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Reaction to "smile"

colin
1 month ago

Hi.

I recently posted a photo of myself on facebook, enjoying a few days walking. I wasn't smiling in the photo and somebody commented telling me to smile. It really annoyed me to the point where it was all I could think about for most of the rest of the day (and clearly still thinking about it 2 days later)

Afterwards, I remembered many other times when somebody has told me to smile and how often that lead to the end of my enjoyment of whatever it was I should be smiling at.

So, I'm trying to work out if this is an autism thing, childhood trauma, somehow related to demand avoidance, a reaction to criticism that I'm not doing enjoyment correctly... Has anybody any thoughts on this or could point me towards possible causes and solutions?

Thanks

  • 1 month ago

    Smile, usually goes a long with 'cheer up love it might never happen', or at least it does i you're female. I think it's incredibly rude of people to demand that you look visibly happy when your just going about your day minding your own business, probably thinking about something deep and meaningless. Why should it be anyones elses business what your facial expression is? People or rather male people in my experience, don't like being challenged on this (along with anything else), they see it as their right to have the world look as they wish and behave as they wish.

    The next time someone says that to me, I'm not going to hold myself back any more I will hit them and stand up in court and tell the judge why I did it.

  • 1 month ago in reply to Autisician

    My manually applied smile looks horrendous. No matter how much I practice it so I don't bother. But I do occasionally have a natural one. I should find one of those photos and Photoshop all the others.

  • 1 month ago in reply to Iain

    Thanks but, as I think most people are trying to do, I'm trying to find strategies for life and my delightfulness will surely fade if I'm successful.

    One day I will find a way to make the neurotypicals believe I'm one of them (said in an evil scientist voice)

  • 1 month ago

    Sometimes the people around me don’t feel that my facial expressions reflect my emotions, but that’s just who I am!!! Sometimes I smile when I’m happy, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I feel comfortable in photographs or life in general and just act myself with whatever facial expression feels natural to me, and to be told that I’m “wrong” or need to be different is upsetting and invalidating! 

  • 1 month ago

    I've been trying to perfect a fake smile for those moments. Otherwise I always look a bit fed up or angry even when I'm actually happy.

    My wife and kids say "dad, smile with your teeth!" When they take pictures, knowing that it'll make me laugh, so that works, but only because we're close and we've joked about It for years.

    Anyone else saying  I need to smile annoys me and as you say it often bursts the bubble of being happy. PDA may play a role, but a lot of it is me thinking someone suggesting that because I'm not smiling means I'm weird or wrong.

  • 1 month ago in reply to colin
    colin said:
    It would still be good to know if what I'm talking about is autism.

    I would say the evidence if pointing that way - several autistic traits look to be involved (emotional regulation, demand avoidance and masking) which makes you a delightfully complex person.

    It always helps to find the positive side of things I find.

  • 1 month ago in reply to Iain

    I spoke with the person who posted the comment last night and, you were right, there is more to it. In my response to them (on facebook) I was trying to be funny but used a couple of expletives. The next day I re-read it and realised it wasn't funny and they might take offence. I think that was probably what made it play on my mind for so long. When he said that he hadn't even seen my response, I felt better and we talked about it. Now everything in this case is sorted.


    It would still be good to know if what I'm talking about is autism. I'm self diagnosed and still trying to work stuff out.

    Thanks

  • 1 month ago
    colin said:
    somebody commented telling me to smile

    It is curious that this had such a negative reaction when the intention behind it was that the person wanted to see you happy.

    It could be PDA related - sort of a "don't tell me to be happy" sort of thing. It could also be you being annoyed at yourself for not being happy enough to display it even though is seems you have the autistic trait of lack of expression.

    I suspect is it partly demand avoidance and partly frustration that you are not being recognised as actually being happy.

    To understand it better I would suggest making sure you are really confident in your emotions at the time - were you really enjoying yourself for example? can you give it a rating of 1-10 where 1 is "at least I'm not upset" and 10 is "I'm so happy I could just cry".

    The fact you are still not over this after 2 days makes me think there is something deeper at play as well - is it because you hated being told what you should be doing, that they wanted you to be happy when you didn't think you deserved to be, that you don't really connect with your emotions to understand if you were happy or not or what.

    The fact you stopped being happy at the request is telling too - I'm guessing you feel judged and this causes a strong PDA reaction.

    Does any of this feel right?

    I'm not a therapist by the way, just throwing some ideas your way as we share some aspects of this response.