Mask

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Masking refers to the conscious or unconscious suppression or hiding of elements of a person's identity, personality, or natural behavior. This is often referred to as a social survival strategy – used to conform to expected 'norms', cope with situations or environments, or avoid expressing anxiety. Self-suppression can cause lasting harm to an individual's happiness, security, and sense of self.

Masking may occur in a number of context, such as hiding attributes that are not fully accepted in society, disguising emotions or impairments, and may apply to masking symptoms as well. In the context of plurality, masking may be taken care of by specific headmates, such as a masker or posier, and may hide both general symptoms as well as the existence of the system itself.

For example, a system may have a symptom manager that helps to conceal symptoms, a posier who simply acts in a more professional manner that they would not display in private, or a system guard who keeps the system covert.

As such, one may refer to masking in relation to a specific topic or attribute, such as autistic masking, symptom masking, or system masking.

Masking may also occur as a less deliberate system function, such as shorter, less dissociated switches or less internal communication while interacting with outsiders. This could be to preserve privacy, or out of a subconscious desire to present a "unified front".

In addition, the mask or "persona" a person puts on in different contexts (such as a "work mask / work persona") does not necessarily overlap with plurality, though the two are often conflated by people less familiar with the concept.