Why Do I Feel Like I’m Performing Around Other People?

When adapting to everyone around you becomes so automatic that you’re not sure where it ends and you begin

By Jena MacDonald, Canadian Certified Counsellor (Qualifying)
Women’s Therapy Centre
Virtual therapy across Nova Scotia and most provinces in Canada

Have you ever walked away from a conversation and immediately started reviewing it?

Did I talk too much?

Was that joke weird?

Did I make enough eye contact?

Why did I say that?

Maybe you notice that you’re slightly different depending on who you’re with. Around one group of friends, you’re outgoing and funny. At work, you’re polished and agreeable. Around family, you know which opinions are easier to keep to yourself. With someone new, you find yourself watching closely for clues about who they might be most comfortable with—and becoming a little more like that person.

None of this necessarily feels intentional.

In fact, you may be very good at it.

Other people might describe you as social, perceptive, easy to talk to, or someone who can get along with almost anyone. What they don’t see is how much work may be happening underneath.

You’re reading facial expressions. Monitoring your tone. Deciding when to speak. Adjusting how enthusiastic you appear. Remembering to ask questions. Suppressing the urge to interrupt when you’re excited. Trying not to fidget. Checking whether the other person seems bored.

Then you get home and feel completely depleted.

Sometimes the hardest part isn’t even the exhaustion. It’s the question underneath it: Why does being around other people often feel like performing?

For some women, understanding masking and neurodivergence finally gives language to an experience they’ve had for most of their lives.

For others, the answer is more complicated.

Either way, it may be worth becoming curious about how much energy you’ve spent learning how to be comfortable for everyone else.

You May Not Realize You’re Masking

When people first hear the word masking, they sometimes imagine deliberately pretending to be someone else.

Often, it’s much subtler than that.

Masking can involve consciously or unconsciously changing, suppressing, or managing parts of yourself to better meet the social expectations around you. It is commonly discussed in relation to autism and ADHD, particularly for women and others whose neurodivergence may have been overlooked earlier in life.

You might force yourself to maintain eye contact even though it makes concentrating harder. You may suppress movements that help regulate your body because you’ve learned they look unusual. Perhaps you rehearse what you’re going to say before making a phone call or watch other people closely to figure out how you’re expected to behave.

Sometimes masking looks less obvious. You laugh because everyone else is laughing even though you missed the joke. You pretend a loud restaurant isn’t bothering you. You force yourself to keep socializing long after your body is asking you to leave.

Or you become exceptionally good at being whatever the room seems to require.

Over time, these adaptations can become so automatic that they stop feeling like adaptations at all.

They simply feel like your personality.

If you’ve wondered about this in the context of autism, I explore it more specifically in Masking in Women: The Hidden Cost of High-Functioning Coping

But Not Every Social Adaptation Is Masking

This distinction matters.

Everyone changes somewhat depending on context. Most of us don't speak to our employer exactly the way we speak to our closest friend. We learn social expectations, adjust our communication, and behave differently in different relationships.

That is part of being human.

Feeling like you're performing socially also doesn't automatically mean you're autistic or have ADHD. Anxiety, previous experiences of rejection, family dynamics, discrimination, attachment experiences, and other factors can all affect how closely we monitor ourselves around other people.

The question isn't simply:

Do I change around other people?

A more useful question may be:

How much of myself do I feel I have to manage in order to belong?

And perhaps another:

What does that management cost me?

If you leave most social interactions exhausted from monitoring yourself, regularly suppress your needs to avoid seeming difficult, or feel as though nobody really knows you despite having plenty of relationships, those experiences may be worth exploring.

The goal isn't necessarily to find the perfect label for them. It's to understand you.

When You Become Very Good at Reading the Room

Some women can walk into a room and almost immediately sense its emotional temperature.

Who seems uncomfortable?

Who is annoyed?

What kind of humour works here?

How much should I talk?

What version of me will fit?

That ability can look like social confidence from the outside.

Internally, it may feel more like constant calculation.

For neurodivergent women, this can develop after years of consciously or unconsciously studying social behaviour that seemed to come more naturally to other people. You may have learned through observation, imitation, trial and error, or painful experiences of getting something "wrong."

Eventually, you get better at it. Maybe exceptionally good. But becoming skilled at something doesn't necessarily mean it stopped requiring effort.

This is one reason some women don't begin questioning whether they might be neurodivergent until adulthood. Their lives may look functional from the outside. They have careers, friendships, partners, children, and responsibilities.

What isn't visible is the amount of energy required to maintain that functioning. The question becomes less "Can I do this?" and more: "What does it cost me to keep doing it this way?"

Why Am I So Tired After Socializing?

This is one of the experiences I wish we talked about more.

You can enjoy people and still need to recover from them. You can love your friends and feel relieved when plans are cancelled. You can have a wonderful evening and still need the next morning alone. Those things aren't contradictions.

For some neurodivergent and highly sensitive women, social environments involve processing an enormous amount of information at once: conversation, facial expressions, background noise, lighting, movement, emotional cues, expectations, and sensory input.

Add self-monitoring on top of that, and even enjoyable socializing can require significant energy.

This is also why needing alone time doesn't necessarily mean you're antisocial or disconnected. Sometimes solitude is simply where your nervous system gets to stop processing quite so much.

Erin Smith explores this experience from a high-sensitivity perspective in Why Do I Need So Much Alone Time?, while my work often considers how social exhaustion can intersect with masking, neurodivergence, anxiety, and identity.

The important question isn't whether you should need recovery. It's whether you're allowing yourself to notice that you do.

When High-Functioning Anxiety Looks Like Social Competence

There can also be significant overlap between masking and anxiety. Maybe you appear prepared because you've spent hours anticipating every possible outcome. Perhaps you're an excellent conversationalist because you're constantly monitoring whether the other person is comfortable. Maybe people describe you as easygoing because you've become skilled at hiding discomfort.

From the outside, it can look effortless. Inside, you're working constantly.

This is one reason the phrase high-functioning anxiety resonates with so many women. Functioning tells us very little about what something costs. You can be successful and overwhelmed. Socially capable and anxious. Highly organized and struggling.

The fact that other people don't see how hard you're working doesn't mean the work isn't happening.

What Happens When You Don't Know Which Version Is You?

For some women, the most difficult part of masking isn't exhaustion. It's identity.

If you've spent years adapting to different environments, eventually you may start asking questions that are surprisingly difficult to answer.

What do I actually like?

Do I want to go, or do I think I'm supposed to want to go?

Is this my opinion or the one that causes the least conflict?

Would I dress this way if nobody else had an opinion?

Who am I when nobody is watching?

These questions can become especially powerful after recognizing neurodivergence later in life. Suddenly, behaviours you thought were simply your personality may look different. You might reconsider friendships, work environments, sensory needs, boundaries, relationships, or the expectations you've placed on yourself.

There can be relief in that. There can also be grief. You may wonder how much of your life was spent trying to become easier for other people.

But I don't think the goal is to separate your personality into two piles labelled real me and mask. Human beings are more complicated than that.

The adaptations you developed are part of your story too. Some may have protected you. Some may have helped you build relationships or navigate environments that weren't designed with your needs in mind. The question is whether you still need all of them.

Unmasking doesn't have to mean discovering one hidden, authentic version of yourself. It can mean giving yourself more choice about when you adapt and when you don't.

Boundaries Can Feel Different When You've Spent Years Adapting

This is also where masking and boundaries can intersect. If you're accustomed to monitoring everyone else's comfort, saying what you actually need can feel surprisingly risky. You might know you're overwhelmed but stay anyway. Know you need quiet but worry you'll seem rude. Know you don't want to attend something but spend hours searching for an excuse that feels acceptable enough.

You aren't necessarily confused about the boundary. You may be afraid of what happens when other people encounter the version of you who has one.

This is something I explore further in Why Is It So Hard to Set Boundaries as a Neurodivergent Woman? For many women, boundary work isn't simply about learning to say no. It's about tolerating the possibility that being honest about your needs may make you less convenient to someone else.

That can be particularly difficult when belonging has historically depended on adapting.

You Don't Have to Stop Adapting

There can be pressure after learning about masking to immediately start "unmasking." I think we need more nuance than that.

Masking can sometimes be protective. There are workplaces, families, communities, and social environments where showing every part of yourself may not feel emotionally or practically safe. For marginalized people in particular, adaptation can carry realities that go far beyond personal confidence.

So therapy doesn't need to become another place where someone tells you how you're supposed to behave.

Instead, we can become curious.

Where does adapting feel useful?

Where does it feel exhausting?

Who makes you feel like you can relax?

Which environments require you to monitor yourself constantly?

What sensory or social needs have you been overriding?

What would change if you believed those needs were legitimate?

The goal isn't necessarily to never mask again. The goal may simply be having more choice.

What Does It Feel Like When You Don't Have to Perform?

Sometimes the clearest way to understand masking isn't to examine the places where you're doing it. It's to notice the places where you aren't. Think about the people around whom your shoulders drop. The friend you don't rehearse texts to. The person who doesn't seem bothered when you become intensely excited about something. The relationship where silence isn't awkward. The home where you can change into comfortable clothes, turn down the lights, stop making eye contact, move your body however it wants to move, or simply stop talking.

Notice what happens inside you. That feeling matters. Safety often isn't dramatic. Sometimes it simply feels like less effort.

And once you've experienced relationships where you don't have to constantly monitor yourself, you may begin recognizing how much energy you've been spending everywhere else.

Therapy Can Be a Place to Get Curious About Who You Are

Many women come to therapy already knowing they're exhausted. What they don't always know is why.

They may describe anxiety, burnout, relationship difficulties, sensory overwhelm, trouble setting boundaries, or the feeling that they don't really know themselves anymore.

For neurodivergent women, particularly those recognizing ADHD or autism later in life, those experiences can begin making more sense when we explore the amount of adapting that has been happening underneath.

Therapy doesn't need to decide which parts of you are "real." Instead, it can create enough space to notice what happens when you aren't constantly anticipating what everyone else needs from you.

What feels comfortable? What feels draining? What do you actually enjoy? What relationships allow you to take up more space? What needs have you dismissed because they seemed inconvenient? And perhaps most importantly: Who might you become if belonging didn't require quite so much work?

You don't need to answer that immediately. Maybe discovering yourself isn't one enormous revelation. Maybe it's a series of very small permissions.

Permission to leave earlier. To ask for quieter seating. To stop forcing eye contact when you need to concentrate. To say you don't understand. To spend Saturday alone after a demanding week. To become excited about something without checking whether anyone else finds it interesting. To have a boundary without constructing an elaborate justification for it. To notice what your nervous system has been asking for all along.

Eventually, you may discover that the goal was never to become less socially capable. It was to stop measuring your success by how little of your effort anyone else could see.

You deserve relationships where being known doesn't require constantly performing a version of yourself that's easier for everyone else to understand.

Why Work With Jena?

Jena works with women who may appear capable on the outside while privately navigating anxiety, masking, neurodivergence, identity, boundaries, and the exhaustion of constantly adapting. Her approach offers space to understand your patterns without forcing yourself into another set of expectations, particularly for women exploring ADHD, autism, high-functioning anxiety, or what it means to live more authentically.

About the Author

Jena MacDonald is a Canadian Certified Counsellor (Qualifying) with Women's Therapy Centre, providing virtual therapy in Nova Scotia and select provinces in Canada. Her areas of interest include neurodivergent women, masking and late-recognized autism, high-functioning anxiety, identity, boundaries, and 2SLGBTQIA+ mental health.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I feel like I'm performing around other people?

Feeling like you're performing socially can happen when you're closely monitoring your behaviour, communication, facial expressions, or other people's reactions. For some people this relates to anxiety or previous experiences; for neurodivergent people, it can also be part of masking.

What is masking in neurodivergent women?

Masking describes consciously or unconsciously suppressing, changing, or managing behaviours to better meet social expectations. It is commonly discussed in relation to autism and ADHD and may be particularly difficult to recognize in women who have spent years becoming skilled at adapting.

Does masking mean I'm autistic?

No. Recognizing masking behaviours does not by itself mean someone is autistic. Social anxiety, experiences of rejection, family dynamics, discrimination, trauma, and other factors can also lead people to closely monitor or adapt themselves around others.

Why am I exhausted after socializing even when I enjoyed myself?

Socializing can involve processing conversation, sensory input, emotional cues, and social expectations simultaneously. If you're also masking or closely monitoring yourself, an enjoyable interaction can still require considerable energy and leave you needing recovery time.

Can therapy help with masking and neurodivergent identity?

Therapy can provide space to explore masking, identity, sensory and social needs, boundaries, burnout, and what authentic self-expression means specifically for you. The goal doesn't have to be eliminating every adaptation; it can be developing more choice about when and how you use them.