You’re at a gallery opening on Cherokee Street. The music is too loud, the lights are too bright, and you’re running the social script on a loop. You mention how the sensory overload is exhausting, and a friend—a good, well-meaning friend—says, “Oh, I get that. My social anxiety is so bad too.”

And the world just… stops. Because you know, in your bones, that’s not it. It’s not the same. You feel profoundly, utterly alone, your reality dismissed and misunderstood even in a space that claims to celebrate difference.

The lie you’ve been told, and have started to believe, is that your needs make you unlovable. That this exhaustion you feel is just a more dramatic form of social anxiety.

That isn’t just wrong; it’s scientifically inaccurate. A landmark 2025 study published in the journal Autism has provided the definitive, statistical proof of what you’ve always known: Autistic masking and social anxiety are not the same thing. One is a feeling. The other is a highly skilled, cognitively demanding, full-time job you’ve been forced to work your entire life.

The Science: Drawing a Line in the Sand

For years, the clinical world has struggled to untangle these overlapping experiences. So, a team of researchers led by Dr. McKinnon set out to answer the question once and for all: Is camouflaging a real, distinct psychological construct, or is it just a fancy name for social anxiety?

They focused their study on the undisputed world experts on the topic: a large sample of majority-female, self-identified autistic adults. They administered a series of questionnaires, including the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q), and then ran the data through a powerful statistical analysis called an Exploratory Factor Analysis.

Think of it like this: the researchers put all the data points into a design program and told it to group them by their true nature. The data for “hiding your traits” and “performing neurotypicality” snapped together into one clean layer, while “fear of judgment” created its own, completely separate layer.

The results were a stunning victory for validation. The analysis proved, with statistical certainty, that camouflaging is a distinct psychological construct, completely separate from social anxiety and fear of negative evaluation.

While the two experiences are absolutely related—and for many, masking causes anxiety—they are not the same thing.

Why This Nuance is Everything

The study also exposed the limitations of even our best tools. It found that some items on the questionnaire were statistically messy, proving that a tool is only as good as the clinician wielding it. A lazy clinician sees the behavior—avoiding a party—and calls it “anxiety.” A great clinician gets curious about the why.

Are you avoiding the party because you’re terrified of being judged (anxiety)? Or are you avoiding it because you’ve done the math and realized the massive energy cost of masking for three hours will leave you with a two-day “social hangover” (a strategic, autistic energy-conservation measure)? The behavior is the same. The “why” is everything.

Your experience is real. A Guide to Masking is not just another word for anxiety. It is a unique, complex, and exhausting skillset you developed to survive. You deserve a specialist who doesn’t just see the behavior, but who has the clinical nuance to understand the “why” behind it. When you’re ready to Start, we’re here. The science finally proves you were right all along.