OFF SCRIPT: The Blue Light Blur #6

Masking is easier when everyone else encourages it

When individuality has to be earned

Within policing, individuality is not something you arrive with. It is something you earn.

I remember my initial cohort vividly. A mixed group of backgrounds, personalities, histories. Nervous, awkward, but human. We sat in circles and shared facts about ourselves. There was spark there. Curiosity. Difference.

Fast forward twelve months and that had changed.

The spark had gone.

What replaced it was a narrower version of acceptable self. Less colour. Less deviation. More sameness.

Even from the beginning, I knew there were parts of myself I would not feel comfortable sharing. Expressions of personality that didn’t fit the mould were noticed quickly. When I turned up with a themed messenger bag, it became a talking point. When a film poster appeared in my locker, it was mocked. Not aggressively. Casually. Enough to make the point.

I learned very quickly what not to show.

Learning to be grey

The moment that still makes me smile, in hindsight, was a simple question.

“What football team do you support?”

“I don’t like football.”

Tumbleweed.

In policing, there is a phrase that comes up again and again.

Be the grey person in the room.

It’s offered as advice. As protection. As survival.

Don’t stand out too much. Don’t draw attention. Don’t give anyone a reason to focus on you. Blend in. Do just enough.

That idea stuck with me.

For years, I played by the conformity rules. I crafted the persona carefully and buried parts of myself along with it. Professionalism became synonymous with not rocking the boat.

And because I already knew, instinctively, that I was different, my defences were doubled. I wasn’t just avoiding standing out through personality. I was avoiding standing out through how I thought, processed, and interpreted the world.

When the mask becomes default

Every now and then, something would slip.

Comments followed.

“You’re the campest straight man I’ve ever met.”

“Why do you waste your time writing weird stuff?”

“You shouldn’t stand out so much. People will look at you.”

“You’ve not been here long enough to earn that.”

None of it was catastrophic on its own.

All of it reinforced the same message.

Difference is noticed. Difference is commented on. Difference has to justify itself.

Over time, the mask fused. It stopped being something I put on and became the only version I allowed to exist. And I wasn’t alone in that. I saw it happen to others constantly. Any deviation from the norm was quietly eyeballed.

Masking felt normal because it was shared.

Adjusting the mask, role by role

As I moved teams and roles across my career, the process repeated.

Day one was always grey.

Observe. Measure. Calibrate.

Then came a slow testing phase. Weighing the room. Finding the edges of what was acceptable. Letting small elements of myself appear and watching the response.

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.

In some places, the mask was allowed to loosen. In others, it was never safe to remove at all.

The response to difference was rarely overt. More often it was passive. A comment made just loud enough. A glance held a moment too long. Whispers that signalled whether you would be absorbed or quietly avoided.

Personal safety lived inside that performance. Stepping outside it made you vulnerable.

I saw that play out not just with neurodivergence, but with beliefs, emotions, preferences, and personal choices. Masking wasn’t about hiding pathology. It was about avoiding attention.

Visibility, expectation, and quiet extraction

When I eventually chose to embrace my neurodivergent identity openly, I made sure it was visible.

It was uncomfortable. Being told people preferred the quieter version of you has a way of confirming everything you already knew. I responded by refusing to shrink again. If I was going to be visible, I would do it on my terms.

But visibility carries its own cost.

Across policing, I have seen the same pattern repeat. A small number of individuals stand up, speak openly, and hold their mask away from their face. I began to notice that the same few voices were repeatedly relied upon to represent and support everyone else.

Inclusion becomes delegated.

Responsibility becomes concentrated.

Burnout follows.

It can create an uncomfortable imbalance, where inclusion is spoken about widely, but the emotional labour of it rests with a small number of visible individuals.

Visibility carries power.

It also carries weight.

The real question is whether the version of you that feels safest is actually the one that feels most like you.