Aspergers and the blank stare in childhood photos

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I'm amazed that you have childhood pictures, glassy stare or no. I never wanted my picture taken. I can remember exactly two childhood pictures of me: one fourth birthday picture where I'm pouting because my new pants (which I thought looked really sharp) got dirty and one Christmas photo from my eighth year where I've got got my fat fanny pointed at the camera (served my uncle right). Oh, there is one other allegedly of me, but since it shows a thin, active, handsome, apparently happy little golden-haired boy, I feel no identification with the subject whatsoever. Thankfully, it will be faded into oblivion in a few more years.

On a bulletin board next to the computer, there's this photo strip of 4 pictures of my mom and me. I'm maybe 3 years old. My mom is looking at the camera and making all these different expressions, but I'm either looking down or staring blankly. Looking at those pictures, I'm amazed that my mom never considered there was something "different" about me. When she found the strip, she was telling me how cute she thought it was. But I don't know. I just thought it was sad, because it was so hard being an undiagnosed child on the autistic spectrum, but the signs were everywhere.

I never had a blank stare. When I looked at me as a baby in photos, I was always smiling and everyone always says how darling I was.
In my first personal school picture I was pulling a beautiful face - never a blank stare.
Even when I have photos done now I try to stare blankly (because my teeth seem to glow in photos when I pull a smile), but it still comes out as a positive face.

You wouldn't think I'm an Aspie when looking at photos of me.

My brother was always asking if I was doing it on purpose, but until recently I didn't know what he was talking about.

I can not smile on cue, so all my childhood photos show me with my lips stretched out wide.

Some of mine have a "blank stare" and some don't. It helps that my mother was good at getting candid shots where I was looking natural. Examples follow.

Here's some with a "blank stare" (I don't fully know what one is so I'm going by what others say):















Here's some without:















I think basically what it is, is that what people call a "blank stare" is my default facial expression, even today, and that expression has gone unchanged my entire life. However, when I'm having other facial expressions, then that default expression disappears, usually briefly, until eventually the default expression comes back. I used to actually be better at doing facial expressions on purpose than I am now. (It sort of went... first I couldn't, then I learned to, then I lost most of what I learned.) So most of my photos these days still have that "blank stare" look. But it's far from a universal thing in autistic people, and plenty of autistic people don't have that expression ever in their old photos. It all depends on the person. (Oh and I'm autistic but technically not "aspie". I hate making the distinction because I don't really like the distinction, but to me autistic is a more universal term that includes me and "Asperger" is a non-universal term that doesn't include me. So sometimes I mention this and sometimes I don't.) The amount of photos is so you can see it throughout my childhood and not just at one age.

I think I had a blank stare in some of my photos. But I can't really tell.

oh gosh abuend!! in those pictures where you are very small, you , me and my daughter all look the same. That first one with the focused brow is my daughter , i swear. and you with the chicken? i have one picture of me where i hold my body in the exact same way, i am sucking my thumb on it though, ( yes i stopped that very late) but really, even if the facial features and hair colour differ , the positions and facial expressions are so alike it is supremely weird.
I wish i had a scanner....i'm sure you would agree ....

Abuend reminds me of my 5-year-old daughter in photos, too. I noticed from a very young age that my daughter didn't show much expression, or made odd expressions in photos. I remember looking at photos from her 1st birthday party and wondering why she had so little expression in all of them. She didn't start smiling for photos until last year when she was age 4. She still has to be prompted to smile and sometimes she doesn't know how and just screws her face up. Other times she can produce a natural looking smile.
I must admit that when I put her photos on my facebook, I only use the 'good' photos and I avoid using the 'bad'.

I have an extended family portrait of me with some relatives (grandparents, aunt, uncles, etc.) from when I was about six. My cousin (the same age) looks shy and is slightly hiding behind her mom, but I just have this really confused expression.

the other day I was in a small store talking the owner of the place,
there was a child playing in the background, the child walked by and looked at me in a kind of way children look at strange adults whom they don't know and aren't able to say anything to for whatever reason, so they give a funny kind of eye contact glance. maybe as if they see the adult as higher authority.

Only then did I realise that I look at people the same exact way. Wish I could change that.

I've got a whole box full of hundreds of photos of when I was a baby and a small child and a teenager, and I don't have a blank face in any of them. Maybe just the odd one or two I might of had, but all children have blank faces in some pictures. But in the pictures of me as a baby younger than 8 months old, I was always smiling and had a lot of expression on my face for such a young baby. I had a dummy in my mouth a lot of the times, but even then you could see I was happy because of the expression in my eyes and cheeks.

I have some pictures of one of my NT cousins as a baby under 2 years old, and he always had a serious face. He always looked as though he was really worried, or he was about to cry.

In all of my pictures from my early childhood I seem to look like I have no idea what is going on around me, as if I'm totally oblivious. Even I can tell (and that says a lot) that there wasn't something quite right with me.

My eyes are either closed or half-shut due to the camera flash in almost every picture, don't any of you have that? Every time I get a picture taken, my eyes are closed for the first few shots, then my eyes are half-open for one and the photographer gets frustrated and says "That's good enough."

Up until recently I'd have a hostile-looking half smile in every picture, until I realized I needed to spread my cheeks wider to smile properly.

The blank stare strikes again! It bothers me because it goes away when I'm socializing in a group, but when I am directly talking to someone, my eyes start to fade into the distance :/