I should force myself to smile and make facial expressions

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I know some of you are anti-facebook...but I kinda like it..it gives me an alternative way to communicate with people who I may see on a regular basis, but am unable to talk to very well.
Lately on my end, there has been a rash of "retro" avatars..so I jumped on the bandwagon...and uploaded a couple of pics from when I was a teenager, and one from when I was about 7...the one from when I was about 7 is my current avatar....I don't think it is a very flattering photo, but is pretty typical of photos from my childhood..I have very few where I don't look depressed, spacey and detached..I am pretty sure there was not a decent photo of me take between the ages of 6 and 14...in every pic, I am not smiling and looking away from the camera...and then when I got a little older, i started taking better pics.

I thought the childhood pic was shocking and that I look a lot different (better) now than i did back then, but I have received several comments that I still look this way all the time....I am a wee tad bummed by that....

I used to practice smiling in the mirror. It helps to know how to be an actor I think. Eventually, you come to believe what you want to be.

I wouldn't try to force facial expressions. At least it turned badly for me. Sometime when I was younger I somehow got the idea that I was supposed to smile at anytime anyone said anything to me. This has lead to me smiling at completely wrong times, automatically.

people are dazzled by my rare genuine smile I usually do a little lopsided Mona Lisa style smile. I had considered trying to join in on the nervous smile flashing to make others feel better on my first day of college. I decided it would just look menacing like a fear grimace, Hmmm I guess that really how I interpreted that ritual

They probably don't mean that you don't smile, but that it looks just like you i.e the hair and face.
Forcing smiling for me looks so fake and my facial expressions are well, all over the place and happen randomly.

I smile pretty much all the time when around people, even when sad and depressed, scared and angry. When I talk about painful things I smile. When I'm angry I smile worse than ever and I tend to laugh - which is so weird - and this makes it really hard for me to get anyone to take me seriously because I just laugh when I'm really angry.
I've had people ask me, "How can you smile when you talk about that?" people misinterpret that I'm so positive that I just keep smiling no matter what.
Sometimes I hate seeing people because when I come home my jaw muscles are so tense and painful from the smiling, like tonight. And many times when I'm smiling for long periods of time my face muscles get so tense that they start twitching and at that point my smile becomes more fake looking and I get so tired of smiling.

It hurts when I force myself to smile.

poopylungstuffing wrote:

Poopy, I think your new avatar is lovely and also the one of you as a teenager. I was going to say so when you first changed it but didn't get around to it. I've never been averse to solemn faces. I am terribly deadpan. There is a grocery store I'm uncomfortable going into anymore because one of the cashiers visibly dislikes me. It took me a while to figure it out. Once I was behind a woman using WIC and she had to go back and get something. I made the comment about WIC that everything had to be exactly like the check stated or the register wouldn't take it. That's what I meant but I think because of my non-smiling demeanor and low voice I think she thought I was passing judgment on the woman. I used WIC myself. Anyway it took me a long time to figure out she hated me when I went in afterwords. Once when I was leaving she said " Have a blessed day"(she says it to everybody). I said "Thank you" and she got this mean expression and said "WHAT? " I think she thought I said "f**k you. I'm surprised I don't have more trouble. Sometimes I think I'm smiling and I look in the mirror and I'm not. If I make a visible smile I feel like I'm grimacing.

I find i have to exaggerate my facial expressions for them to be noticeable.