WHERE TO GET THE BOOK: http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=F6B31A8DAFD6BD39A5986833E66293E6

People have been kind enough to link the audiobook in past posts, so hopefully they'll do that here, too.

In this chapter, Dr. Price goes over the various aspects of what exactly masking is. The various strategies that typically make up the mask, what their purpose is, and some insight on how to examine your own mask and see what it is you've been protecting yourself from. He starts by relaying more of Crystal and Timotheus's experiences, as well as some of his own, and the various things they were protecting themselves from. There's even an exercise you can go through to try and pinpoint the traumas that taught you which parts of yourself were unacceptable to the normies.

He talks about Camouflaging (blending in) and Compensating (covering for a perceived deficiency) and how most masking behaviors fall in one of the two categories. How all-pervasive these adjustments are in the life of a masked Neurodivergent, and how much it deprives us of and limits us.

Then there's discussion of the "being well-behaved" double-bind, where you can't possibly be autistic because they weren't able to penetrate the dense layers of masking that have become so intrinsic to your behavior that you've lost sight of who you really are. There's also discussion of ABA therapy, with fun things like spraying children in the face with water for not making sufficient eye contact, or talking "too much" about their special interest. Punishments for fidgeting, echolalia, compulsive chewing etc. Kids trained to repeat "please" and "thank you" over and over and over again until they reach an acceptable tone, to sit or stand on command while the therapist snaps their fingers at them like a dog. Painful electric shocks administered as "aversives." And of course, training children to exchange hugs and kisses for candy. There's no way that can create some incredibly harmful incentives for socially unsavvy kids!

And of course, this segues to the phenomenon where ASD seems to be primarily defined by caretakers in terms that center how much the patient inconveniences everyone else. DSM be like "the fuck is this guy's problem? what a fucking dork" and how this rather cruel enforcement of social norms is something those who dodge the ABA bullet pick up on naturally. Don't be cringe, or it's acceptable for people to deliberately hurt you. Look at the obviously Autistic guy and obsessively monitor his behaviors so you can not be like him and develop a deep-seated internal hatred of yourself. It's what the normies want.

From there, Dr. Price addresses specific things maskers tend to compensate for with over-correction. There's a handy-dandy chart of the undesirable qualities we wish to avoid being labeled as, and the strategies we use to avoid them.

This is a rather short chapter; roughly the length of the introduction. But there's certain to be a large excess of certifiable literally me moments within, so I like to think Dr. Price is pacing this shit a bit so we don't have to cry our eyes out completely every chapter.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

• Any particularly striking quotes or passages for you?

• Which of these anecdotes hit you the hardest, due to a personal memory?

• Are there any aspects of yourself you realized you were compensating for that never really made themselves clear to you before?

• You doing okay there? If you're a person who needs to read this book, there's probably a lot of really nasty shit rising up in your memory as a result of reading this chapter. People here care about you. The world's not completely cruel and nasty. There's bright spots too.

Next chapter, we start going into the costs of masking. It ain't cheap. But we'll put that aside for next week.

Tag post and my own thoughts to follow, hopefully within the time frame while it's actually still stickied.

EDIT: By the way, if you're having trouble keeping pace, absolutely feel free to discuss prior chapters in the comments. This shit is entirely informal and I'm sticking to a post a week as a personal challenge to demonstrate to my brain that sustained efforts can have an emotional and social payoff.