25 Apr 2013, 4:03 pm
Yes, the face blindness is painful. In my case I find I have difficulties with what is an appropriate face. When I laugh or scowl or grimace inappropriately, it results in unexpected responses from whoever I am communicating with. I don't major issues recognizing responses in others so I can normally see that whatever it is I am doing with my face does not work for the situation. I then try and put on an appropriate face but it generally makes things worse and I feel very uncomfortable because what I'm doing with my face doesn't feel appropriate to me. Its that odd feeling where I feel that my expression is not appropriate whereas it probably is and the natural expression is the inappropriate one. I am not sure of all of this either, meaning that I have very little idea whether I am reading it correctly or completely misleading myself.
Thankfully I can generally maintain eye contact and read other people in social situations so mostly I can rely on my perceptions here. However, when it gets to be more than two people communicating with me, the amount of social cues (including facial ones) becomes overwhelming. Its interesting because that suggests to me my ability to read faces, social cues and generally maintain eye contact is learnt and does not come naturally.
Certainly, difficulties with social situations is not a matter of choosing to 'let it all hang out'. It's simply a reality of having ASD and I guess the 'let it all hang out' option is choosing to be fearless in social situations irrespective of what happens and if it gets messy, simply tell people you have ASD. If they then tease you, treat them to a blast of a good old ASD temper tantrum . 
