I’ve been thinking a lot about autistic joy lately – and honestly, it’s changing how I understand my entire process of unmasking.
My unmasking process began with a sort of subconscious assumption – that my masking was about hiding all the “bad” stuff. I was highly aware of all the unpleasant things I masked over: the pain, anxiety, meltdowns and irritation that were hiding behind my carefully constructed mannerisms. I thought that unmasking would mean bringing all that to the surface learning to reveal the messy, unhappy, unlikable person underneath.
And part of that was true. Unmasking has meant bringing parts of myself to the surface that some don’t like, disabled parts that I’ve had to struggle with my own ableism towards, and traumatized parts that I’ve had to process.
But what surprised me the most in the unmasking process was all the joy that was stuffed down there under my mask, hiding right next to the pain.
My first attempts to unmask happened alone. Unmasking around others seemed like a complete impossibility, so I would hide away alone with my headphones and my art supplies, giving myself chunks of time to “do whatever I want.” I wanted to see what I was even like when I wasn’t trying to shape my own behavior into something that looked right.
And almost immediately, the joy came. The joy of dancing alone to music I love, with no one watching or judging me. The joy of uninterrupted creative time with special interests. The joy of laying on a blanket in the grass with no agenda but staring up at the trees. There was intense joyfulness in me, but I hadn’t been giving it any space to breathe – any space to exist at all.
As I went deeper into unmasking, I started to notice how my joy shifted in the presence of others. I started to pay attention to how I held back my smile from getting too overwhelmingly wide, how I held back my hands from clapping and fingers from wiggling, how I held back my feet from jumping and my hips from swaying back and forth in a little dance like I’m wagging my tail, how I held back my voice from letting out a tiny shriek of excitement or a deluge of words about a special interest that was mentioned.
I started to notice that I was holding back my joy all the time. I was masking my joy, and the masking was changing how it felt.
The realization sent me rushing to the research (as usual) to try and learn more about autistic joy. Do we feel joy more intensely? Do we express it differently? Is anyone talking about the impact of masking our joy?
Unsurprisingly, there is little research on this, and what does exist has relatively weak methodology, but what I discovered did line up with what I had been experiencing.
Autistic Joy May Be More Intense
One of the first questions I had was whether autistic joy was more intense than average. I looked into this because I feel like my joy IS more intense. I can’t say this for sure, of course, but when I talk to neurotypical folks about the things they enjoy, they don’t seem as excited as I am about my own sources of joy. And often, they seem somewhat amused or put off by my own level of excitement.
Perhaps it’s a difference in presentation, but my sense is that my joy turns up to a higher volume than most – and it can do so very rapidly when provoked.
One supporting piece of evidence for my theory that autistic joy can be more intense is the simple fact that autism is associated with emotional regulation challenges. And while most research focuses on the difficulty regulating negative emotional experiences, some research does tie extreme positive states to emotional regulation challenges in general. This hints towards the possibility that while our negative emotions are more studied, our positive states may also be more extreme.
While there was sadly very little research on autistic joy, specifically. But I did find a few relevant studies.
In a 2023 study autistic researchers interviewed autistic adults about what should be included in a diagnostic measure for autism that was based on the autistic experience. The interviewees highlighted autistic joy as an important aspect to include.
To cover this, they included items in their measure like:
I love some sensations so much that I can get lost in them.
My senses are extreme.
I have intense, passionate interests. I like to spend as much time thinking about them as possible.
When something interests me, I can focus on it so much that I become an expert.
I can get so focused on something that I stop being aware of the rest of the world.
I like to do certain things over and over again.
In a 2019 study, autistic participants described how the same traits that created challenges for them could lead to benefits in a different context.
For example, participants described how hypersensitivity to sensory experiences could make being out in nature incredibly enjoyable, but also make cities unbearable.
They also described how hyper-focus could produce joy and flow, when they felt in control of it and were focused on something they enjoyed.
All of this fits with the idea that autistic traits may bring about intense joy – particularly when we are absorbed in a special interest or a pleasant sensory experience.
For me, someone who finds peak bliss when I’m immersed in a creative project or laying around in nature absorbing the peaceful colors and sounds, this all rings true. But the research is still far too limited to generalize strong conclusions about this to all autistic people.
Stimming For Joy
Assuming we do have these intense bursts of joy… what do those look like?
For me, when I’m in a happy mood, I want to do little happy stims.
My instinct is to jump up and down with excitement and clap or flap my hands around. I might do a little dance, I might sing a little riff about what’s happening in the moment. I might skip around a little, or use my hands in elaborate gestures as I talk about a special interest.
For me, my stimming and my joy are hard to separate.
And in fact, some research has tied stimming to positive emotions. One 2022 study on autistic toddlers found they were more likely to stim while showing positive expressions than negative ones. The study was limited because the toddlers mostly showed positive emotions in the unstructured play setting that the study was conducted in, but other studies back up the idea that stimming can be an expression of joy.
Research on autistic adults, for instance, has found that while stimming can be a positive self-soothing strategy, it may also help autistic individuals to process and organize positive emotions like excitement. Most of the autistic adults, in one study, reported that at some point in their life they were told to stop stimming, which they attempted, but found it left them frustrated, depleted, ashamed and confused.
The “encouragement” to stop stimming, or perhaps better labeled, the "shaming" around stimming behavior certainly plays a big part in why I’ve masked my own joy.
I’ve been bullied by peers for looking weird, scolded by teachers for being disruptive, and given irritated pleas from caretakers to stop my happy stimming. It’s caused unwanted attention, or made people think I was looking for attention that I wasn’t.
Many see these stims as being a part of childlike behavior, which has made people read me as less intelligent, mature or responsible than I actually am.
Sometimes I’ve even noticed irritation or jealousy from others when I’m full of happy energy.
There can be a sort of background assumption, at least in the cultures I’ve grown up in, that happiness is something you earn, and disabled people shouldn’t be happy while taking help from others. If we are doing well enough to be happy, we could probably do more work.
Of course, these assumptions aren’t true. But they do seem to be subconsciously embedded in the ableism of much of western culture.
In some cases, support and accommodations have been taken away from me when people have misread my joy to mean I have capacities I simply don’t.
This sets up a complicated maze for autistic people to sort through – how to allow their joy to manifest naturally without facing scorn, mockery or misunderstanding.
Autistic Joy May Be Perceived Differently
To add to this complex picture, our joy expressions may be understood differently by allistic people. For instance, in the study of autistic toddlers that I mentioned earlier, the researchers were primarily evaluating allistic perceptions of autistic emotions. They had allistic adults watching both autistic and allistic toddlers to identify their emotional expressions. The subjects perceived the same amount of positive, negative and neutral expression in both toddler groups. But unlike with the allistic toddlers, whose emotions were easy to identify, the allistic adults were unable to identify the emotions behind some of the autistic toddlers' expressions.
To me, this makes me think of my own expressions of joy.
Sometimes I smile so huge that it’s hard to tell if I’m smiling or grimacing.
I tend to tone this down on purpose, masking the grimace-grin into a pleasant, closed mouth smile. I do this because people often give me a look of unnerved confusion when I grimace-grin, that makes me think they are unsure of my emotional state. Perhaps, it even seems to make some nervous.
I sometimes wonder how unnerved they would be if rather than being a small blonde white woman, I was a large man, or a racialized person who already faces the unfair bias that they are somehow threatening. In some cases, being misunderstood like this could be downright dangerous. So, of course, many of us will pull back when we notice these reactions.
In another study, autistic men’s emotions, particularly positive affect, was harder for allistic people to recognise than that of the allistic controls. But autistic women didn’t have this issue when it came to positive emotions. Instead autistic women had a harder time having their fear recognized. The fear of autistic women seemed less negative to the allistic observers than the fear from allistic controls.
Still, this may be reflective of the higher levels of masking in autistic women, who may already be both masking their positive states into more generally understood mannerisms AND masking their fear to soothe those around them.
Unmasking Our Joy
We have many reasons to mask our joy, from being misunderstood for our expressions, to being shamed for our stimming, to losing access to support and care. It can be hard to even begin unmasking in a safe way.
But it is worth it to find ways to unmask our joy, so that we can experience a more joyful life and combat the depression, anxiety and suicidality so many of us face.
For me, unmasking work always starts alone. I prioritize alone time because many of my peak joy experiences come when I’m in a special interest flow, and don’t have to think at all about others' observations of me. I also do this because I need a safe private place to see how I really am unmasked, and that can take some time on its own.
Practicing Joy With Glimmer Hunting
In my alone time, I practice something one of my dearest friends, collaborators and mentors Anie Boudreau, calls “Glimmer hunting.”
Glimmer hunting is actively looking for the things in your life that spark your joy and make you feel happy, alive and resourced. This might be an activity, a person, an object, a place… anything really, that makes you feel that glimmer.
Few practices have helped me as much in my life as glimmer hunting. Just making the time and giving myself permission to have joy can shift my whole mood and give me energy and resilience to face other challenges in my life.
I have a glimmer list I sometimes return to when I need to be “glimmered up” with something that brings me back to a better place. It includes things I enjoy doing like making art, dancing, being in nature, listening to music, and watching funny videos online.
Unmasking Joy With Loved Ones
My glimmer list also includes a list of people who it’s easy for me to be joyful with.
Because, I also work on unmasking my joy by prioritizing time with people I feel safe being joyful around, and creating opportunities for joy with them.
This often means planning social time with friends, particularly ones who I feel safe being more unmasked with, and doing things we love together.
In these contexts I practice being more free with my joy expressions, and it can be so calming to have that freedom with people I trust.
Of course, it’s not always easy to find those people. And some might even think social stuff isn’t that important for autistic people – given our reputation as antisocial loners. But multiple studies have found that the biggest correlates to well-being and happiness for autistic people are meaningful social connections and support.
Just because we don’t do well in many social settings doesn’t make it any less important for us to have social outlets that DO work for us.
I just moved last year and was lucky to be introduced to another Audhd’r in my new area who I share a lot in common with. But I also joined a neurodivergent craft group to find more like-minded people, and now I have a few more neurodivergent friends I click with in the area. And I’ve made friends in the online communities as well.
Wherever you need to go to find community, I can’t say enough how important the people around me are to my unmasking process.
Practicing unmasking around unsafe people is not helpful for me. It simply retraumatizes me back into my mask. But unmasking with people who get me, can give me the confidence to drop my masking habits more generally later on.
I am going slow with my joyful unmasking. I’m allowing more background happy stims like singing, dancing, skipping, and humming, around people I feel safe with. I’m dressing more joyfully and not holding back as much on the bright colors and patterns I’m drawn to. I’m letting my joyful side shine a little brighter on social media.
My joy is so precious to me, the more I rediscover it. I don’t want to go too quickly and find myself pulling back even more. I don’t owe anyone my unmasked joy. But I do owe it to myself to find ways to unmask joy so that I can experience it fully. And the more I do, the more I find that the people I truly enjoy being with, also seem to enjoy my unusual and intense expressions of joy.
Looking to unmask your joy? Here are a few journaling prompts that have helped me in the process:
What signs of joy do I mask?
What experiences in my childhood taught me that expressing joy in these ways was unsafe?
How did my parents/caretakers react to my expressions of joy?
How have my peers react to my expressions of joy?
What am I afraid will happen if I express my joy naturally?
How does my masking impact my experience of joy?
Make a glimmer list! What things, activities, places or people spark my joy?
Where and when do I feel safe being joyful?
What are some expressions of joy that I feel safe starting to unmask?
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