Flat affect

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This is a perfect example of what my face looks like, in my opinion:



I'm such a sweet and vulnerable Sweet Pea.

When I was young I had a flat affect. I never smiled. Now I smile all the time even while describing horrible things and it causes people to become suspicious of me. I smile while depressed and even psychotic. The only time I don't smile is when someone is bullying me or I get angry. Anger is one emotion I can show correctly.

I've been told to smile more, and that I don't show emotion on my face, and one friend constantly asks, "Are you ok?"

I think most people on the spectrum have some degree of flat affect, but aren't really aware of it or the effect it has on other people. I know for a fact that I had it for most of my childhood...people always thought I was sad when the reality was I just didn't show much emotion. Now, I do a lot of fake smiling...for some reason, people are responsive to it.

I used to not smile much, but now I've taught myself to smile at the right times, and now it comes naturally to me (thank god).

I was told by different people that I use facial expressions when I talk. So that's OK. But I think I do hold some sort of flat affect, because every time I walk with my mum or her sister other people who pass always say hello to them, even if they don't know them, but they never say hello to me. It's weird because my mum always says she doesn't look at people when they pass, but she must do if people say hello to her. They wouldn't if she always looked away all the time, like I do.

I don't know.

I always have a flat face and i quite love it, the only way you can see how i feel is in my eyes(they are wider when i am in a good mood.

I've been told I should play poker because of my face. And "does you face always look like that" by the same guy (my actual looks fine). When I was younger I remember being told that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile but I didn't ever believe that because my face did not feel strained. My facial expressions feel normal.
I've been told to smile too, and that I have a nice smile, so smile more, but I will smile when it comes naturally, mainly when something is funny.

I don't comment on other people's faces. I remember this lady got upset with me because she said I won't ever say hi to her unless she says hi to me. It exhausted me for her to say that, but ever since that happened I just say hi first. I don't tell other people to say hi to me and smile.

I'm not sure if I have a flat affect per se, but my therapist has noted that when she first started seeing me, she did find me "slightly perturbing". That was in response to my facial expressions, or lack thereof. Apparently, according to her, my responses are okay when I'm talking - it's when I'm not talking that's the issue. Apparently I can go from somewhat animated [when talking] to zero [when not talking], with nothing in between, but non-spectrum people tend to fade in and out with facial expressions. I had no idea what she was talking about, so she had to demonstrate, heh.

Other people have said similar things about my facial expressions. My boyfriend tells me that oftentimes, it's hard to tell whether I'm joking or not because my face doesn't change much. When I was younger, my mum used to tell me to "smile more" often.

I'm not sure exactly what these results mean but I took the test and got this.

Ideas of reference 3 out of 9 Unsure 1
Excessive social anxiety 7 out of 8 Unsure 0
Odd beliefs or magical thinking 0.5 out of 7 Unsure 1
Unusual perceptual experiences 2 out of 9 Unsure 0
Odd or eccentric behavior 7 out of 7 Unsure 0
No close friends 8.5 out of 9 Unsure 0
Odd speech 6 out of 9 Unsure 0
Constricted affect 7 out of 8 Unsure 0
Suspiciousness 3 out of 8 Unsure 1
Total SPQ-A 44 out of 74

Yes, I have a flat affect and people have noticed this over years and told me to smile etc. My voice is somewhat monotone so I appear overly serious and not as friendly. It does get annoying when people comment that I don't smile.

When I acted in stage plays, the typicals could tell I was flat expressioned from head to toe. Instead of right out telling me, some of them would frustrate me, or make me secretly unhappy by telling me to move more, speak louder, smile more often, and so forth. I felt like they wanted me to be their puppet or something. Yeah, I have video cassets that proof I'm flat to.

But...oops... I ehm... never mind.