Can you have problems nonverbally and not know it?

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While accepting my Autism, I always thought of myself as unimpaired nonverbally. It never occurred to me that I might have issues with body language, and I was naturally expressive.

But lately, I've begun questioning this. I have problems with eye contact, and I've come into a lot of situations where I feel like someone is trying to say something nonverbally, but I don't know if they are or what they're trying to say. I've on occasion mistaken cues of disrespect for confusion, leading to people blowing up at me, and didn't do well on that reading eyes test that went around the internet once.

I've had big slip ups, like smiling widely while discussing the Holocaust because I thought you could smile at sad things, prompting the teacher to message my parents. I still see people smiling at sad things, and I'm not quite sure what the rule is.

I have problems understanding sarcasm, but subtle ones, and my old social worker said she saw "subtle nonverbal deficits" but didn't elaborate.

Is it possible to have problems nonverbally and not know it?

Of course! I never thought I had a problem with non verbal cues when I was slightly younger, but looking back with better knowledge I can say for sure that everything went over my head. I always thought I was great socially, even though I couldn't make or maintain relationships with others to save my life . I have always struggled with eye contact and I realized this from a young age. Even now, I don't think I have a lot of problem nonverbally, but when I think about it, these problems are most likely just going over my head like all the social cues I miss. I know I have issues with sarcasm, some figurative language, eye contact, expressing myself nonverbally, and jokes. I don't know how good I am at picking up on social cues because, well, it is almost impossible to tell if you are bad a picking up on nonverbal cues unless somebody else is rude enough to tell you!

Oh, as for that "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test, I doubt its credibility just based on the fact many members here get a high score and there are many factors that come into play when reading facial expressions, like the amount of time you have to look at them, how exaggerated they are, etc. I score fairly well on that test, but unless you have a lower score (which it seems like you did), then I don't think it is an accurate way to tell how well you can read facial expressions. I think I do alright with facial expressions, but other people on this forum who don't have scored well on that test, so who knows?

Hope this helps!

Realizing my issues with non verbal communication are more then I thought was a major part of realizing my diagnosis was correct.

I always thought I was quite expressive with tone of voice but my ASD report says I spoke in a monotone.
I know I can read expressively, but I guess the non-verbal stuff disappears when I'm trying to explain myself or in social situations.

I think if you believe that you are good with berbal ques you will be better. Even NTs miss tons of ques. What people care about is the bigger picture anyway.

I just assume that everyone is lying. So verbal cues become irrelevant. I mean...I could tell, but trying to understand their intentions is making me paranoid.

I read on my medical history and it said that when I was in 5th grade, the testing showed I have a hard time with non verbal communication.

I know I have missed hints and would take things at word value and I just thought everyone would just tell you that you are bothering them or tell you to stop if they want you to. I have gotten better at it by learning the cues and learning hints. Once I learned that people used body language and say things they don't mean, I had to figure out what those cues look like.