I went to see the new Wicked: For Good movie this past week at the pre-screening. Wicked has been one of my most favorite play that I've seen on broadway ever. I can't help but love the movie even with all the creative changes. And here I am once again, thinking deeply on looking at this movie through my lens of neurodiversity. Glinda has always been framed as the embodiment of goodness, she is shimmering, beloved, and impossibly composed. But peel back the glitter, study the debris her choices leave behind, and a darker truth emerges. Glinda isn't good because she's morally righteous. She's "good" because she performs goodness better than anyone else. This isn't really a story about Wicked, it's more like a story about the identities we bury so deeply we forget where the grave is.

Glinda represents every neurodivergent person who learned early, and far too early, that safety comes from blending in. She is the polished mask, the honed persona, the curated smile that makes everyone relax because she looks the way "good" is supposed to look. The Emerald City doesn't welcome her because she's Glinda. It welcomes her because she plays Glinda. Masking buys her access, power and proximity to authority. But it also comes with a corrosive price in that nobody ever meets the real her. The world applauds her mask and not her truth. That loneliness, which is heavy, cold, and unspeakable, is the currency she pays, over and over, and over again. I know this story intimately because I've lived it.

My divergence wasn't visible. I didn't present in ways that set off alarms. I didn't "look autistic," the way society expects disability to appear. That invisibility was a privilege but also a punishing one. Because I was taught, explicitly and implicitly, that my safety depended on performing normalcy. Smile when I'm overwhelmed. Laugh when I'm confused. Sit still when my brain feels like a live wire. Memorize the script. Anticipate reactions. Hide the sensory overload. Swallow the confusion. Never show the fear. Never expose the cracks. Masking wasn't optional for me, it was survival and the only way to stay protected in a world that rewards palatability and punishes difference. Like Glinda, I internalized the lesson so deeply that I became exceptional at performance. I rose, I succeeded, and I was praised. Although quietly, I lost pieces of myself in the process. That erosion doesn't announce itself. It accumulates and it shows up as exhaustion, burnout, anxiety, shutdown, and shame. It shows up as the hollow ache of being admired yet never truly known. Masking helped me blend in. It also buried me.

Then there is Elphaba who is green, visible, and judged before she takes a single breath. Elphaba, for me, represents every neurodivergent person whose difference cannot be hidden. Those whose stimming, tone, sensory needs, or movements tell the world, before a word is spoken, that they are not what society expects. Glinda hides her divergence behind a smile. Elphaba never had that choice. Society punishes her for it with precision. She is scrutinized, labeled, feared, and othered. She cannot mask, so she walks through a world built to misunderstand her. Yet her actions, when examined honestly, come from integrity, justice and empathy. She is fierce in a way only those who have been rejected can be. Righteous in a way only those who have fought for their humanity ever become. Glinda looks good while Elphaba does good. Yet, only one of them is praised.

Soceity rewards those of us who can mask  with jobs, promotions, leadership opportunities, invitations, praise, and much more. The world doesn't congratulate authenticity; it privileges conformity dressed up as charm. But when the reward goes to the mask, the self beneath it starves. Glinda isn't adored for who she is. She's adored for who she pretends to be. That's not goodness, it's palatability disguised as virtue. And the terrifying part? She knows it. She feels the loneliness, the disconnect and the hollowness. She feels success harden inside her into a gilded cage. That is the fate of every high-masking neurodivergent person who rises while hiding the truth of themselves. You may be celebrated. But you are never actually known, and yet we are unsure why imposter syndrome is so strong. Meanwhile, Elphaba's so-called wickedness is nothing more than the world's projection of its own intolerance. She refuses to bend, and authenticity is always threatening in a world built on façades. If Glinda is what society rewards, Elphaba is what it fears.

I have lived as Glinda, one who was rewarded for my ability to mask, praised for my performance. I have also lived as Elphaba, being misunderstood, dismissed, seen as "too much" or "not enough." For a long time, I thought I had to choose palatablility or authenticity. Safe or seen. Now I understand that that the choice itself is the trap. My work, my advocacy, and my coaching...all of it rests on one truth that people deserve to be seen, heard, validated, and nurtured for who they truly are. Not for the character they learned to perform.

This isn't an indictment of Glinda or uncritical praise for Elphaba. It's a mirror held up to all of us who learned to survive by becoming someone the world prefers. Masking may open doors, but it closes the door to yourself. It is a beautiful lie with an ugly price. If you've been masking your entire life, if you've been praised for the performance yet unseen in your truth then this is your invitation. Step out of the costume. Step out of the curated charm. Step into the green-skinned, unapologetic, unpolished, fully human version of you. The world doesn't change when the Glindas keep masking. ​It changes when we finally let ourselves be seen.