn't a personality: Being easy and accommodating was a survival skill, not your actual self. You're allowed to find out who you are underneath it — slowly, and where it's safe.

Go deeper

Ready for more? These lessons pick up where this worksheet leaves off.

• Masking and Camouflaging, from The Autistic Woman. What autistic masking is, how girls learn it early, what it costs — exhaustion, anxiety, lost identity — and the CAT-Q.
• Unmasking, Safely, from The Autistic Woman. Unmasking isn't all-or-nothing or always safe — a neuroaffirming guide for autistic women: the dimmer not the switch, safety mapping, and grief.
• CAT-Q — Measuring Autistic Masking and Camouflaging, from Autistic Self-Discovery. What the CAT-Q measures, its three subscales, why there is no published cut-off score, and what the research says it can and cannot tell you.