Masking Between Existence and Understanding - Pre-Ontological Liminality and Ontological Field-Fabrication in the Tension Between Neurodivergent and Neurotypical World Architectures

This paper develops an ontological theory of masking that understands masking neither as an individual adaptation strategy nor as a primarily psychological or communicative phenomenon, but as a structural effect of ontological asymmetry between neurodivergent and neurotypical existence. The point of departure is the thesis that neurodivergent existence often operates in a pre-ontological, liminal mode oriented toward openness, embodiment, and relational field complexity, whereas neurotypical world architectures are stabilized through ontological fabrication, representation, and simplification. Masking emerges where a more complex, non-closed, open field of existencee is compelled to socially land within a…