Over 90% Of Adults With ADHD Are Doing This & Most Don't Even Realize It
Think about the last time you sat through a long meeting, forced yourself to make eye contact, and mentally rehearsed your responses so you'd seem engaged. For most people, that's just a mildly draining Tuesday. For many adults with ADHD, it's a full-time performance—one they've been putting on for years without a name for it. New research on ADHD social camouflaging1 is finally giving it one. Here'w what you need to know.
About the study
Researchers wanted to understand how adults with ADHD experience masking, the act of hiding or compensating for their symptoms in social and professional situations. While masking has been studied extensively in the context of autism, its role in adult ADHD has received far less attention, making this one of the first studies to examine it directly.
The study asked 202 adults with ADHD to describe their own lived experiences through open-ended written responses, so findings reflect personal accounts rather than clinical observation.
9 in 10 adults with ADHD are masking (often without realizing it)
In total, 91.6% of participants said they mask or hide their ADHD symptoms in social situations. The behaviors they described were specific and effortful. This includes things like suppressing the urge to fidget, forcing themselves to look attentive, holding back from speaking or biting their tongue when they felt the impulse to interrupt, over-preparing for conversations, mirroring the people around them, and working much harder than their peers just to appear "normal."
For many, these habits had become so automatic they barely felt like a choice anymore.
What this means for your mental health
The toll of keeping up that performance adds up. Participants described feeling constantly drained, dealing with heightened anxiety, and losing touch with who they actually were beneath all the effort. Perhaps most counterintuitively, suppressing natural ADHD coping behaviors (like moving around or fidgeting) often made symptoms worse, not better.
The study's participants skewed toward women and younger adults, two groups that tend to mask ADHD symptoms more than others. This pattern may help explain why ADHD goes undiagnosed so often, particularly in women, who are frequently socialized to prioritize fitting in and self-monitoring from a young age.
How to work with your ADHD instead of hiding it
Recognizing masking is the first step toward reducing its cost. A few approaches worth considering:
- Audit your coping strategies: Tools like calendars, reminders, movement breaks, and structured routines can help manage ADHD symptoms without the emotional toll of masking.
- Stop fighting every fidget: If movement helps you focus, low-profile options like a fidget tool, standing meetings, or walking calls can support your attention without drawing attention.
- Build in recovery time: Many participants felt depleted after prolonged masking. Intentional downtime after highly social or demanding situations may be helpful.
- Document effort, not just outcomes: If you're pursuing an ADHD evaluation, high achievement doesn't rule out real impairment. Tracking the effort behind your functioning gives clinicians a more accurate picture.
- Work with a therapist or coach: Someone familiar with ADHD can help you figure out where you're adapting in healthy ways and where you're suppressing core parts of yourself just to meet expectations.
The takeaway
This social camouflaging is a common, often unconscious response to living with ADHD in a world that wasn't built for it. The costs (exhaustion, anxiety, and a loss of self) are real, and functioning well doesn't have to mean hiding who you are.