Poll on neurotypical recognition of Autist emotions

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I'm investigating the incidence of NTs mislabelling autist's facial emotions. If you are on the spectrum, have you had this happen to you?
If so, could you explain in comments what kind of mislabelling occurred? eg:
what you felt and how it was labelled?
eg:
neutral mislabelled as angry
happy mislabelled as neutral
etc

[edited for clarity] I'm in a class that studies facial emotion learning and this would be helpful. Thanks.

It usually ends in a negative light for me (i.e., a neutral or even positive emotion gets replaced with a negative one like sadness, anger, boredom, lack of interest, etc.).
I don't know why some people are so bent on assigning negativity.

Edit: the list was kind of incomplete and hard to explain, so I changed it.

my natural expression is apparently interpreted as extreme sadness

i get told i give people bas/funny looks (not even conciously looking at them)

i smile when i've done something wrong and think i will be in trouble which makes it look like i'm happy to have done it and am being really mean

I am often asked if I am angry or sad when I am feeling neutral or positive.

I was often told that I was not showing enough emotion, especially that I did not show an adequate amount of enthusiasm when someone had done something for me or given me something, etc. I did feel greatful and said thank you, but evidently it was not convincing? I was often accused of being "to intense" or "angry" when I was discussing issues of interst to me. Evidently, when I am intellectually engaged and stimulated it comes off as....angry ? I was never sure what they were "seeing or hearing" to give them that impression because often I had little emotional feeling about the topic, just found it "interesting". This was even worse when seeing therapist because they would claim that I was "detached" from my feelings when I didn't cry or look sad when recounting past experiences that they perceived as very negative. That was frustrating, as it is impossible to "prove" that you are not repressing emotions.

On the other side of the issue...I often felt that others were "acting" when they showed a lot of emotional expression. They appeared fake to me....like when girls would run up to each other squeeling and hugging and saying "I missed you soooo much",etc. I actually find those kind of emotional desplayes confusing and annoying.

Like Krex, I too am often mistaken to be angry or upset when really, I'm happy or calm. When I am truely upset, people, other than my mum, never notice, even if I'm facing them.

I've had a couple of people think I'm bored around them, when really, I just didn't know how to act, or had run out of things to say.

I also had a teacher's assistant once tell me that I "make funny faces" that make me appear annoyed. I wasn't aware I was making any faces at the time she pointed it out. I was feeling fine, not angry or anything. Hmm...

My parents don't exactly read me like braille, and whine whenever I'm not smiling...

My parents think I am bored when I stim and some people have not been able to notice when I am angry

My nt friend told me that it is really hard to tell when I'm happy.

My neutral face is sometimes mistaken as angry. There isn't much link between my emotions and my face, so don't smile or anything unless I'm making concious efforts. Well at least that isn't very hard, though I'm not sure if my smile looks real. Nobody' ever comented on it though, so it's probably good enough.

Hi,

Of course. People are always telling me "Smile." I'm one of the most consistently content people I know. I used to get offended when people told me to smile when I thought I was just thinking about the oxyhemoglobin dissasociation curve. Or 5-dimensional DNA that can think. Or key lime pie.

Somehow I figured out that if I take all these people as seriously as they're taking me, then we'll have even more problems. So I just shrug my shoulders or say "oh yes, that was my Easter Island impersonation, thanks." They crack up usually. Limit one joke per target!

Patrick

I've had my neighbour say to me on several occassions..."Why so sad?".
I wasn't even sad, I was neutral.

Generally, no, unless I'm actively trying to fool them. And I can't fool the people who know me at all - it's very frustrating. In the past this wasn't always true though.

I've spent a lot of time trying to intellectually understand body language - maybe that made a difference?

I get mistaken a lot all over the random place. I've been happy and mistaken for angry. I've been frustrated and mistaken for happy. I've been angry and mistaken for apathy. And every colour in between. I've also been told I am "difficult to read" also. I dunno, I don't get other people's faces so I always think people just read into it too much.

The only one you can pretty much guarantee reading is when I am having one of my "joy" moments. Like when I'm playing with my cat, or spinning in a swivel chair, or dancing in the rain etc... My more intellectually enjoyable moments are mistaken (like listening to Mozart, or solving a difficult puzzle), but never my sensory joys.


Hope that helps your class.