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LittleBlackCat
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17 Sep 2011, 7:31 pm

When I was a kid I would often have the wrong facial expression for how I was feeling. It would get me into trouble because when I was being told off for something I couldn't stop myself from grinning, even though I felt really bad and anxious about being in trouble, and obviously the teacher or parent would get more angry with me for not taking the telling off seriously. I have got better at this as I have got older, although it still happens occasionally. For example, when I had my breakdown I was telling the doctor how depressed I was feeling and he said words to the effect of " but you're talking to me and you look absolutely fine", luckily the sheer frustration I felt that I clearly wasn't getting through to him just how bad I felt made me cry and he took me seriously after that. I was wondering, does this sort of thing happen to anyone else? Does it happen to everyone, or is it an Aspie thing? I am bad at expressing my emotions anyway but this really doesn't help!



Amik
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18 Sep 2011, 4:49 pm

Yes, this happens to me a lot too. I usually have a blank facial expression and don't show much emotions on the outside at all. I used to not even give it any thought, to me it felt natural and I didn't realize that other people would misread me so badly because of this. Later on I found out that this was the reason why a lot of people never took me seriously, including doctors, who assumed I was just faking physical pains for attention and left some serious health problems of mine undiagnosed and untreated for 20 years. I've always gotten a lot of strange reactions from people and I think that a large part of the reason is them making wrong assumptions based on my (lack of) facial expressions or other body language.



Ellytoad
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18 Sep 2011, 5:23 pm

Having anything other than a perfectly blank face ticks my stepdad off when he's lecturing me. I frowned a little one time and he went off on a tangent about it.
*sigh*



League_Girl
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18 Sep 2011, 8:37 pm

I've been accused of laughing and staring when I wasn't. I wasn't even trying to stare. I've laughed and people didn't like it.



anneurysm
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18 Sep 2011, 9:32 pm

Although I've never really experienced this myself, I see this quite a lot with people on the spectrum I know. Not being able to hide it or to show the appropriate response soudns very frustrating.


_________________
Given a “tentative” diagnosis as a child as I needed services at school for what was later correctly discovered to be a major anxiety disorder.

This misdiagnosis caused me significant stress, which lessened upon finding out the truth about myself from my current and past long-term therapists - that I am an anxious and highly sensitive person but do not have an autism spectrum disorder.

My diagnoses - social anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I’m no longer involved with the ASD world.


League_Girl
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18 Sep 2011, 9:47 pm

I have noticed I seem to smile and not even know it. Someone once asked me why am I smiling at the Autism Speaks protest thing after I had posted my youtube video about it when I appeared in the news. I didn't even know I was smiling until I saw the video. I guess smiling there was wrong. :?



syrella
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18 Sep 2011, 11:17 pm

Yeah, this happens to me too. I've worn the wrong face when getting yelled at before. Sometimes I'll be smiling as I tell some sad story. Other times people will say that I look angry or upset when I'm feeling fine. My facial expressions don't really seem to match what I'm feeling most of the time.


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