Inappropriate reactions

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To make a long story short I was getting a mental health intake done for the local health services place. I was talking about my life and was actually talking about something fairly bad and then the therapist asked me why I was smiling. I just said I didn't know because I didn't. There was no emotion tied to it. I'm strange to these people anyway in that I can talk of the abuse I went through as if it happened to someone else, because I don't feel any emotion tied with it. It doesn't make me sad or angry or anything, its just something that happened. I'm completely unaware of what my face does, and it seems to do its own thing. I suppose I'm just asking if anyone can relate. And if so what your thoughts are on the subject.

Yeah I know what you mean.

Sometimes it seems like my body language will express emotions that are nothing like what I'm really feeling (like I'll look mad or sad when I'm not). I guess thats very strange, to be honest I've never really thought about it before.

Often when I hear of someone's death it makes me smile or laugh.

I often come across as angry when I am really happy, or said when I am content or sad when I am depressed I just pretended I am feely that way most of the time it is easer then explaining

I find that if talking about somthing rather intense, unless I am similing or laughing people assume I'd be upset by it. I'm not mind you.
It just could be that you have learned to avoid awkward moments by tinting them with lightheartedness. The fact that there's no emotion there would help too.

Wow, my shortest post ever.

Quoth.

I do the same thing. Just the other day someone asked me if I was really as detached from my past abuse as I appeared to be. My best friend says it is just that I am one way or the other - either totally passionate about something or totally detached. I have learned that when tramatic things happen to me that I am passionate and dramatic for about three days then I am done.

Y

That's the way I am. I don't really have a middle ground there.

I tend not to be aware of what my body language is showing; I also have problems identifying what particular emotions I'm experiencing at any given point. The other day someone told me I looked down, and it was then that I realised that *that* was what I was feeling at the time. I just knew I wasn't feeling happy, but didn't know how I *was* feeling until it was pointed out; I hadn't been aware that I wasn't looking happy either.

I've been on both sides of this: I am a crisis counselor and have been in therapy before. I ask people why they have an incongruous (better word than inappropriate) expression on their face. I think it is common among people with AS. Unfortunately the inexperienced mental health worker will see it as a sign of something wrong. It might be simplest to explain that it is a common thing for people with AS. It is also common for people with histories of abuse, but for different reasons.

I think that emotional affect is learned and practiced. When you have no accepted template to follow, it takes time to develop one. Would a truly professional mental health worker think it through before asking or before writing about it? How does a psychologist actually know what an inappropriate emotional affect is, especially in a situation new to the person who is being interviewed? I've been in such situations where a teacher actually slapped me for the expression on my face. I'm like seven years old and have no clear idea what is going on, and she isn't going to tell me, and she's beating on me. What was her job again?

Some people simply aren't allowed by others to practice a natural affect. When you don't practice it you don't learn it. Your face takes on an appeasement mode, which others take as ridiculing them or whatever, or an angry mode, or a frightened mode. They don't give you any clues what you are actually "supposed" to do. They hit you. They drive you away. They punish you. They lie about the actual nature of the situation. They contrive to make the situation appear to be different from what it actually is. They do what it takes to induce an "inappropriate" response in their victim. I guess you could say that that is a history of abuse.

What makes them think that their affect or their actions are correct?

I often show no emotions.Except when I'm in my mania/hypomania or when I am angry.

But I used to think that people geeting ran over by cars was funny.But not anymore...


-SpaceCase

My body language is inaccurate a good deal of the time. I think I've finally trained my NT husband - "don't believe what you see on the outside", and other people on the spectrum as well as my NT sister seem to have an amazing ability to accurately read me... it's still a problem with the rest of the world though. Inaccurate body language and nonverbal communication, even inaccurate verbal communication - my most frustrating aspie traits.

I'm in total agreement. I get so frusterated by this.

This could be one of the diagnostic criteria for aspie: do you have incongruent facial expressions? Do people sometimes wonder why your facial expression isn't what an NT would expect under the circumstances?
Are you frequently misunderstood?

I guess I'm on a rant today.