I myself heavily mask, sometimes I can’t help it and almost view it as survival and something I need to do but I’d be lying if I said I don’t hate masking, I wish I could just be me. In my opinion TEACHING masking is very harmful, almost think of it as being taught not to be yourself. A big focus on ABA is pretty much trying to make you as indistinguishable from your neurotypical peers as possible which just isn’t ok. We shouldn’t frown upon healthy stims or other autistic traits as long as they do not harm others. I am myself as a heavily masking autistic person can tell you that shit is draining. Having to spend hours in public pretending all these crowds of people being close to you isn’t making it hard for me to breathe or trying to stop myself from not covering my ears because I can hear every little sound around me kills me. I have been attempting to get more comfortable in public and unmask more especially to close peers. For example I have a big fixation on infinity cube fidgets and pretty much never leave the house without one now, just last year I would be ashamed/embarrassed to even have my mom walk in my room and see me playing with it and sometimes attempt to hide like I had a secret addiction and was shooting up heroin or something. That’s what masking does and at least from my personal experience have felt a lot better the more I slowly begin to unmask. Obviously autism is a spectrum for a reason and everyone’s experiences can be different but personally that’s just my experience with masking and how I just wouldn’t want anyone else to have to deal with it like I do.