A personal revelation
I just had a personal revelation literally just a few minutes ago, and I want to share this with you.
So TMI time. Throughout most of my life, even to this day, when someone comments about, “Oh, it’s so nice to see you smiling!” or “It’s so good to see you happy!”, my immediate gut reaction is almost always, “F you!” or “Who the hell do you think you are?” Or some other similarly colorful reaction. And I can feel it coming up inside me, and like my temperature raises. Often I can hide it quite well, but this is definitely going on. Sometimes I don’t hide it, or not entirely.
Sometimes that doesn’t happen. There have been occasions, depending on the exact circumstances and the person who’s saying it and the way they say it, I might actually take it as a compliment. But a lot of the time, it triggers this immediate reaction.
But a lot of the time, it triggers this immediate reaction.
And I’ve known for a while that this is likely a trauma response, but I wasn’t able to figure out what to. I haven’t had any particular traumas around smiling. But what just occurred to me… And someone was talking about this, and they were talking about how they have that similar kind of “F you” reaction when other people tell them positive affirmations (which also happens with me, I hate them).
But what connected in my mind was that, until actually very recently (just a few years ago), I did not smile very much. I didn’t laugh very easily. I didn’t express my emotions on my face and in my body very often. It happened, there was some, but it wasn’t a lot. This is what’s known as flat affect, and it’s very common among Autistics to varying degrees. And I would say I’m sort of in the middle. I did express some on a fairly regular basis, but it wasn’t a lot.
Expressing emotions
So what would happen was, when I was young, there would be times when I would smile and I would really light up, and someone would make a comment about, “Oh, it’s so nice to see you smiling.” And what I think was going on is that a part of me learned that I would get that comment when I expressed my inner feelings in a way that was socially acceptable, but I wouldn’t get that response all of the other times that I was happy, and I was happy a fair amount. I had a reasonably decent childhood overall.
So this led to me learning to mask more. It led to me learning that I’m supposed to express smiling, express emotions in socially acceptable ways. I didn’t just take it as a compliment, I took it as a criticism. And depending on the person, I think it could have been either.
I didn’t just take it as a compliment, I took it as a criticism.
But what I think that part of me was hearing was, ‘I’m not okay being who I am, unless it also looks like what you’re expecting’. And I felt like I wasn’t okay being who I was, and therefore I had to try and pretend to be something else, or try to show my emotions, or to smile when I’m happy.
I’m reminded of that children’s game, ‘if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands’. I hated that game for very similar reasons, besides the whole clapping (there was so much clapping, there’s so much sensory stuff involved with it). But I think that game was also triggering this feeling of, ‘I’m happy. I know that I’m happy. Why do I have to show you that in this particularly socially appropriate way?’
So that part of me that felt not accepted by society as a young child, is still that part of me that comes up and wants to give the finger to anyone who says, “Oh, it’s so nice to see you smiling.”
Being okay with me
So that’s the thing that I put together. And I think that what I’m going to be taking from this is recognizing where it came from is incredibly helpful. And actually, as I’m talking through this right now, it’s soothing that very young part of me that felt like she wasn’t accepted unless she expressed emotions in socially appropriate ways.
And I’m actually feeling a little bit of emotion coming up right now. I think after I turn this video off, I’m going to be crying for a few minutes because I just need a little bit of time to grieve that she went through that. That I went through that.
And another thing that I’m taking away from this is that I’m okay to be me. That’s not new. I’ve been coming to that over and over and over for the last eight or nine years, since I figured out the autism stuff. But it keeps coming back and in new ways, and so this is another one of those moments.
I can express myself how I am. I can be who I am in the world.
I have no idea what that’s going to be, but however I show up in the world is beautiful.
I do express more now, the flat affect is still around pretty strongly when I’m very stressed, but it has considerably reduced throughout the rest of my life and I’ve arranged my life to be fairly low-stress for the most part. The low stress is an improvement, but the fact that the flat affect is less, that’s not an improvement. That’s not success, because it was never a goal for me.
It’s just that’s the way I’m expressing myself in the world now, and how I used to express myself in the world was totally fine too. And how it turns out in the future, however that might be, that’s going to be totally fine too. I have no idea what that’s going to be, but however I show up in the world is beautiful. It’s exactly what I need right now. That’s what I’m taking away from this.
Alright, so you get to watch me process some stuff here, and I’m going to turn this off and go cry for a few minutes. Take care. Have a neurowonderful day.
