Flat effect etc, means our non verbal communication is giving off the wrong signal 90% of the time. Or something.
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I probably have nonverbal learning disorder, so mine is poor. I know I have had comments about my body language before.
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Maybe some drama can help us. I’ll look for some drama schools, but there is one nearby that I’ll probably apply to.
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for a long time, I never really cared about body language that much. then one day, someone noticed an expression on my face and responded to it. at first I didn’t think it was fair, because my facial expressions are natural and non-verbal. but after that day, I just decided to keep my head mostly towards the ground, so that people won’t notice my expressions.
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So many times i show the opposite of how I’m really feeling. It’s infuriating how dysfunctional my mind is. And the evil voice can control my face too…
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I think the worst thing I get (and my brother gets it, too, so wonder if it runs in the family somehow), is that I laugh/smirk when I have anxiety. Like even if I don’t think a situation is funny at all. I need a flat affect friend so we can be awkward together. Someone tells us terrible news, and my friend can just stare blankly while I burst into cackling.
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I think this is a skill that can be built up. It’s social training and there’s a lot of new research on how to “teach” or train social skills (for autism, for example). They can map where your eyes stare and they use that to retrain you to focus on the eyes.
This is my key to infiltrating normies: watching movies and learning to mimic actors and extreme concentration on my body language, blink rate, smile rate, look-away rate. I learned a lot from having conversations with my professors.
My trick was that I’d bring a piece of paper with my thoughts written on it, that way I didn’t have to search for words and I could focus on my presentation and body language. I’d monitor them very carefully while we talked. What did THEY do? Often times, just mimicking a person can trick them into thinking you’re following along with their non verbals. So, if he smiled, I’d smile back. If he crossed his arms, I’d do the same for a few seconds and then uncross my arms. Momentary mimicking goes a long way.
I pass for normal so well that people outside of pdocs refuse to accept I’m sz. Normals just laugh and go, oh come on, no you’re not! It’s become a daily routine, this acting, monitoring, mimicking thing. It can be a skill that increases with time and practice, though, so don’t give up hope! Don’t be afraid of making a mistake in social situations either, sometimes trial and error learning is the best way.
When I’m not acting, though, I have no reaction to people. A cop once wouldn’t let me leave a traffic stop for a broken tail light because he “couldn’t read me.” It was driving him nuts and I was just standing there not reacting to his anger and out of control temper. My normal face is like blank I guess. So many years of performing on a daily basis through every social situation has kind of normalized the body language thing, though, so while it’s not a reflex like normals experience it, I can do the body language thing pretty fast so that it nearly looks reflexive. It does get exhausting though.
There are few people I can sit in a room with and not start role playing the part of a normal. My mother is one. Everyone else and I get paranoid about being outed as sz so I smile politely, bob my head in a short nod, mimic who I’m talking to, etc.
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I used to “act” before I was diagnosed so that I’d fit in. I didn’t know I was ill even. But now I’m kind of take me as you find me.
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This is horrible for me to. Whenever there’s an uncomfortable situation I’ll laugh/chuckle/smirk about it. It’s exactly the wrong emotion. How does one stop doing this?
Just last evening I was helping in a community center kitchen with people I didn’t know. A woman, who I don’t think meant any offense, said that the expression on my face looked like “get out of my way” and “where am I” at the same time. I told her that I always look like that…
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Dont believe everything you read 
I get told that I look serious a lot. When I tell my dr she always tells me that I have full range of emotion.
I know that BS though because I can’t get the response I want out of people and that used to come easy. I guess anybody would look serious if they had to take a medication that stopped them from feeling pleasure
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I had a difficult time expressing myself effectively during my stay in the psychiatric Hospital.
One female there called me creepy and accused me of staring at her all of the time.
I don’t know but it seems like that I am not 100 percent better yet.
I am off a bit socially and I am also still a bit paranoid.
My psychiatrist raised my risperidone from 2mg to 3mg
She said that the increase will help to keep me out of the Hospital
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Thank God I don’t have flat affect! I just get manic and depressed and hear voices lol
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I hate it when ppl accuse me of staring or sitting too close or saying the wrong thing… especially in the hospital. It just makes me super self conscious.
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sometimes non-verbal things are pretty okay, but verbal things usually don’t go too well.
besides, everybody deserves some privacy… right?
luckily I don’t interact with people much, so I don’t have to worry about stuff like this 
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I’ve gotten that before too @Wave. Especially when I get really zoned out. Psych hospitals are full of sick people, she may have had issues of her own. If you gave our meds to a “normal” person, they would stare too.
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I think Moonpie posted this a while back, but it’s worth a repeat…
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She did have a lot of issues of her own, so maybe you are right @MeghillaGorilla1.
But I’m still not feeling so great, on top of my paranoia and negative symptoms I’m becoming increasingly depressed.
I’m so sick of this illness
I am told I have close to zero Body language to very hard to read some of that I think was being trained out of showing it plus sz and meds
Or is could just be my ninja skills
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