ADHD Masking

Have you ever felt like you’re performing your way through the day, appearing organised, calm, and in control, while inside you’re juggling chaos and hanging on by a thread? That might not just be stress or personality. For many people with ADHD, it’s something called masking – and it’s exhausting. 

If you’re unsure whether you or your child have ADHD, but this post resonates with you, we offer private ADHD assessments to those in London, Oxford and surrounding areas. For more information about how ADHD is diagnosed, take a look at our article DSM-5 ADHD. 

Masking is when someone hides or compensates for their ADHD symptoms to fit into school, work, or social settings. It’s a strategy that helps people “get by,” but over time it can lead to burnout, anxiety, and a deep disconnect from who they really are.

In this article, we’ll explore what ADHD masking looks like, why it happens, and how it affects people of all ages, particularly women and girls, who are often overlooked. We’ll also look at how therapy can help unmask safely and build a life that feels more sustainable and authentic. 

What Is ADHD Masking?

ADHD masking is the act of hiding or minimising ADHD symptoms to appear more “typical” in social, academic, or professional settings. It’s often a subconscious survival strategy – a way of avoiding judgment, fitting in, or meeting expectations, especially in environments where the true nature of someone’s struggles might be misunderstood.

Someone who is masking might:

• Force themselves to sit still, even when their body is screaming to move
  
• Over-prepare for conversations to avoid saying the “wrong” thing
  
• Mimic how others talk, act, or organise themselves
  
• Suppress impulsive thoughts, questions, or emotional reactions
  

These are just a few examples of ADHD masking and they often come at a cost. People who mask usually experience a huge amount of internal effort to keep up appearances, followed by exhaustion or emotional overwhelm once they’re in a safe space.

What Is Quiet ADHD?

The term quiet ADHD is sometimes used to describe individuals (particularly women and girls) whose symptoms are less outwardly disruptive and more internalised. They may not appear hyperactive or impulsive, but instead daydream, zone out, or feel chronically overwhelmed while seeming calm on the outside.

This type of ADHD is often mistaken for shyness, anxiety, or simply being “well-behaved” but it can be just as impairing as more obvious forms.

Masking vs. Typical ADHD Presentations

When most people think of ADHD, they imagine someone bouncing off the walls, blurting things out, or constantly losing their keys. But masking can flip that image entirely.

Someone might appear neat, focused, and successful while underneath, they’re battling procrastination, overstimulation, and fatigue. Because their struggles aren’t visible, they’re often missed by teachers, employers, and even health professionals.

It’s important to understand that masking isn’t a strength as it’s not the same as coping. It’s performing in a way that hides symptoms, often at the expense of well-being. And while it can help people function in the short term, long-term masking is one of the reasons so many people with ADHD experience burnout, anxiety, and late diagnosis.

Why Do People with ADHD Mask?

Masking doesn’t come from nowhere, it’s often shaped by experience. Many people with ADHD start masking at a young age, not because they’re told to, but because they learn that certain behaviours get them into trouble, attract unwanted attention, or make them feel “different.”

Fear of Judgment and Desire to Fit In

For children, this might begin with a teacher’s disapproving look or being told off for speaking out of turn. For adults, it could be subtle cues – being excluded from a meeting, criticised for being “disorganised,” or feeling like the only one who can’t keep up. Over time, the message is internalised: don’t draw attention to yourself, just act like everyone else.

So, people with ADHD start to suppress their natural impulses. They try harder to sit still, not interrupt, remember everything, stay tidy, stay quiet, stay focused – all while fighting against how their brain actually works. The goal isn’t to deceive. It’s to belong.

Masking as a Survival Strategy

In highly structured environments like school, work, or formal social situations, masking becomes a tool for getting by. It helps people avoid criticism, reduce conflict, and function in spaces that aren’t naturally built for neurodivergent ways of thinking.

It’s easy to mistake this kind of effort for strength or “just getting on with things.” But masking isn’t the same as thriving. It’s camouflage – a way to blend in when standing out feels too risky.

The Emotional Cost of Long-Term Masking

Over time, this level of mental effort can take a serious toll. People who mask often report feeling disconnected from their true selves. They may be praised for being capable or composed while privately feeling anxious, scattered, or exhausted.

This disconnect can lead to:

• Low self-esteem (“If people knew the real me, they wouldn’t say I’m doing well.”)
  
• Burnout from the constant effort of appearing ‘together’
  
• Difficulty identifying their own needs, because they’ve been overriding them for so long
  

Masking is never a sign that ADHD isn’t “real” or serious. It’s often a sign that someone has been struggling silently for far too long.

How Do You Know If You’re Masking ADHD?

Because masking is so internal, it can be difficult to spot, even in yourself. Many people don’t realise they’re doing it until they reach a breaking point: a burnout, a mental health crisis, or the quiet sense that they’re living a life that doesn’t quite fit.

You might have asked yourself, “Am I just bad at coping?” or “Why does everything feel harder for me than it seems for others?” These questions can be a sign that what you’re dealing with isn’t a personal flaw – it could be ADHD, hidden beneath years of careful compensation.

Signs You Might Be Masking ADHD

There’s no formal test, but here are some reflective signs that may indicate you’re masking ADHD:

• You seem calm and capable on the outside, but inside you feel scattered, stressed, or exhausted
  
• You rehearse conversations or social interactions to avoid making mistakes
  
• You’re always “on” around others but crash when you get home
  
• You overcompensate by working longer hours, double-checking everything, or micromanaging tasks
  
• You struggle to say no or set boundaries, even when you’re overwhelmed
  
• You feel like you’re constantly trying to keep up with what others do effortlessly
  
• You doubt your achievements or feel like an imposter because no one sees how hard you’re working to appear “normal”
  

These experiences can be especially common in adults who weren’t diagnosed in childhood, and in individuals who’ve always been praised for being organised, well-behaved, or high-achieving, even if they never felt that way inside.

Emotional Experiences That Accompany Masking

Masking ADHD often goes hand in hand with:

• Exhaustion – from the mental effort of hiding symptoms or holding it all together
  
• Self-doubt – wondering why life seems harder for you, or blaming yourself for struggling
  
• Burnout – when your strategies stop working, and you’re left feeling depleted, anxious, or disconnected
  

Many people describe masking as wearing a mask that even they forget isn’t real until it slips, or they no longer have the energy to hold it in place.

ADHD Masking at School: Early Signs and Missed Diagnoses

Many people with ADHD begin masking long before they realise it and school is often where it starts. In the classroom, the pressure to sit still, stay focused, follow instructions, and keep up socially can feel overwhelming. To avoid drawing attention or getting into trouble, some children learn to suppress their natural impulses and blend in.

This is especially true for girls and quieter children, whose challenges often go unnoticed because they don’t fit the “typical” image of ADHD.

Compliant Behaviour and the ‘Good Pupil’ Mask

Some children with ADHD are never disruptive. Instead, they try incredibly hard to do exactly what’s expected of them even when it takes enormous effort. They may appear calm and attentive, but inside they’re struggling to concentrate, manage their emotions, or remember instructions.

Because they don’t outwardly disrupt the class, teachers may see them as well-behaved, even gifted, and their ADHD symptoms go unnoticed.

Academic Masking

Children with ADHD can be intelligent and creative, but their work may not reflect their true potential. They might rely on last-minute efforts, overcompensate with perfectionism, or burn out trying to stay on top of homework. When they do perform well, their struggles are often dismissed – “They’re doing fine.”

But masking academic difficulties doesn’t mean they aren’t there. It just means the child has found ways to hide them and often at a cost to their wellbeing.

Social Imitation and Anxiety

In social settings, children with ADHD may copy others’ behaviour to fit in. They might memorise how peers interact, script conversations, or laugh along without knowing why. This kind of social masking can help them avoid rejection – but it often leads to exhaustion, confusion, and low self-confidence.

Many of these children experience anxiety at school but can’t explain why. They may hold it together all day, only to have emotional outbursts or shutdowns when they get home. This is a sign they’ve been using all their energy just to cope.

Early ADHD symptoms can be missed when a child appears to be doing “well enough.” But looking beneath the surface (especially when anxiety, fatigue, or social withdrawal are present) can reveal a different story.

ADHD Masking in Adults

For many adults, ADHD masking becomes so habitual that it feels like part of who they are. Years of adapting to expectations at work, in relationships, and in social settings can lead to polished exteriors that hide a constant internal struggle. On internet forums you’ll find countless stories of people who seem high-functioning to others but are quietly overwhelmed, exhausted, or disconnected from their real needs.

The Pressure to Perform at Work

In professional settings, masking often looks like overcompensating: working late, double-checking everything, pushing through tasks with last-minute urgency, and appearing organised even when the mental load is enormous. Some adults with ADHD take on too much just to prove they’re capable, often at the expense of their wellbeing.

This can lead to burnout, imposter syndrome, and feeling like success is always balanced on a knife edge.

Navigating Social Roles

In adult friendships and relationships, masking can involve trying to seem “put together,” saying yes when overwhelmed, or pretending to follow conversations that have long since become impossible to track. Many people with ADHD become social chameleons – adjusting their behaviour to fit in, even when it means ignoring their own needs.

This often leads to emotional exhaustion, resentment, or shame when the mask slips – especially with those closest to them.

Perfectionism as a Coping Mechanism

To avoid criticism or failure, many adults with ADHD lean into perfectionism. They may spend hours polishing emails, reworking tasks, or avoiding things entirely unless they can be done perfectly. While this looks like high standards from the outside, it’s often driven by fear of being exposed or “found out.”

Losing Sight of Identity

Over time, the effort of masking can leave people feeling uncertain about who they really are. When you’ve been performing for so long at work, socially, even at home, it can be hard to distinguish between what you actually want and what you’ve been doing just to cope.

Unmasking often involves rediscovering parts of yourself that were set aside to keep the peace or meet expectations.

ADHD Masking in Females

ADHD in females is often harder to spot – not because it’s milder, but because it’s masked more thoroughly. From a young age, girls are often socialised to be polite, helpful, and emotionally controlled, which can encourage them to hide behaviours that might be labelled as disruptive, dramatic, or inappropriate.

This is one of the key reasons many women don’t receive an ADHD diagnosis until adulthood, if at all.

The Influence of Gender Expectations

Social norms often expect girls and women to be tidy, emotionally aware, and socially intuitive. When a girl with ADHD struggles to focus, forgets things, or feels overwhelmed, she may internalise the problem assuming it’s a personal failure rather than a neurodevelopmental condition.

Many girls become quiet perfectionists, desperately trying to keep up while feeling like they’re always falling short. On the surface, they’re the “good” student or the “mature” child. Inside, they may be battling anxiety, shame, or deep self-doubt.

People-Pleasing and Emotional Suppression

Masking in females frequently shows up as people-pleasing. Women with ADHD may go out of their way to meet others’ needs, avoid conflict, and maintain harmony, often at the expense of their own emotional health. Over time, this can lead to chronic stress and difficulty identifying their own wants and boundaries.

Many women also suppress their emotional responses. Instead of showing frustration or restlessness, they turn it inward – resulting in tearfulness, anxiety, or feeling emotionally flat.

Late Diagnosis and Lifelong Confusion

Because masking is so effective, many females with ADHD are missed by parents, teachers, and even mental health professionals. They may be misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression, or mood disorders – conditions they might also have, but which don’t tell the whole story.

It’s only when burnout hits, or when their child is diagnosed and they start recognising patterns in themselves, that the puzzle begins to come together.

Understanding ADHD in females means looking beyond the surface – at the pressure to perform, to please, and to stay quiet when everything feels overwhelming.

ADHD Masking in Relationships

Masking doesn’t switch off behind closed doors. In fact, many people with ADHD continue to mask within their closest relationships, often without realising it. Whether it’s with a partner, friend, or family member, the pressure to appear “together,” emotionally stable, or in control can be just as intense at home as it is in the outside world.

The Hidden Work of Emotional Regulation

People with ADHD often experience strong emotional responses like frustration, rejection sensitivity, and mood shifts but may mask these reactions to avoid conflict or seeming “too much.” This can lead to emotional suppression, which builds over time and can erupt unexpectedly or cause a sense of emotional numbness.

For example, someone might hold in their stress all day, nodding and smiling through dinner, only to shut down or snap later seemingly out of nowhere. To the other person, it feels confusing or hurtful. To the person masking, it feels like they’ve run out of bandwidth.

Trying to Maintain ‘Normal’ Routines

Masking also shows up in the day-to-day rhythm of shared life. A person with ADHD might push themselves to manage household chores, appointments, or finances in a way that feels “acceptable” even if it means hiding the fact that they’re overwhelmed, disorganised, or mentally burnt out.

They may quietly stay up late catching up on the tasks they forgot, or constantly apologise for being “flaky,” “messy,” or “bad at adulting.” Over time, this can lead to resentment or exhaustion, especially if their partner doesn’t know how much effort is going into keeping up.

Fear of Being Misunderstood

Perhaps the most painful part of masking in relationships is the fear that revealing your full self will drive the other person away. This fear of being seen as lazy, unreliable, or “too intense” leads many people to hide their struggles and in doing so, they also hide their needs.

When masking becomes the default, true intimacy becomes harder to reach. The relationship can feel one-sided or emotionally shallow, even when both people are trying their best. The person with ADHD may feel unseen or unappreciated. The partner may feel confused, shut out, or unsure of how to help.

Recognising masking patterns in relationships – and learning to communicate honestly and compassionately – can be a powerful step toward building deeper, more balanced connections.

ADHD Masking Burnout – When Coping Stops Working

Masking can feel manageable for a while, even helpful. It gets you through school, work, social events, and everyday life. But over time, the mental effort of constantly holding it all together catches up. This is where many people with ADHD hit a wall: burnout.

ADHD masking burnout happens when the emotional, cognitive, and physical energy it takes to keep up the act becomes unsustainable. It’s not just tiredness, it’s a complete crash. The strategies that once worked no longer do, and things start to unravel.

The Emotional Toll of Long-Term Masking

Constantly filtering your behaviour, second-guessing your responses, and hiding your struggles can lead to deep emotional fatigue. You may feel:

• Drained even after rest
  
• Detached from your own identity
  
• Overwhelmed by tasks that once felt manageable
  
• Increasingly irritable or emotionally reactive
  
• Like you’re “falling apart” for no clear reason
  

Many people also experience heightened anxiety or depression during burnout. After years of keeping up appearances, the weight of pretending can feel too heavy to carry.

Why Masking Becomes Unsustainable

Masking isn’t a cure – it’s a coping strategy. And like any coping strategy that isn’t supported by real self-understanding or external help, it has a shelf life.

You may be:

• Working harder than anyone else just to seem “normal”
  
• Ignoring your own limits until your body or mind forces a pause
  
• Living in fear of being “found out” despite your achievements
  

Eventually, something gives. It might be missing a deadline, snapping at a loved one, or having a breakdown after years of holding it all in. When the mask finally slips, it’s not weakness, it’s your nervous system waving a white flag.

Recognising burnout is not failure. It’s often the first step toward getting the support you truly need – not just to keep going, but to feel like yourself again.

What Can Help? Therapy and Support for ADHD Masking

If you’ve spent years masking your ADHD, the idea of “unmasking” can feel both freeing and frightening. But support is available and recovery doesn’t mean dropping every coping strategy overnight. It means building a life where you no longer have to hide who you are just to get by.

Therapeutic support can help in a number of ways:

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – CBT can support individuals in recognising unhelpful thinking patterns, managing overwhelm, and developing practical strategies to deal with daily challenges. For people who’ve been masking, it can also help reframe long-held beliefs about failure, perfectionism, or self-worth.
  
• Identity Work – For many, unmasking involves rediscovering who they are beneath the behaviours they’ve adopted to fit in. Therapy can help you explore that identity safely, with curiosity and without judgment.
  
• Learning to Recognise Your Needs – Masking often leads people to ignore their own limits. Therapy supports people in tuning into what they need, be that rest, routine, stimulation, or support, and making space for those needs to be met.
  
• Setting Boundaries – Many people with ADHD struggle to say no or ask for help. Therapy can help you practise boundary-setting, communication, and self-advocacy without guilt.
  

Above all, it’s about self-compassion. You’ve worked incredibly hard to get where you are, even if it’s felt invisible. Now it’s time to work with your brain – not against it.

ADHD Therapy and Support at Oxford CBT

At Oxford CBT, we understand how complex and draining masking can be and how hard it can be to ask for help when you’ve spent years trying to appear like you don’t need any.

We offer:

• ADHD assessments for children, teenagers, and adults
  
• Tailored CBT and therapeutic support to address masking, burnout, and related challenges
  
• Help with late diagnosis, identity work, and long-term coping strategies
  
• Family support for children and young people struggling with masking at school or home
  

Whether you’re only just starting to explore the idea of ADHD or already feeling the weight of masking burnout, we’re here to support you with understanding, clarity, and care.

Contact us to book an initial consultation or learn more about our ADHD services.

Sources

Attention Deficit Disorder Association (2024) ADHD Masking: Does Hiding Your Symptoms Help or Harm? Available at: https://add.org/adhd-masking/ 

Very Well Mind (2024) What ADHD Masking Looks Like. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-adhd-masking-5200863 

WebMD (2024) What Does It Mean to ‘Mask’ Adult ADHD? Available at: https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/mask-adult-adhd  

Author – Tom Murfitt

With over a decade’s experience in providing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Tom has worked in both the NHS and private sector to help adults and children to overcome a range of difficulties and improve their mental wellbeing. In addition to being an experienced CBT therapist, Tom is also an accredited Mindfulness teacher, providing courses locally, in businesses and schools. You can read more about us here. 

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