Facial Expression Don't Match Emotions??

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Me too. I get really upset sometimes because people will think I'm lying about something when I'm actually telling the truth.

I also seem to have a lot of trouble displaying the correct emotion when somebody gives me a birthday present. It's not like I'm not happy to get it, but people seem to be looking for validation that I'm excited about the gift in my facial expressions, and I can't seem to give them that because I have such anxiety from all the attention being focused at me . It's like just telling them my feelings in words isn't enough for them.

I also seem incapable of an appropriate smile in pictures. Either I try to give a normal, understated smile and it comes across as frowning, or I smile too big and people say that I look creepy because my mouth is smiling but my eyes aren't . I don't even know what the hell that means. I guess my eyes betray the fact that I hate being in pictures and I'm probably uncomfortable being in such close proximity to people I'm really not very comfortable with .

Also, if I dislike somebody, I find myself unable to pretend that I do like them. It really causes trouble when I'm around authority figures that I can't stand.

Definitely...this is me. I'm glad you brought this up . My facial expressions tend to match quite a bit better when I'm signing, but rarely match when I'm speaking.

My facial expression almost never matches how I really feel.
People say I smile a lot. Which isn't a bad thing I guess -- but sometimes, even when I'm feeling sad or having a bad day, people say, "you must be really happy!" or "what a nice smile!" Maybe it's just a part of having AS?

I just rented this DVD at Blockbuster called "The Human Face"... it talks about how there is something like 7,000 facial expressions... They also show where an NT goes into an MRI machine and they show where a part of the brain reacts to people who are expressing strong emotions and the brains of people with Asperger's show no reaction at all.. It's as thought that part of the brain that recognizes facial expressions doesn't register on the MRI like it does with NTs..

It's been pretty interesting so far... I'm still watching it.. There are 2 dvds in the set.

Yeah I do this a lot. People say 'What's wrong?' or 'Are you alright?' And I just say 'Yeah I am just thinking'

What do, I think?

Attwood never acknowledged my e-mail! Nor, did smarter "leading autism experts". do other than ignore my pointed questions!

I laugh about almost everything it seems. Everyone thinks it's nervous laughter, but I really think I just find things funny that normally are not seen that way. It happens mostly when I'm really really frustrated about something, and generally I find humor in the fact that I'm so frustrated and whatever it is makes absolutely no sense... I find things that are illogical very humorous even if they are frustrating. Everyone else seems to think I'm covering up something when I laugh...

When I'm thinking really hard about something, my bf says I always have a smirk on my face, or I look very angry. I never notice it, though.

Whenever I am trying to digest or process what someone is saying, or am trying to decipher their motives, they say I often I have a confused look on my face, as if I have no idea whats going around me. Otherwise I always look like I am deep in thought, which I am half the time.

i cant begin to count all the times my facial expression has sent totally wrong signals. in fact sometimes i think im smiling or look happy for a picture, then when i look at it, i look like im squirming, or grimacing. awful! lol

It's an ASD thing.

I stare at nothing and smile... (mainly because I'm thinking of something that makes me smile), people don't seem to ask the reason for why you're smiling off into space, they just assume you're "weird".

I usually have a "blank" face for there's never really anything that'd get me to change such; big matters, small matters, the ones for "normal" people just don't bother me.

There's always a reason why my face doesn't match my feelings (I just don't talk about it to people).

I've always struggled with the facial expression thing too. It's one of those things I've tried to work on just to be able to deal with humanity (NTs and strangers) a little better. I know I smile inappropriately, so if I'm somewhere, like a funeral or something else sad, where I'm expected to look serious I need to make a conscious effort not to smile. On the other hand, when I'm out and about, I make a conscious effort to smile as much as possible, even when I don't feel it, because it makes people more pleasant to deal with. I hate it when people say, "Smile!" when I've got a neutral expression (usually when I'm in my own world and not really thinking about my surroundings). I never say anything (hardly ever), but when people tell me to "Smile," I feel like telling them to bug off... and that's putting it nicely. So I just smile all the time and I get less crap.

But yeah, when I'm not paying attention, I dread to think what my face is doing.

-J.

Yep, me too. These days, it's just hard to get an expression at all, since I've trained myself to make no expression in an attempt to avoid making the wrong one. Can't win.

My face doesn't show ANY emotion. People always think I am depressed when I am happy, simply because I do not smile often.

i don't tend to smile a lot, unless i am really happy. i don't see the point in faking it.
at my old job, i used to get told all the time by my boss that so-and-so said that i was giving them 'dirty looks' when i walked by them...and i'd respond with a 'wtf?' i never gave people dirty looks at work. a lot of time i'd get the 'smile, you look so mad...what's wrong?' when i'd just be deep in thought or concentrating or trying to figure something out. my husband also will ask me a lot of the time if i'm okay (when i am perfectly fine) because he says it looks like i'm pissed or just really upset.
i hate doing fake smiles...did that the entire day of my wedding. but if i don't practice smiling before a picture is taken, it looks all wrong for some reason. i'll even ask my husband how my smile 'looks' before a pic is taken. most of the time i don't like having my picture taken because of this.

I totally understand what you're saying. Sometimes I'm just walking around, having a pretty normal day, and then someone I know asks what's wrong or something not pertaining to how I feel. Sometimes when I'm really sad I don't look it. That can be bad because, when in those situations, I would like to talk to someone about my feelings, and it's difficult to explain to someone that you are feeling sad on the inside but on the outside you look fine. It's kind of like my face sends the opposite signal to people sometimes.

I'm starting to think, is this something we can exploit? If we look angry all of the time, perhaps we can use that to our advantage? Sad, not so much, but angry -- we could look driven and intimidating. Might get us an upper-management job. They like that stuff in upper-management. I once had a manager who did the thing with his eyes to make them pulsate a little and look intimidating once. Since I do not respond to such things, I remember looking him in the eye and then feeling curious -- like, "What is wrong with you?" That ticked him off.