Bit of an old post, but your title spoke directly to the core of my being.

Fortunately I do not have to deal with it in my home life in quite the usual way you mean since it’s with my wife and kid, but it was and absolutely would still be with roommates.

But yeah just the energy drain of knowing you are being perceived and then imagining and evaluating that perception from their perspective… For example, I will do basic outdoor stuff in a consciously arranged way just in case somebody is driving past or looking out a window across the road.

I figure it is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, often seen with ADHD, plus an upbringing in a conservative culture where basic communication was via criticism. Combine those in a nice hyperfocus crucible, and my brain begins assembling them most likely put-downs before I even start an activity.

Oh and finish by sprinkling on some Gifted Child syndrome. When everything comes easily during your formative years thanks to hyper focus and minimal socializing, it can mess up how your lizard brain reacts to challenges.

Fortunately, realizing these things are true makes them a lot easier to deal with.

masking isn't something that I can "stop" doing, it generalized and became permanent at age 12.

I have been quite fairly described by more than one shrink as having blunted affect, which describes my level of displayed emotion, not how strongly I feel it.

so, I can only "unmask" to some degree around ... well, he's dead. so nobody.

I feel like the stress of being perceived is exactly what drives me to need to be masking all the time, but when I am able to start my hyperfocus I stop noticing the perception as much. I think it's moreso the actual masking that drains me. But now that I think about it, I remember living with my family and how I would get stressed when other people were awake because they might come to my room and try to talk to me so I ended up doing most of my work at night so I wasn't keeping my mask on standby to use your words. I ended up being pretty much nocturnal. I don't think my awareness of the sounds in the house were quite as acute as yours but it was definitely a Thing for me to be bothered by noises in the house when trying to focus, especially when near burnout. And honestly I feel drained just by being in public, even without interacting with anyone. It's probably a mix of both.

I can relate to a lot of what you've written here though. I mask all the time, I don't really know how to stop, but it just leaves me completely wrecked after just a few hours of doing it.

I'm working on finding ways to maybe not unmask, but find more sustainable lower energy masks with safe people. Part of that I guess is finding more safe people. I can pretty much unmask with my partner, but that's taken a long time to get there. I'd like to be able to spend time with more than exactly one person without burning all my energy on my dumb mask.

My primary form of masking is just not talking or drawing attention which doesn't work for small social environments like roommates or workmates. I don't understand how others are able to mask all the time as masking for me is literally me putting on a performance with my voice and facial expressions. Any time I'm tired or focused on something like eating I can't mask. I wish I could just mask all the time with little effort. I don't experience normal speech so to even have a normal back and forth conversation is hard since I also have to talk slow and in a normal tone.

One tip though, look for roommates and friends who are also neurodivergent.