Have you ever sat in a meeting, carefully monitoring your expression so no one notices your mind has drifted? Or stayed two hours late — not because you’re slow, but because you spent the whole day performing focus rather than actually using it?

If so, you might know masking. And if you’ve never heard the term, you’ve probably still felt it.

Masking is one of the most common and least talked-about experiences of people with ADHD in the workplace. It’s exhausting, it’s invisible, and for many people — particularly women — it’s been going on for so long that it just feels like “working hard.”

In this article, I want to bring it into the open: what masking actually is, what it costs you, and — crucially — what you can start to do about it.

What is ADHD masking?

Masking is when someone with ADHD (or other neurodiversities) hides, suppresses, or compensates for their symptoms in order to appear “neurotypical.” It’s not dishonesty. It’s a survival strategy, usually learned in childhood and refined over years of trying to fit into environments that weren’t designed for the way your brain works.

In a workplace context, masking might look like:

• Over-preparing for meetings to compensate for difficulty thinking on the spot
• Suppressing the urge to fidget, move, or stim during long calls
• Forcing yourself to make eye contact even when it takes concentration away from listening
• Working twice as hard to deliver the same output, so the effort stays invisible
• Rehearsing conversations in your head before having them
• Coming up with plausible explanations for being late, distracted, or disorganised — that don’t mention ADHD

“Pretending to be ‘normal’ seemed like the only way to survive.” — a common sentiment among adults who grew up undiagnosed with ADHD

It’s worth saying: masking isn’t the same as simply adapting your behaviour in different contexts. Everyone adjusts how they communicate at work versus with friends. What makes masking different is the sustained effort involved, and the way it requires you to work against your own neurological wiring — rather than with it.

How common is masking at work?

Very. And the research backs this up.

82% of neurodivergent individuals agree they feel pressure to mask or conform to neurotypical behaviours at work. (Understood.org Neurodiversity at Work Survey, 2025)

Women with ADHD are significantly more likely to develop compensatory masking behaviours than men — a major reason why women are still diagnosed at lower rates and later in life. (Slobodin & Davidovitch, 2019)

In the UK, NICE estimates that around 3–4% of adults have ADHD — meaning in a workplace of 100 people, several are likely masking every single day.

Masking is particularly prevalent among women and girls, whose ADHD symptoms have historically been overlooked because inattentive, internalised presentations don’t match the stereotypical picture of a hyperactive child. Instead, they learn to appear “fine” — often at enormous personal cost.

What does masking cost you?

Masking isn’t neutral. It takes real resources — cognitive, emotional, and physical — and those are resources that can’t also go towards your actual work.

Burnout

Research published in 2024 found that executive function deficits directly mediated the relationship between ADHD and job burnout. When your executive function is already stretched, using it to maintain a performance of normality accelerates depletion. Many of my clients describe a pattern: they hold it together all day at work, and then collapse in the evening. This shouldn't be the way people have to survive at work. 

Delayed or missed diagnosis

If you’re skilled at masking, the people around you — managers, GPs, even partners — may not see what’s happening. This means ADHD goes unrecognised, unsupported, and untreated. Women in particular often reach their 30s, 40s or even later before receiving a diagnosis, having spent decades developing increasingly elaborate coping strategies.

Imposter syndrome and low self-worth

There’s a particular cruelty to masking well: when you succeed, you can’t fully own it. If you believe your success is due to the performance — the scripted conversations, the obsessive preparation, the extra hours — rather than your actual capability, imposter syndrome takes root. Many of my clients are accomplished, high-functioning people who privately believe they’re “one slip away” from being found out.

Anxiety and mental health

Sustained masking is associated with increased anxiety, depression, and a profound sense of disconnection from your own identity. When you’ve spent years being someone else at work, you can lose track of who you actually are — and what you actually need.

Why don’t people just stop masking?

Masking persists because it developed as a response to real risk: the risk of judgement, rejection, or being seen as incapable. Many workplaces — even those with neurodiversity policies on paper — still create environments where revealing ADHD feels professionally dangerous.

The 2025 Understood.org survey found that 70% of US adults believe there is stigma around asking for a workplace accommodation, up from 60% the previous year. That stigma is real, and it makes the calculation to keep masking feel rational.

Unmasking isn’t as simple as “deciding to be yourself.” It involves understanding what you’re masking, why, and — critically — what safer strategies might replace it. That’s nuanced work, and it takes time.

What actually helps

The goal isn’t to unmask completely and immediately. For most people, some degree of professional adaptation will always exist — and that’s ok. The aim is to reduce the exhausting, identity-eroding parts of masking, and to build strategies that work with your brain rather than against it.

Here are some starting points:

1. Name it

Simply having language for what you’re experiencing changes things. Many of my clients have spent years feeling like they’re somehow defective — before realising they were masking a neurological difference, not failing at being a person. Naming masking for what it is can begin to shift that story.

2. Identify your highest-cost masks

Not all masking is equally draining. Some adaptations are relatively low cost; others eat through your energy by lunchtime. Getting specific about which behaviours cost the most — and in which situations — is a useful first step to making changes.

3. Explore accommodations

In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 requires employers to make reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities, which includes ADHD. You don’t need a formal diagnosis to request support, although having one helps. Accommodations might include flexible working, written communication over verbal, noise-cancelling headphones, or adjusted deadlines. The Access to Work scheme can also fund practical support — including coaching.

4. Build a realistic structure that works for your brain

External structure can reduce the cognitive load of self-management, which in turn reduces the pressure to mask. This looks different for everyone: it might mean time-blocking, body doubling, using voice memos instead of written notes, or working in short intense sprints rather than long slow sessions. The key is finding what works for your actual brain — not what works for everybody else.

5. Consider neurodiversity-informed coaching

Coaching isn’t therapy, but it can be profoundly useful for navigating the workplace when you’re neurodiverse. A good coach — particularly one with lived experience of neurodiversity — can help you understand your own patterns, develop practical strategies, and build the kind of self-awareness that makes sustainable change possible. This isn’t about fixing you. It’s about working out how you work best. If you'd like to find out more about how I work, visit the frequently asked questions page or explore coaching packages and what's on offer.

A final thought

If you’ve read this far, there’s a good chance this resonates with you. Maybe you’ve never heard the word “masking” before but felt the thing it describes. Maybe you’ve suspected for a while that the effort you put in is disproportionate to what everyone else seems to be experiencing. Maybe you’re exhausted in a way that’s hard to explain.

That exhaustion is real. And it’s not a character flaw.

You’ve been doing something genuinely hard — navigating a world that wasn’t built for your brain — and you’ve been doing it largely alone. Understanding masking is a first step towards doing it differently.

If you'd like to explore what this looks like for you, I offer a free introductory coaching call. No pressure — just a conversation. Book a free discovery call here.

Sources & further reading

Understood.org (2025). Neurodiversity at Work Survey. understood.org/en/press-releases/2025-neurodiversity-at-work-survey

Slobodin, O. & Davidovitch, M. (2019). Gender differences in ADHD: masking and diagnostic delay. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Shifrin, J. et al. (2024). Executive function deficits as mediators of ADHD and job burnout. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

Van Der Putten, W. et al. (2024). Camouflaging in adults with autism and ADHD. Autism Research.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). ADHD: diagnosis and management. nice.org.uk/guidance/ng87

Equality Act 2010 — reasonable adjustments for disabled employees. legislation.gov.uk

UK Government. Access to Work scheme. gov.uk/access-to-work

About the author

Dr Alexa Smith is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) accredited by the International Coaching Federation, with a PhD in Developmental Neurobiology from UCL. She specialises in neurodiversity coaching for adults with ADHD, autism, dyslexia and AuDHD, and is neurodiverse herself. She works with individuals, and executives across the UK and internationally.

alexasmith.co.uk