Problems showing happiness and issues smiling

Post Reply New Topic

Well said. I hadn't really thought of it like that. I fear that the moment someone notices power over emotion, that person will use it to get me somehow. Most people don't even think that much.

Sometimes it can take up all my energy just to smile. I've learnt to smile to friends/colleagues/neighbours what I see in the street, and I smile to cashiers and the bus-driver, but when I'm at my own house and family become round, I find it SO hard to smile whilst saying, ''hello''. I don't know why.

And don't you hate it when you feel in a bad mood, but others think you are in a good mood, and so take no notice? I sound like a sulky 14-year-old teenager here, but when I'm in a bad mood, I like others to know, so that they can just keep me at bay without saying or doing stupid annoying things to me (which would get me ever madder).

Ditto.

I know what you mean. Here is my take: smiling shows people that they have some form of power over my emotions. They have the power to make me smile, or make me happy. I can't let people know that they have this power, or they'll find a way to abuse it. So by saying it shows weakness, I mean it shows people they have power. Therefore, by not smiling, they don't think they have any power. Do you follow my train of thought there?[/quote]

I dont think other people see it as having control over you but I understand what you mean. I would never ever cry in front of someone as I wouldn't want them to think I was weak and that they have the power to get me so upset, and I get uncomfortable when people try to comfort me by being overly nice. I think smiling makes my life easier though so I really don't care if people think they have the power to effect me lol

I was always getting in trouble with my teachers because I was aparently smiling when they thought I shouldn't have been smiling. For instance my teacher asked me to help my friend at the time with something. I tried to tell the teacher I didn't know how to do it but she wouldn't listen. When my friend's project came out wrong, the teacher yelled at me for that and because I was smiling. She claimed I was happy that my friends project came out wrong. I often smiled when I was nervous and at that age I really had no control of my facial expression. This teacher was a notorious b***h anyway but it's people like her that made my childhood a living Hell.

When I was younger my mom was always telling me I needed to smile more when in reality I just had a nutural expression all the time. She also says you can tell I am autistic in my childhood photographs because I have a fake smile and this "look" in my eye. Well with the stupid school photographers pestering me to sit a certian way and messing with my hair, it was impossible to smile for real. My brothers were in the Navy at the time and they never smiled in their pictures so I realised you were not breaking somesort of law if you did not smile in pictures. My mom's favorite pictures of me are where I am not smiling and have a nutrual or "don't f**k with me" expression.

I smile (and laugh) when I hear something funny, that's usually about it. It takes concerted effort for me to smile in photos and I usually have to be told to. I almost never smile at strangers, even when they smile at me first, even if I want to, because by the time I process it, they've walked past.

I will smile and laugh at inappropriate times, sometimes. I haven't done that too many times that were REALLY inappropriate; one was at my previous job where my boss was giving me a talking-to about something I did wrong. There were several factors out of my control that contributed to what happened and the illogic of what he was saying and inconsistency with his attitude to similar other incidents made me laugh. He noticed, and he did NOT like it.

I do not mean to minimize this issue. I do want you to know I laughed very hard after reading this. Not at your expense, but at the reaction I imagine your boss had. What happened next?

He said something like "you're laughing, but this is serious! People can lose their jobs over things like this!"

its hard for me not to HUG someone when i see them...

happy

angry

sad

confused

horny

Usually on occasoins where I am supposed to be happy I express very little emotional response. Sometimes people take that wrong, but yeah I don't do that because I am not enjoying myself it just seems like I don't really get very enthusiasiastic about things I am enjoying.

My parents always complained that I never seemed happy. I remember wishing I was dead as young as three. My parents said I would only be happy if I got a new toy or something but it never seemed to last. I also remember my mother telling me I needed to smile more when I really just had a nutrual expression on my face as opposed to a frown or smile. I didn't know it was possible for someone to do themself in but if I did, I would have tried to commit sucide probably as young as three. I had an older brother that phycologicaly tourtured me and I was constantly being reminded that there was something "wrong" with me. I felt as if I was born the wrong species and like I didn't belong in my own family. Some would argue that it was because I was adopted but I think I would have felt this way even if I was their genetic kid. I just never felt/feel appriciated. I felt like a burden. Feeling loved is one thing and it took forever to make me feel loved. I just don't feel appriciated.
I was also constantaly in the shadow of my three older brothers and when my neice came to live with us, I felt as if I was in her shadow, even though she was eight years younger than me. LOTS of reasons I don't feel like dicussing right now. I need a reason to be happy. Some say you need a reason to feel sad too, but I have more than my fair share of them. I never felt true happiness until I turned 18 and finnaly had my own say in things. I would never go back to being a kid again for anything.

Oh, I did NOT see this thread before I started the one about FACIAL EXPRESSIONS...wish I had!

In it I mention how my dear husband is ALWAYS telling me that I'm thinking __________ because of my facial expression. I (then) think WTH/WTF (depending on dh accusation of "what" I'm supposedly thinking) and THEN I usually get mad. We've been married for 18 1/2 years already, for crying out loud! You'd THINK he'd "get it" when I say (for the 1,000.000th time) that I wasn't REALLY THINKING at all. Starts lots of arguments, even now; even AFTER he's found out that this is just a part of my AS!

My therapist wants my kids & hubby to act like mirrors for me (AND she wants me to practice in the mirror....IDK about THAT! It seems very silly to me) we'll see....

Ditto.

I find that I smile at the wrong moment. i only really show happiness when I am performing.

NT (and male) actions are sometimes weird: He may have been trying to flirt with you; he just couldn't think of anything smarter to say in order to start a conversation / or maybe he wanted to see what you look like when you're smiling.

Of course, that's just what I was told once by someone when this exact issue happened to me.