When You DO Express Emotion...

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...do you find people frequently accuse you of faking it, or wrongly identify your emotion? Whenever I cry, I am accused of faking it, manipulating people. But uh, I am actually upset. Whenever I am confused by social stuff, my confusion is identified as some sort of conspiratorial manipulation of some sort as well. Do other people just tend to assume the worst? Or am I just really bad at portraying myself in a way that others can understand that feels honest to them?

I think this is pretty common. Our emotional reactions are unusual, so they can look false to people who don't understand them. I think for me part of this is that I can be completely overwhelmed by emotions, the way a small child can be, and it's hard for people to accept that this my actual response. I think it's also hard for people to accept that, even though it's hard for us to show emotions, we still have them. So they think of us as emotionless, and think we're faking when our real emotions show through.

Being really bad at portraying yourself in a way that allows others to understand you is sort of a synonym for autism. I think the only way to make things better is to work at understanding the situations and communicating clearly about them. I'm getting a lot faster at identifying my own emotions, and that is helping a lot. My emotional responses are confusing to me, and they happen really slowly sometimes. It helps to be able to say something like, "I feel anxious and confused," both because identifying the feeling as clearly as possibly helps me to deal with it and because people with can get some insight into what's going on inside me before there is a display of emotion that confuses them.

And, yeah, I think people tend to assume "different = bad."

When I was little, whenever I was upset, I was told by my mother 'to stop faking it'. Presumably I looked weird because I explained my troubles in adult's language spoken in word-by-word scripts from TV and other people's conversations. That was because I felt that there was only one best way to express a feeling and I'd rather use this 'best way' instead of presenting the situation in other words. Must have been very annoying, having a 7-year old talking like a soap opera character.
Now I really don't know. I try not to show emotion in public but when I do, I feel that there's a distinct 'oddness' sensed by other people. Somehow I can gauge that whatever's troubling me seems petty or nonsensical to other people and they see my reaction as exagerrated and fake.
In other cases, where there's something really bad happening, I try to do something tangilble to help the situation - for an example, if somebody died, I take care of things and arrangements instead of breaking down - what would be the point of it? I am really sad that the person died, but there are things to be taken care of. I presume that people view it as being callous but that is, once again, another way of expressing emotion - and it is interpreted incorrectly.

Thanks-- it's comforting to me to feel less alone in this. I really relate to what you say about not processing feelings during a conversation. And what do you do then?

"You know, yesterday, that thing you said? No? You've completely forgotten it? Well, I was up all night thinking about it, and I'd like to tell you how I feel about it now. You look like you're trying to be understanding but I can also see you smirking. I'll tell you how I feel about that tomorrow! Bye!"

It sounds like you also have the experience of having an emotion build so slowly no one, not even me, notices it. Then all of a sudden, I get agitated, and I don't know why. And then I'll have an outburst that seems like it came out of nowhere, but has building from situation that has been making me uncomfortable for a long time.

No, I don't really show much emotion besides anger.

The same thing for me.

I agree. I more so wish I could have a constant mirror with me at times to see how I physically react. I actually think practicing these situations in front of a mirror can help phenomenally, at least for me.

I was never expressing that much emotion, never got the fake it thing. More likely to think others are exaggerating their emotions.

But years and years - I am on top of the world,people ask "what's the matter;" I'm feeling rotten, they think I must have had good news.

I judge expressiuons better than THAT.

When I'm emotional, I try very hard to hide it. As a result, people don't think I'm faking it, but they do drive me into a meltdown state by giving me much unwanted attention. People tell me that I'm a terrible liar when I'm telling the truth, and they always ask me what's wrong when there's nothing wrong. When I'm very happy about something, people tell me to calm down. When I'm somewhat happy, people think I'm disappointed.

It seems sometimes (more often over the past few months, but it is also a problem with my parents being allowed to be as grumpy and out of sorts as they like, but if my brothers and I so much as scowl briefly we get yelled at and called ungrateful) that I'm not capable of expressing emotion without managing to have people take it the wrong way and get angry with me because they think my motives are different than what they are.
It makes me feel really sad and sick at heart, and also stupid when I realise how what I've said could have been taken.