Pretending to follow the meeting, rehearsing every email, recovering all weekend. What the research says masking costs, and what it can look like to set some of it down.
You nod in the meeting while your mind has already left twice. You write the email, reread it four times, and still check it once more after sending. You arrive early, stay late, and keep a private system of sticky notes and phone alarms that nobody at work knows exists. By Friday you are so tired that the weekend goes to recovery rather than to your life.
If that sounds familiar, you may be masking. It is one of the most common things adults with ADHD describe about work, and one of the least talked about.
Masking means hiding or compensating for ADHD traits so that other people do not see them. At work it usually looks like effort spent on appearing attentive, organized and on time, stacked on top of the effort of the job itself. It is not a clinical term and you will not find it in the diagnostic criteria, but it describes something many adults recognize the moment they hear it.
In a 2026 study in Research in Neurodiversity, Marisa Mylett and Grace Iarocci at Simon Fraser University surveyed 202 adults with clinician-diagnosed ADHD. 91.6 percent reported masking their ADHD traits across work, public and personal settings. The strategies they described will be familiar to a lot of people:
Usually because it once worked, or because not doing it cost something. A 2022 study in PLOS ONE by Danielle Beaton, Fuschia Sirois and Elizabeth Milne asked 162 adults with ADHD about the criticism they had received from family, friends and colleagues. The traits criticized most were the inattentive ones: organization, time management and forgetfulness. Hiding symptoms was one of the ways participants described coping.
That reframes masking. It is not vanity and it is not dishonesty. As Iarocci put it when the Simon Fraser study was released, people are "responding to real social expectations and pressures and using masking to cope." Work, where performance is measured and reputations stick, is often where that pressure runs highest.
Energy first, and then more than energy. Participants in the Simon Fraser study linked masking to exhaustion, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and a sense of not quite knowing who they were underneath. Some said the extra mental load made their attention and memory worse, not better, and that they needed days to recover.
There is an arithmetic to it. Attention you spend monitoring how you come across is attention you are not spending on the work. So the harder you mask, the more the underlying difficulty can grow, which calls for more masking. Many people describe the pattern as holding it together all day and coming apart at home, where the people closest to them get the version with nothing left.
The same study raised a quieter cost. Masking can delay a diagnosis and keep people from support, because the struggle does not show. If you have spent years being described as capable but inconsistent, that may be part of why. We wrote about a related pattern in why adult ADHD gets missed in women.
Not exactly, and researchers are still working out the difference. Camouflaging was first studied in autism, and a 2026 editorial by Marios Adamou in The British Journal of Psychiatry cautioned against borrowing the idea wholesale. His argument is that for many people with ADHD, the adaptations are less a deliberate performance and more a set of habits shaped by years of criticism, and that the questionnaires used so far were built for autism rather than ADHD.
For you, the practical upshot is simple. Whether you call it masking, compensating or just coping, the effort is real and so is the tiredness. The label matters less than noticing what the effort costs and whether all of it is still necessary.
Gradually, and selectively. Masking less does not mean announcing everything to everyone. It means choosing where the effort is still worth it, and where a different setup could carry the load instead of you.
Some people also consider formal accommodations. CHADD, the national ADHD organization, notes that the Americans with Disabilities Act can require employers to provide reasonable accommodations when ADHD substantially limits a major life activity, such as a quieter workspace, permission to wear headphones, or help with paperwork-heavy tasks. Whether and when to disclose is a personal decision with real trade-offs, and CHADD points to the Job Accommodation Network at askjan.org as a free place to ask questions. This is general information, not legal advice.
Therapy can help with both layers of this: the practical systems that let you stop compensating by sheer force, and the older belief underneath that the real you is not acceptable at work. NIMH lists psychotherapy, including cognitive behavioral approaches, among the standard treatments for adults with ADHD, and notes that effective treatment often combines more than one approach.
To be clear about what we do: The Healing Effect does not do formal ADHD testing, and we do not prescribe. We support adults managing the day to day impact of ADHD, and we can point you toward an evaluation or a medication consult when that is the right next step. Our ADHD support page describes that work in more detail. We see clients in person and by telehealth, and telehealth is available for clients located in Arizona.
If work leaves you more drained than the work itself seems to explain, the hidden job of looking fine may be part of the reason. That effort kept you going, and it makes sense that you learned it. It is also allowed to change.
If you want help figuring out what a more sustainable workday could look like for you, reach out to us.
If the calm on the outside is costing you a lot on the inside, our care team can help you find a therapist who fits, at your pace.
Reach OutBoth, in a sense. It is not a diagnostic term, but researchers are studying it. A 2026 survey found most adults with diagnosed ADHD reported hiding or compensating for their traits, while other researchers argue the concept still needs ADHD-specific measurement.
If you are spending a lot of effort appearing focused and organized, you are doing two jobs at once. People who mask often describe needing evenings or whole weekends to recover.
It is a personal decision with trade-offs. CHADD notes the ADA can require reasonable accommodations when ADHD substantially limits a major life activity, and the Job Accommodation Network at askjan.org answers questions for free. This is general information, not legal advice.
Many people find it helps to work on practical structure and on the beliefs that drive the masking. NIMH lists psychotherapy, including cognitive behavioral approaches, among standard treatments for adult ADHD.
No. We do not do formal ADHD testing and we do not prescribe. We support adults managing the day to day impact of ADHD, and we can refer you for an evaluation or a medication consult when that is the right next step.
The Healing Effect is not a crisis service. If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Sources:
Mylett M, Iarocci G. "I wish I could just be myself": Experiences of social camouflaging in adults with ADHD. Research in Neurodiversity. 2026. doi:10.1016/j.rin.2026.100018 (202 adults aged 16 and over with clinician-diagnosed ADHD; 91.6 percent reported masking across work, public and personal settings; strategies included pretending to pay attention, suppressing fidgeting, rehearsing conversations and overpreparing; reported consequences included exhaustion, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, identity disturbance and worsened ADHD symptoms; masking may delay diagnosis). Summary via Simon Fraser University release on EurekAlert, 2026.
Beaton DM, Sirois F, Milne E. Experiences of criticism in adults with ADHD: A qualitative study. PLOS ONE. 2022 (162 adults; inattention-related traits most criticized; hiding symptoms among coping strategies; understanding from others reduced the impact of criticism).
Adamou M. Camouflaging in ADHD: the need for construct validation before clinical adoption. The British Journal of Psychiatry. 2026 (editorial arguing that adaptations in ADHD are often affectively driven rather than strategic, and that current measures were developed for autism).
CHADD, Asking for Workplace Accommodations (ADA coverage when symptoms substantially limit a major life activity; disclosure scenarios; example accommodations; Job Accommodation Network as a resource).
National Institute of Mental Health, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (treatments for adults include medication and psychotherapy, including cognitive behavioral approaches, often in combination).
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