Masking, Meaning, and Becoming Yourself

Autistic Identity With NeuroHub

David Gray-Hammond

Jan 30

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This episode of Autistic Identity With NeuroHub is an invitation to slow down and sit with Autistic identity as something lived, negotiated, and continually re-formed; not a static label or a checklist of traits.

We explore how Autistic identity emerges through relationship, memory, masking, unmasking, and the stories we’re told about who we are allowed to be. Rather than treating identity as something to “discover” once and for all, this conversation frames it as relational and ecological, shaped by environments, power structures, and the quality of connection available to us over time.

The episode touches on being “authentically Autistic” as another mask rather than a goal to aim for, the joourney to self-acceptance through struggle, and the quiet labour involved in translating ourselves for a world that often refuses to listen. We also explore what happens when Autistic people begin to tell their own stories; not to seek permission, but to reclaim authorship.

This is not a how-to guide or a diagnostic explainer. It’s a reflective, grounded conversation about meaning, belonging, and the ongoing work of becoming yourself in a world that prefers you to be less complex than you really are.

Expect nuance, honesty, and a refusal to reduce Autistic lives to narratives of deficit or triumph. This episode is about that complexity, and the freedom that comes from finally being allowed to keep it.

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