ADHD Masking Expert: The Truth About Female Masking, The Loneliness Is Crippling!

0:01Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Whether it's hot yoga, over 100 degree weather, or too much sun. Gatorlite, with a specialized blend of five electrolytes, was scientifically designed to help move fluids into the body faster for rapid rehydration. Shop now at retailers nationwide. Gatorlite hydrates faster than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

0:29Dana Dzamic:Children actually start masking from very early age. When children start school at the age of four, they're expected to do good sitting and good listening. ADHD children can't do that definition of good sitting or good listening, or they can do one thing or another. They actually have to force themselves into that to be praised and reinforced and accepted. Dana Zamek is a world-leading ADHD consultant specializing in female masking and loneliness. She has helped thousands of ADHD women understand their diagnosis and themselves. If people are undiagnosed or they actually didn't have a support to dealing with masking, then masking can be obviously incredibly tiring.

1:06Dana Dzamic:It can be almost like incorporating a mystery identity. There is no understanding of what is going on. Do you think there's societal expectations on women generally that makes them better at masking? That's a good question. Can I have just a second of your time? If this podcast has helped you understand your brain or made you feel less alone, can you do me one favour? Can you hit the follow button? And I'll repay the favour by continuing to book the best and most exclusive conversations on this topic. Please enjoy the episode and always remember, you're not broken, just different and you have always been enough.

1:46Dana, welcome back.

1:48Dana Dzamic:Thank you, Alex. It's really lovely to be here. It's such a privilege and honor to have you back in the ADHD Chat Studio to talk about a topic that I think many of the listeners and viewers will relate to, and that's masking and what it looks like, the risks of masking perhaps too much, and also steps people can take to actually unmask and connect to their true self. but i first what do you think is masking at its very basic level uh well thank you for this question because i think masking does require more conversations and what i realized last last time is that mass people get almost afraid of real realization that they actually did mask so much.

2:38Dana Dzamic:So let's start from thinking that masking is our way of trying to be included. Also, I think masking can be a way of not feeling lonely because people often say something like, I would rather mask to be included with a fake myself than be excluded with the real myself. So that's a very vague description. However, masking can have all sorts of forms. And I think we have to think about masking in so many ways. So masking can be a struggle and it is in so many ways. However, masking can be a skill. So if masking can be, for example, people find very comfortable being part of some conversation and because they feel uncomfortable and they fear rejection they fear criticism they talk too much or it can be they talk very little it can also be it can it can also look like taking different roles so it's all mirroring so I've seen people skilled so much that depending on who they talk to they can actually use different accents they can use a different way of talking or even a different gestures And many people master that skill so much that actually they don't even notice how much they switch, which is amazing to watch sometimes.

4:03Dana Dzamic:So if people are undiagnosed or they actually didn't have a support dealing with masking, then masking can be obviously incredibly tiring, exhausting. And it can be almost like incorporating a mystery identity, a fake identity. and there is no understanding of what is going on. However, when people actually do get support and they start understanding what is going on, masking can be really seen as an amazing skill and it can be very strategic. So it can look like, okay, I have this job, I'm doing fairly well, but so far I was exhausting because I was masking unconsciously, I was trying things that I shouldn't be trying and maybe I can actually reshuffle all that.

4:49Dana Dzamic:I can actually reframe all that. And then I can actually say, okay, I'm going to look like a person in certain clothes or I'm going to look very confident. And that can be like acting skill that has a purpose. It can have a purpose of doing the job well or appearing well in meetings or something like that. So I think we need to look at the details how masking can look like. and we can also look at reframing and what kind of support people can get and how we can use those skills. That's fascinating, Dana, and the support I hope will be within this episode. I've always said, and the regular viewers and listeners will have heard me say this before, that people with ADHD are expert maskers.

5:36We're phenomenal at playing this character called normal. So I suppose my question is why do you think people with adhd are so good at masking that's a good question um

5:50Dana Dzamic:well one i think there is a very high level of motivation to which is a human need to actually fit in so i think because motivation is so high we are trying so hard it can also be how is that related to adhd skills and that is seeing the patterns seeing the patterns in behavior uh seeing small hints from the feedback from the others. So I think increased perception for details can actually give us the skills to actually mask so well. And also, I think there is a lifelong learning. So children actually start masking from very early age. I mean, when you think about schools, when children start school at the age of four or five, they're expected to do a good sitting and good listening.

6:38Dana Dzamic:I'm not playing schools. Teachers work really hard and they need the children to actually be attentive and be ready to learn. But ADHD children can't do that definition of good sitting or good listening, or they can do one thing or another. So maybe they can do a good listening if they're not doing good sitting. So they actually have to force themselves into that to be praised and reinforced and accepted. So they have to start masking from very, very early on. and it starts from very simple things like, okay, I have to force myself into good sitting. I have to pretend I'm listening. I have to pretend I'm part of this game.

7:14Dana Dzamic:For a very long time, they're not aware what they're doing. They feel uncomfortable. They're trying hard. They copy the others. So I think it starts from playing different roles, copying other children, and then they master that skills because it's a lifetime skill. and later they get diagnosed i think masking becomes deeper and it becomes part of their personality and that's why unmasking becomes really difficult because they don't know where to start and it's a risk the early masking piece i think is so heartbreaking because that's the source of where that journey starts what do you think adhd kids feel like they need to hide oh um there is a lot actually there is a lost a long list of things so for example they maybe can't process the conversations or noise and they have to pretend they can so they have to pretend they understand something they don't um they may pretend they enjoy uh social situations and it becomes overwhelming it becomes too much for them and they still keep pretending and it makes them really tired.

8:25Dana Dzamic:They have to force themselves into sitting still in school. And school is a long day, that's six hours, really, slightly less of sitting in the class. They have to pretend they are listening to teachers and they understand what they are saying and they don't. And they have to compensate sometimes. So, there is a long list. That's how it starts in early age. And then in teenagers, there is a lot. So, I have a teenage girl. So, So I think there is a lot of masking to fit in. So a lot of teenage girls do it with makeup. Makeup becomes that mask of fitting in. I have to look in certain way. I have to look confident.

9:02Dana Dzamic:I have to look like the others. Or I have to look perfect. Or I have to look trendy. So that pretty much applies to all teenagers. But it's just, it takes a lot more effort. And there is a lot more to hide with that masks. So it's not that natural. The more they mask, the more they have to hide. So it depends what is the proportion. I mean, we can't really put the numbers. But I do have to look at how much you actually hide and how much you actually mask. So sometimes it's very little masking, you know, a lot of masking and a lot of hiding. And sometimes it's a little. So that depends. That's where support comes in.

9:40Dana Dzamic:And it depends on what do we have to support. When you said nodding along and pretending like you understand, that's so relatable. I really intentionally now only try and nod when I truly understand what the person's saying. I think eye contact as well for me was such a mask. And I really am less shameful now about not making direct eye contact because it is such an effort for me to maintain eye contact. And if I'm staring at the person I'm talking to in the eye, unless I'm really, really passionate and interested in what they're saying, what they're saying is not going in. And then it's my turn to speak and I haven't got anything to reply with because i've been putting so much of my energy into maintaining the eye contact that there's nothing There's no capacity left in my head to actually absorb what's being said let alone try and Construct any form of reply that makes any sense and in the past i've just said stuff Because oh, it's my turn to speak and then I come across as stupid And I walk away from that social interaction feeling.

10:39Oh my gosh. They must think i'm an absolute idiot because what I said didn't make any sense in relation to what they were talking about.

10:45Dana Dzamic:Yeah, there are lots of complexities in what you described. So, if you pretend to be a good listener and you look people in the eye and you actually nod, and I've heard people saying, oh, people are telling me you are such a good listener. So, that person is praised for pretending and that person is going to pretend even more because it's a compliment. If somebody is telling you, you are such a good listener, you're trying to do that even more, but that's more pressure. So it means you have to do more masking, you have to try even harder. And what I find people do, they pretend they're listening, and to be part of the conversation, all they're thinking about is what they're going to say.

11:28Dana Dzamic:So they can't listen, because they're also going through the script to say something appropriate, but also at the same time, they have to pretend they're listening. So that's a lot of work. So what I think we need to reframe and talk about more is we talk about it as a struggle. And again, I'm saying it is a struggle. It's something we struggle with and it's causing problems and it's making us feel uncomfortable, but it's also a skill. And I don't think we are looking enough at how much we are actually doing. So we are talking about what we are not doing. We are pretending we are listening, but we are not listening.

12:02but also that pretending is a lot of work and i think support services need to look at how we can actually turn that into something useful so what would be the use the positives of masking if it's a skill that we can potentially be proud of what would be a positive use case for masking

12:24Dana Dzamic:okay so we can actually use the same skills that we can do the same thing we are doing but we can feel better about it and we can be more open about it so i think the first thing we need to work on is how we can actually get rid of the guilt and self-blame so if you mask well and uh you achieve something so you still have a good conversation you're still doing your job well um you still a good do a good work you're still a pleasant person uh and you're open about it that for example I'm not you don't have to pretend listening you can actually say sorry can you please repeat that or in the workplace can I have that in writing or can I please record this conversation or I'm so sorry I just I just lost conversation I can't follow you know can we just talk about it again then we actually remove that guilt and self-blame but we can still use that skill for something else.

13:24Dana Dzamic:So we need to look at that individually. We need to look at exactly what people do, what they're using it for, how do they feel about it, and what we can do about it. People with ADHD, Dana, do they need an awareness of masking to recognize that they're doing it and therefore use it in a positive way? I think that's the key. I think that's exactly what they need. And I think that becomes a problem after a long life of undiagnosed or ADHD it doesn't have to be diagnosed necessarily but if people have the awareness yes I have ADHD yes I've been masking yes this is this is the effort I was making for that and that reason and it wasn't necessary it made me feel so bad and that awareness is going to remove that guilt and self-blame so I think instead of I think we've heard this so many times in your episode i am useless i'm lazy um i'm a bad listener i i'm a fake person uh i'm such a bad you know person and all that that people actually tell themselves and sometimes hear from the others uh i think self-awareness and awareness about it is actually doing a lot to work on that if someone with adhd is watching or listening and they're thinking okay I understand what masking is and I want to potentially use it in a positive way.

14:50How can they know the difference between a presentation that they put out into the world that is authentic and completely unmasked versus a presentation that is masked to an extent that it's almost an abandonment of their true self? How can you differentiate between those two presentations?

15:10Dana Dzamic:I would say that if we mask without the awareness, and I think it's going to be present with anxiety, with potentially panic, potentially panic attacks, with the feeling of never being good enough, always trying harder and never knowing, you know, when it's enough. So I think there is a feeling of discomfort that can have all sorts of forms. and I think in that case we have to look at it okay I'm doing something that is making me extremely uncomfortable I'm extremely sensitive what will people say I'm never confident about it but then if you actually mask and we feel good about it we know exactly what we are doing and why we are doing it and it has a purpose it has a meaning so we do that to do the job well we do that so it doesn't have to be just in the workplace it can be in private life i do want to help my friend and my friend has a problem and i want to listen well and i'm not just pretending i'm trying really hard to listen um so i think it's all about how we feel whether we feel comfortable about it or very uncomfortable so it's how you feel internally after you walk away from a situation that perhaps masking was happening is the determining factor of whether it was a positive masking experience or a negative masking experience.

16:38With women, do you think there's societal expectations on women generally that makes them better at masking?

16:49Dana Dzamic:Oh, I think that's a huge topic, and thank you for asking that. So, I think there is a pressure for women and men. But when you talk about women, I think there are more expectations of what is a women persona that is going to be respected. So I think society values calm, consistent women, disciplined women, good mothers if they are mothers. And motherhood is another very complex topic because that's how ADHD can clash with a lot of sensitivities and guilt. So I think we do need to look at this reframing. So for example, let's say being disciplined. I've heard from many people I talk to, many women, they actually have a messy house and they feel really bad about it.

17:43Dana Dzamic:So it's not that just they feel bad about it, they feel guilty when they actually invite other mothers because they will feel judged. So we need to look at messy house can actually be the problem. And it's a problem if people can't find things, if it actually takes more time to get ready in the morning. But sometimes it's not that. Sometimes they know exactly where they put their key and where they put important items. But that mask doesn't cause any problems for them. It's just causing problems because they are judged. And I think a lot of the masking is coming from the fear of being judged, not from the need to do better in many aspects of life and that's where we have to differentiate if we actually locate what what is the masking that is the result of fear of being judged and if we actually remove that judgment and that fear then we can actually reduce that unnecessary masking and we can more work more on useful masking meaningful masking How do you go about reducing the shame that it sounds like is the motivator for masking?

18:50You feel so shameful about your authentic presentation. You feel so shameful about how perhaps dirty your flat is, or how you came across in that particular conversation that you feel the need to put on this alternate version of yourself that is more able to fit in and potentially a version that feels less misunderstood. How do we go about like combating potentially the root cause of masking, which is the shame about how you actually feel internally about your core self?

19:21Dana Dzamic:Well, I think you said something that is actually the core of that answer, and it's about the feeling of being misunderstood. So I think that's a big reason why people mask. They want to try and feel to be understood, and they actually can't share So I think we have to look at where is the shame causing, where is shame the most present? So is it in friendships, for example? And I really believe, and this is not easy, what I'm saying, it's easier said than done, really. But if friendship is based on truth, then the friendship is not going to be lost if we actually start communicating what we feel better in a better way and if we are more open about it.

20:06Dana Dzamic:So if we are being the service in the friendship, so we are being the entertainment or we are being a loud one or we are being the one who is actually pleasing all the time and that service is being removed when we actually stop masking, there is a risk that friendship will be lost. but then if the friendship is based on truth if it's a real friendship and we actually start communicating and sharing what we feel and what we are in a different way then that's when i think actually we can start removing that shame because shame is actually a fear really and i think we have to look into fear of what what exactly we are afraid of what do you think people are afraid of what is the root cause of shame?

20:55Dana Dzamic:It's exclusion. It can be exclusion, but exclusion can be excluded from friendship groups. And that starts very early on. It can be exclusion from, in extreme cases, it could be exclusion from schools. It could be about losing jobs or not just being accepted in certain friendship groups in the workplace. It could be a relationship in the family or other relationships. So I think generally it's exclusion. It's also loneliness. There is a fear of being very different because people want to fit in. And I think a normal reaction is that I will fit in if I'm similar to the others. So people need to work hard on confidence of actually communicating difference.

21:42For the many ADHD people listening who perhaps have had a late diagnosis, I feel like there's so much conversation around ADHD now and masking and sort of shame-busting conversations that are happening, but they're only really happening in the last five years. And there's this whole generation of people that are just getting diagnosed now in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond, because that conversation wasn't happening when they were growing up. So there wasn't this antidote to the shame. And therefore, there wasn't this awareness and ability to perhaps mask less or mask in a positive way. Do you think that masking so well can lead to a later diagnosis?

22:22Dana Dzamic:Oh, yes, absolutely, especially for women. So people almost feel shame to look for the diagnosis because they appear so fine. They appear they're doing well. They have families, they have a career, they did well in school. Some of them didn't. Some people struggled. So I think it's more likely that people will search diagnosis and actually start thinking about ADHD if they struggled. if they obviously struggled, if they failed in some aspects in life. But if they appear to be doing well, then that can really lead to. And very often, actually, women get diagnosed when they actually have a child.

22:59Dana Dzamic:It happened to me as well with ADHD. And they start thinking about it deeper. Because it's very difficult to recognize struggle if you actually don't know how other people feel. So I know that I for a long time felt that other people felt so at ease and I felt very uncomfortable. And that was the only awareness I had. And then when you actually start breaking it down by listening to these conversations and learning about it, then they actually see, OK, there is a lot more to that. You know, it's not just about feeling uncomfortable. There is a lot more to that. There is a lot more to tiredness, to fatigue, to different pains you feel and withdrawals in certain times in life.

23:42My sincerest apologies for interrupting your hyper focus. But a quick word from our sponsor. Like many in the new year, we want to turn over a new leaf looking to be more productive, more organized and never late. Well, Timo app is here to help. Timo wasn't named app of the year in 2025 for no reason. It's the ultimate planning partner gently guiding you towards busting your day-to-day chores list. The important difference is, Timo is designed by neurodivergent brains for neurodivergent brains. And you can tell, it's built to adapt to your neurodivergent way of thinking and be flexible to your way of planning.

24:19And now it's even more simple with the AI Planning Assistant. Timo offers an incredible new voice transcribing service, making it even easier to use. It's almost so simple that it feels like a cheat code to play life on easy mode. Give it a go and use the link in my bio for 30 % off. Just a note though, this code is only applicable on the web browser, not the smartphone. Back to the episode. Do you know anyone who has potentially masked so well their entire life because they didn't have an awareness? They didn't have an understanding of what was going on. And then they potentially got a diagnosis later in life.

24:54And then they suddenly had this realization that, oh my gosh my whole life has been a lie do you is that a familiar narrative it is i've seen that

25:06Dana Dzamic:um and um i think that needs a lot of work actually so some people do feel my whole life has been a lie but actually i think those people need support and help in actually understanding it's not actually a lie it's just a way of coping so it doesn't have to be a lie I think that's a very strong word, but that was my way of coping. And I think instead of feeling this guilt and shame and self-blame, and then sometimes it's people blame parents, sometimes people blame system or blame school. But that's not very helpful, I find, because people have to go through that grief, why I didn't know before.

25:48Dana Dzamic:But I don't find that particularly helpful, even though people have to go through that. But people have to look at that as a way of coping. And I think going back and understanding that better can actually help them to feel even better about themselves because they've done so much despite all that. And they have to start again and continue in the same way. But then if they understand it better, they suddenly feel better. So I've seen some bad cases. I've seen people who actually, realization actually makes them feel worse. And suddenly they have to deal with all that. But actually I've seen, especially women who actually did well and they can say just, oh, this is all, suddenly I have these answers why.

26:34Dana Dzamic:And I feel so great now. What do you think the risks are of masking? Like the consequences of masking too much? Because I was doing a talk on ADHD at a university a couple of months ago and I was speaking to a lady afterwards and she was saying that she believes that she was quite hyperactive as a child and her earliest memories of kind of being corrected was in essence by people saying like that's not very ladylike you're being too dramatic and she realized that to suppress her hyperactivity and almost become a bit of a fawn and internalize herself felt safer and she thinks had she she shared with me that she had to have a couple of abusive relationships since then and she thinks that the people pleaser within her that she correlates to the internal suppression that happened early because of those comments was responsible for the danger that she was put into in her relationships later on in life do you think there is a correlation between masking and almost hiding your true self and being in risky situations later on in life?

27:44Dana Dzamic:I do think, yes, because we develop certain patterns of behaviors that is very difficult to correct later. And I think behavior, we always develop behaviors that is learned behavior. And if that becomes a pattern, if that becomes the only behavior we know, then it's very difficult to learn that. Behavior can also be a comfort zone, even though behavior is not always giving us good results. So it can be. But also, you did ask me what is the consequence of masking. And I think what I see from the experience is two big things. One is self-esteem and another one is burnout so self-esteem is part of that is what you are saying so we actually we do certain behaviors and then we feel guilty and then we do set other behaviors we either talk too much or we talk too little and then we regret it or we overreact and then we feel bad after that and then we are often late and then we feel like we are irresponsible or we actually get excited about too many you know jobs and courses and we give up because we get bored and then we feel like we are restless and again irresponsible and not very mature so that all affects self-esteem but then burnout I think I talked about it quite a lot last time but then people hurt so much then they experience burnout and if they don't know the burnout as a result of masking they can't really easily get out of it because if the burnout is the consequence of masking people end up often treating depression and often it doesn't help because it's not the answer to that kind of burnout so it it it does look like depression but it's actually something else so they have to look at what led to that burnout in order to actually go back to life that is going to look better Rejection sensitive dysphoria, RSD, can that be a motivator for masking?