Flat affect and autism

Flat affect is a trait (related, but not exclusive, to autism) where your physical emotional expression is reduced. Maybe your smile isn't smiley enough. Maybe you speak in a monotone. You *have* feelings, they just don't seem to show properly.

This is part of the autistic presentation that forces us to learn to mask. People find it very offputting when you don't show happiness or regret or concern the way they are expecting.

So I have a physical, facial muscle mask that I wear almost all the time. /2

Compared to my natural facial expression, I almost always wear my brows raised, my eyes wide, and my ears perked (like wiggling your ears, but holding them in the "back" position) so my face looks more open and alert. I have what feels like a small smile, but it looks neutral. /3

If you ever take acting or drama lessons, you may do an exercise where you completely relax your face. It takes time and guidance to locate and release each muscle. When I did this in school, my drama teacher said she didn't recognize me. That was my mask coming off. /4

Here is my neurotypical smile. It's not my natural smile, it's what I learned *looks* happy. This feels like I'm making a giant toothy grin. (why did I want to make sure I *looked* happy? Because that's an SNES controller from the Mini Classic console when it first came out) /5

This is my natural smile. It's what my face looks like when I STG I'm smiling a comfortable, natural smile. I really think there is a muscular component to flat affect because it really feels like I'm lifting the corners of my mouth to smile, but apparently I'm not./6

Here is the natural smile again in case you missed it./7

And again. I retook this photo to get a better smile but this was my first attempt. I was REALLY HAPPY because I'm wearing a llama shirt I just bought.

Why does this matter? Why so many selfies?

That's the smile I'm pretty sure I made when my boss told me I was getting a permanent job. If someone threw me a surprise party this is what my face would look like if I didn't mask. You can see how it would look underwhelming. /8

You can see the physical difference between the neurotypical-approved smile and my usual smile. Note, in all of those photos I'm still doing all the facial masking I described above. If I wasn't, I'd look angry or sullen. Unsurprisingly I have no photos of that. /9

This is evidence of the physical effort masking takes. PHYSICAL ENERGY being expended constantly just to maintain an appropriate BASELINE expression. This is just one thing I do to mask. Just one, and it's pretty simple. This is nothing. /10

Flat affect, especially as a woman, means you learn really fast how much importance people place on facial expressions. How dangerous it is not to have an Apologetic Face ready to go when you need it. How much it matters whether strangers think you Look Nice. /11

So if you don't have autism, this would be a really good thing to know and tell others. Not everyone wears their feelings on their sleeve. It doesn't mean they don't have them.

Listen to people's words. Stop requiring people to physically adjust their faces 24/7. /12

To illustrate: imagine a situation that you normally manage with an apology. An argument or misunderstanding. Now imagine the other person doesn't see your apologetic face. They don't believe you're sorry. Imagine how far their anger will escalate. What they might say or do. /13

This is one of the reasons just being autistic in a neurotypical world can cause trauma. When your face doesn't show regret or concern or sadness, you spend a lot of time seeing people at their worst - angry or exasperated, thinking you don't have feelings or you don't care. /14

add-on: there are ways to hack affect if you can learn to mask. I learned a few while working in customer service.
1. Greet angry customers with a huge smile and a familiar "hi there" as though you know them. it will confuse them long enough to stop their ranting.

2. always deliver bad news with a big smile. "I'm sorry, that till is closed ." It's super confusing for most people and they will return your smile before they know what they're doing, giving you time for a getaway.

3. Sesame Street puppets' faces don't move. To smile, they just open their mouths slightly. When too tired for a real smile, if you open your mouth unusually wide while saying "Hi" (to get the right mouth shape), it often passes for a smile or friendly look. Try it!

I put this on Medium so it can be shared off Twitter and will work for screen readers. You can find it here: https://medium.com/@AutistMakingWay/autism-and-flat-affect-63381dbeda9e @Charlie_A_Hart

also, if you are hearing the term "flat affect" for the first time, here's some further reading: https://www.glamour.com/story/living-with-flat-affect-like-resting-bitch-face-but-not-funny