Weird Face Syndrome

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That is an embarrasing random unposed photo that was snapped of me...It kinda made me worry...

you look like you have become thin.
you usually have a full face and fresh eyes.

i hope you are ok.
i know this is going to make waves but i can not stop myself from saying i hope you are not taking meth or anything.
anyway it is none of my business.

mine was a rhetorical question> i agree with you wholeheartedly.
My facial expressions resemble tourettes tics = particullarly when I am stressed. I understand this and i live it.

No no! it is just a weird candid photo! I am not thin by any means...nor am I on meth....it had been a long day...and that is an example of a possibly tired...un-posed weird face.
I have been practicing taking "unweird" photos for years...but if I am unsuspecting and don't make a deliberate effort to pose, something like that might happen. That pic is several months old and I saved it because it is weird.
Here is a more recent pic...
(posed)

Really..I sorta posted that other pic as a semi-joke..I mean I have the issue with weird spazzy faces, and for all I know I might make them constantly...The more fatigued I am, the less control I may have over the muscles in my face..and that was a rare candid snaphot that was taken at the end of a busy day..and my face happens to be all over the place...but I am not on drugs..

I think your smile looks really nice! When you said it looks exaggerated, I thought you were talking about the man.

elderwanda: thanks for starting this thread! I was wondering lately, because I was reading about the "flat effect", which I definitely don´t have! I know I make a lot of faces too. Don´t know exactly what they look like, as I´ve never done the camera thing...now I´d be curious, though. I know I do tend to be very expressive and "intense", I tend to laugh too hard when I´m enjoying myself, etc. I notice, often, when I´m talking with someone in public, other people stare at me. Or when I´m walking down the street, minding my own business, sometimes people who I know try to say "hi" to me; I often don´t see them right away, because I tend to be lost in my world, but they often laugh nervously and then I do notice them; and in that moment, I realize my face must have a very intense look on it- (that´s why they laugh uncomfortably). This has happened a lot, and then I feel embarrassed.

There are also moments, though, where I can feel myself drawing inward and go into "blankness"; don´t know how to describe it. I can´t seem to help it, either. But I can still hear everything going on, it´s just that I become outwardly "fuzzy".

Aren't you glad that people keep copying this picture over and over again?

My family don't do much picture-taking (other than my husband's very good non-people photos), but when my MIL comes to visit, she likes to have us all pose for photos. I always tell her that, despite my best efforts, if she uses the flash, my eyes WILL be half closed in such a hideous way that it ruins the picture. She thinks I'm just being silly and self-deprecating (is that a word?) and snap the picture anyway. She uses film, because digital cameras are too "technological" for her, and when she gets it developed, sure enough, there I am with one eye half closed and another eye three-quarters closed. You'd think she would learn eventually, but she never does.

We used to have to take the obligatory family holiday photos over and over and over again because of me..and every year the same lecture for me to not make the funny face...sorta like that episode of South Park where Butters gets punished for making a weird face in class photos...i have years and years of weird faced class photos....that is why I practiced...and can be somewhat photogenic if I am taking the picture of myself....but having someone else take my photo causes me stress and I end up looking like a lunatic

I remember an old comic (Life in Hell) in which a woman tells a boy (a bunny, actually) to stop making faces at her child. The confused lad looks in a mirror and then apologizes. That's pretty much my situation.

Oh why was I born with a different face
Why was I not born like the rest of my race
When I look each one starts
When I speak, I offend
Then I'm silent and passive and lose every friend

William Blake

You do not need to get a life! You have one. You are like a scientist. Should scientists get lives? Without them, we wouldn't know diddly squat. Most of the world misinterprets what "Get a life actually means". It started with people being newsy and poking their nose into where they should not. It started with "Get a life of your own" but got shortened to "Get a Life". It really means "Stay out of my affairs." People have taken that phrase and have run with it.
There are tons of really bad colloquialisms. (my spelling might be off because I'm too lazy to go get the dictionary, it's buried under soooo much junk because I have no basement.)
Once I had a friend who worked in security for a building. I used to pick her up to go home and she used to make me watch security tapes with her. I had to meet another friend there for lunch but had to wait on a bench for her to come down to the 1st floor. She had this tape of me sitting on a bench and laughed her head off watching it. She said it was watching an infant.

Great.

Now a measurable, physical mechanism for these out of sync facial expressions needs to be found.

Why do they occur and how?

oooh...I loved "Life in Hell" so much as a kid...

When I was younger, I couldn't smile for pictures at all. Here is an example of what I mean (I have loads of pictures with me smiling this way):



That is not a candid photo- I cropped it from a picture of me standing next to my camp counselor at the end of camp. So presumably I was both attempting to smile and to look at the camera (neither of which I did).

Now I can smile for pictures, but according to my supervisor during my 3 month performance review, I am "hard to read," and one of my goals is to make better eye contact with patients and co-workers.

When I am tired or overwhelmed, I also have less control over the muscles in my face, but what happens is that my face feels like cardboard and I can't move the muscles at all even to smile. I'm sure my affect looks very "flat" at those moments, despite my best efforts.

My ex husband always told me that I make weird faces. He would always tell me that my facial expression was not appropriate to the situation or he would just look at me and ask, "What was that face for?" or something and I'd be like, "Huh? What face?" I don't think I do anything that I'm unaware of when sitting idle..? I know I do alot of tongue movements and etc when I am thinking though, lol.

I think my facial expressions may actually be exaggerated when conversing (no proof, though. I have not recorded myself) and I tend to look bored or angry when I have a 'neutral' expression (eg when I am not attempting to make an expression).

This is how I would describe myself, too. People seem to be a bit bothered by my "neutral" expression.

elderwanda: I hate flash photos too! But in my case it´s much worse- I ALWAYS have red eyes in the picture. Not only that, but I also often have a weird expression- (half closed eyes or a piercing stare)- so I look like I´m possessed or something. It looks like "daughter of Satan" .