This is a good topic and a big issue. I'm autistic and over the years I've learned to imitate the facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, patterns of eye contact, etc. that neurologically normal (NT) people use. It wasn't a happy process by any means, I was more or less threatened, abused and bullied into not showing autistic behavior. So at first I was very shut down, talked softly in monotones, looked down a lot, kept my hands folded and only had a limited set of "safe" behaviors. I consciously kept adding behaviors that I saw others using that had good results for them. Like how to smile, make short eye contact and laugh in a partially suppressed way when someone tells a joke. To adopt a temporarily relaxed posture when I’d meet someone, quickly gauge whether a handshake was warranted, and say "How're you doing?" or "What's up?" and make direct eye contact while the other person began to respond. I added subtle displays of empathy (I really do feel sad when someone tells me a sad occurrence and I feel some happiness when someone shares a happy story), nodding in understanding, asking for clarification or expansion when appropriate, making and breaking eye contact, asking them questions about their experience, how they are still feeling, what they wanted and didn't want, etc. I just did that for years and kept practicing while adding a repertoire of verbal expressions, facial expressions, eye movements, tones of voice, hand gestures. I pretty much stick to just those behaviors that I've learned unless I'm with a person who knows I'm autistic and that I sometimes stutter, have facial and eye tics, and can't understand well what someone is saying while I'm trying to do the "normal eye contact" act. Although it is very conscious and synthesized, it isn't exactly non-genuine and sometimes I enjoy it. Acting normal can also be a horrible trap where your real feelings and impulses are repressed in favor of the synthesized ones. With the few people who know I'm autistic, I drop the act and stare at them or just look away with no eye contact when we're talking, I look all around at the little details that capture my attention, I drop the voice inflection, let myself stutter and have tics, etc. A safe way to acquire and learn "safe" and "normal" behaviors is to imitate some of the behaviors of another person while you have a conversation. You can model their posture (standing or seated), their general tone of voice and mood, hand gestures, their pattern of eye contact - most of the time this actually puts people at ease, although I'm careful not to be too obvious about it. I was a manager at work, interviewed people, had intense career discussions, gave performance reviews and raises and promotions and using such acquired behaviors worked close to 100% of the time. However it takes a huge amount of energy and seriously burns me out to do it. For 38 years at work people may have thought me somewhat odd, but even if they did, I generally got good reactions from people. I never told coworkers about my autism or PTSD. Sometimes I wish I had just been my nerdy, nervous, stuttering self with various tics, memory lapses and abnormal modes of speech. But we live in a society where "abnormal" speech or behavior sometimes arouses suspicion or negative attitudes. I truly wish the world wasn't like that. Having acquaintances to practice acquiring and modeling behavior helps - for me the interactions I had with people at work also provided opportunities.
26 Apr 2018, 8:50 am
Does anyone else experience this problem? Is it possible for me to solve this
