Are your facial expressions either absent or exaggerated?

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CrazyCatLord
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10 Apr 2012, 5:12 pm

Mine are absent, for the most part. Unless I'm alone, that is. I smile at my cats, I laugh about movies, and I frown at my PC when it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. But when I'm among people, I either maintain a stoic poker face or look like a panicked deer in the searchlights of a heavy attack helicopter.



Mahlon
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10 Apr 2012, 5:51 pm

For me, growing up especially people always assumed I was in a bad mood, or wasn't a very nice person, because of my facial expressions. As I grew up and started figuring this out (luckily also had it pointed out by friends and family) I tend towards overdoing it and exagerrating my expressions so that I'm sure I'm conveying the right feeling.

So for me, think my "normal" is usually pretty stoic and nonplussed except for specific times, and otherwise I have to intellectualize (as I do everything in my life for most part) and act the part. That gets even more fun when it becomes tough to figure out my own emotions, and a lot of the time I seem to react with what I think other people expect, rather than what I truly feel, since that in and of itself comes rather difficult for me.

Sometimes I hate how long it takes me to process and understand what feelings and emotions I'm having, it takes me weeks to months, when others are able to on the fly relate to others how they are feeling :( Oh well, such is life hehe. On the flipside though, I do have to say when I have been able to process things, my understanding tends to be a lot deeper and truer than the people capable of instantaneously interpreting their emotions and feelings.


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Matt62
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10 Apr 2012, 6:51 pm

Yes. To both, actually. Some times I show every thing & its really obvious. Other times I am described as "Flat" or "Robotic"..

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10 Apr 2012, 7:07 pm

I'm told my face is fairly expressionless most of the time. When I'm thinking people accuse me of looking confused or angry. I also get times where thoughts in my mind are clashing and apparently I have an inappropriate facial expression. Example 1: was due to meet my music teacher but came across a friend of a friend on my way - we walked and talked and then my teacher crossed our paths and I was unsure should I do introductions, say "hi", ignore him. Later on he told me that I had a look of panic on my face. Example 2: partner comes home and as he opens the door I'm in the middle of reading a complicated article - I feel happy that he's home but also don't want to break my concentration. He tells me later that I looked at him like he was a bad smell.



lostgirl1986
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10 Apr 2012, 9:23 pm

Yes, when I had picture day in school I always had to force a smile and it looked fake. It's actually kind of embarrassing, when I try to smile when I'm getting my photo taken my smile is very shaky while I'm trying to smile. A lot of people say my neutral expression looks really freaky like I'm ready to kill someone.



ShelfInTheRoom
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12 Apr 2012, 1:08 pm

I have trouble producing a normal looking smile, so I usually do not ever smile fully. I make an awkward looking half-smile most of the time. I've been called stiff, emotionless, and a guy who has the personality of a door knob, rofl. It's really only noticeable when I'm around people that make me uncomfortable though. When I am around close friends, I feel that I can act more "naturally" for some reason.



Kindertotenlieder79
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14 Apr 2012, 1:29 pm

I am the same, alternating between blank or exaggerated. Apparently my blank face makes me look quite stupid to some, and my wild expressions often amused the choir I was working with at my last church pianist position. My eyes bulge out of my head sometimes for no reason; I call that my Fred Kruger face. 8O



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14 Apr 2012, 2:55 pm

When I was younger, my facial expressions were extremely exaggerated, though they feel absent now. Back in middle school, I thought that my expressions were normal, but then one guy told me that I needed to smile more. I thought I smiled more than enough because I was constantly laughing at the most random times. But then again... maybe that's why I always won at those straight-face contests.

On another topic, I don't feel as though my voice is monotone. My voice can be very expressive while my face is just blank. Sometimes, I even laugh with a blank face. :lol:



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14 Apr 2012, 3:26 pm

I think that I used to be both. One of my college roommates told me that I was "mugging" in conversations -- she thought that I was trying to be a comedian, doing it deliberately. I wasn't, had never noticed, so I did do some work on calming that down. I was probably successful, too, because now most of the time I'm pretty blank, which at least seems to be socially acceptable as long as I turn up the corners of my mouth when meeting someone, something like that. My daughter thought that I was deaf (still thinks so to some extent: she likes to be right), so we had my hearing tested, and it worked out that I didn't have as much as "normal" on the high end of the scale, and it is normal for someone my age to have lost some there. (But she took that result to mean I'm deaf, as she had thought) But the reason that she thought that I was deaf was that I don't do all the little normal reactions most people do when they're listening, so I must be either deaf or not paying attention. I am paying attention. I do get very unhappy when the noise is rock concert or some club levels, so I stay out of such places.


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14 Apr 2012, 9:23 pm

Exaggerated most of the time, and also not quite normal to most people. A friend of mine described it as "being close enough to normal to be unnerving", the uncanny valley effect.


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15 Apr 2012, 12:59 am

Both. Most of the time they're exaggerated. Especially when around others.



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15 Apr 2012, 1:16 am

I don't smile properly, and now that Im old my lips turn down, and I look sour. But I think what is worse is that my voice is a flat, monotonous, drone. Few people can get past that and engage me in conversation.


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15 Apr 2012, 3:42 am

My facial expressions for the most part are stone cold and straight faced as you can see in my display image, I guess I have trouble expressing how I'm feeling through facial expressions, even reading them can be a difficult process.



Feline1982
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15 Apr 2012, 5:42 am

One cartoon character here!

Some NT's like to make fun of my expressions, they tell me incredible things which I take literally and then they laugh at my lectures (about why this increrible thing is generally impossible) and amused expressions. I have tried to tell them that I dislike that behaviour, but they just keep telling me that they find it funny in good way and that they love my ackwardness.

When I don't think anything, I look like a serial killer robot or just a dreamer.


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Tin_foil_hat
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15 Apr 2012, 6:04 am

Yes I can relate to this. My facial expressions are either pretty flat or exaggerated and I can't seem to get anything in between.



Karilyn
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15 Apr 2012, 6:13 am

My natural state is the blank expression.

But over the years, I've studied neurotypicals extensively and put a lot of effort into mimicking their expressions, in order to aid them in their understanding of the thoughts and feelings that I am having internally. I understand that there is a lot of primal primitive instinctual things which go into a Neurotypical reading physical body expression, physical facial expression, and tone of voice; and that even neurotypicals who are trying to be understanding have a hard time with it. So I took the effort to learn how to communicate in their primitive manner, and now I am considered by Neurotypicals to be extremely expressive.

However, sometimes when I'm with people I'm comfortable with and who I know that they know my mind well, and will value the words that I say over their own subconscious... I'll slip back into blank expressiveness because it's a lot easier, takes less effort, and is more relaxing.


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