What Masking Costs Kids Over Time
A parent comes to a meeting worried about their child. The school team listens, reviews their notes, and says: “We’re not seeing any of that here.” Both sides are telling the truth. And both pieces of the picture matter.
Picture it. Any school USA…
A parent comes to a meeting worried about their child. They describe meltdowns every evening, battles to get out the door in the morning, a kid who comes home and goes completely silent for hours. The school team listens, reviews their notes, and says: “We’re not seeing any of that here.”
Both sides are telling the truth. And both pieces of the picture matter.
Dr. Destiny Huff, licensed professional counselor and certified trauma therapist, explains it this way in her course The Cost of Masking:
“They are putting all of their energy into those four, five, six, eight hours that they’re in that school building. And when they’re at home, that’s their safe place and they’re decompressing. And when they’re decompressing, the mask is coming off — and all the dysregulation they’re holding in is coming out.”
The school isn’t lying. The parent isn’t lying. What’s happening is that the child is spending everything they have just to hold it together, and home is the only place safe enough to fall apart.
This is what masking costs.
The research is clear: chronic masking is linked to depression, anxiety, and what’s called autistic burnout. Burnout happens when chronic life stress, combined with the gap between expectations and a child’s actual capacity, results in exhaustion, loss of function, and reduced tolerance to stimuli. It typically sets in after three or more months of sustained effort, which, if you do the math, maps almost perfectly onto a school year.