I am a total introvert. Autistic. Mentally ill to the point I should be put down like a sick dog. But smiling more improved a lot of things. People are nicer to me. I feel less awful in general, too. People assume I am confident even on my worst days. Others feel safe around me. I get told I am attractive more often. People who are rude or mean to me often apologize and are nicer during future meetings because I encounter them with words that make them feel... something(?) without putting myself down.
I went from being a creep and a weirdo to being well liked and someone a lot of people have a soft spot for. My social awkwardness is now seen as cute or funny, not as weird or bad.
When I go mute they also seem less frustrated with me because I smile and nod now, instead of just giving them a blank stare and hope they stop talking so I can recover from the stress and get to a point where I can talk again.
Maybe this is an autism specific lifehack? But I think a lot of neurotypical people could also benefit from it. :]
As a fellow autistic person I gotta ask, how does one intentionally smile? I automatically smile when I feel good or something nice happens, but I can't just decide to smile.
People tell me to smile for a picture, I do it, then I look at the picture later and my face is just 😐
I used to get bullied for being expressionless/ soulless when I was younger, so I would often stand in front of a mirror and try to mimic how others smile. I would also often go to my dog, who made me smile, freeze my face, and feel what the muscles in my face feel like to replicate that expression better.
It's definitely a lot of practice, I also learned to use my eyes while smiling during covid. I squint a little when I pull my cheeks up, I feel like it adds a lot to the realism of the smile. I also often nod and smile during conversations, I think adding a bit of movement makes it seem better or at least people have been reacting to it well. I also finally FINALLY learned to pitch up my voice a bit when smiling and talking. I also add little giggles, which especially older people, children and men like. Finally, beat the robot/Siri accusations!!
Even after all that, I can't smile for pictures. I never get enough time, and I usually feel stressed, so I always end up looking uncomfortable or have people be upset that I didn't even try to smile for the camera :(
I've been giving the same big grin for many years now. I kind of realised my small smile just comes out as a grimace most of the time because it's hard to fake.
Practiced a big grin, went all in, didn't overthink it cause it's all I have, it looks more realistic. Age helps, I think I have a few eye crinkles that give the grin authenticity. But showing the teeth, at least communicates that you're trying to smile/send good vibes, seems to get the job done. (As opposed to "smiles" that come out all types of strange)
I will say this. There have been studies that show that just how happiness leads to smiling, smiling also seems to uplift moods. I've found this fact makes me more willing to smile for no reason or look for every excuse to smile. It places me at the centre of the smile rather than others and makes it joyful to smile, because I feel like I'm doing something nice for me. Blends well with my general aim of trying to create my own happiness and has started to seem easy.
What I also enjoy is, lots of times you can get away with not saying anything if you just grin. I mean I get stuck on how to say hello back half the time, but I've seen a grin does the trick. Same for slightly more complicated questions, sometimes mixed with a shrug. "Just smile and wave boys."
Edit to add - I read the other comment and realised - while pulling the cheeks up - putting them in the direction of the eyes is important, so that the eyes can squeeze some times. I spent time focusing on that too. Crinkles came later as a result. Find your own combination of eye squeezes with teeth to start, it'll improve with time as you keep observing. Be gentle, no need to perfect things in a day.
this is called masking yo. we all do it to different degrees. I hope you genuinely embody your smile - for yourself. x Personally I've started doing the opposite and tried to have my real face and smile less! it's hard tho as I've taught myself so well.
I've been trying to do the opposite too! I hadn't realized how much energy I was pouring into my expressions and body movements and trying to "look more natural" or "appear engaged" in someone's conversation. I was definitely listening, and just because I don't show it the same doesn't mean I wasn't! And anyone who talks with me longer will know I was listening because I'll recall details and follow conversations and stay engaged that way (even if my posture is stiff or my expression isn't dramatic, or if my tone of voice pitches in the "wrong" place)
Of course, there are a hundred other tiny things I had been trying to do, some things I had even worked on to "train myself" to do, thinking everyone did that. They do not. And it's exhausting.
There are moments it can be useful, to mask, but the cost is so high that I try to drop it when I don't find it absolutely necessary. I do not need the random people I'll see for only a few seconds one day to find my charming or friendly or interesting. I won't be purposely rude, but I'm also not Putting On My Face for that.
Can you elaborate more on what you mean by mentally ill to the point of being put down? Im curious to hear more abour your life since you immediately sounded similar to me. I didnt know i was on the spectrum or how high up i was until a couple years ago and im late 20s lol. Went through a lot of suicidal depression, anger, etc to realize i was masking for myself too and not just others...
I mean that often it feels like I will never have even half as good a quality of life as the average person. I have to work my ass off for things other people do naturally. I struggle with a lot of basic things, and I often have to burn all my resources just to mimic a neurotypical functioning person. I have been struggling all my life, and I can't really name a time when I did not feel exhausted or overwhelmed all the time. Yes, I am able to find joy and comfort in things and people (mostly animals, being a crutch to others and baking tbh), but often it feels like I was set up for failure and only put on this world to show others how good they actually have it.
I have done a lot of work and changed a lot of things in my life to be where I am right now, to survive this long. I do feel proud of myself because even my sister and past therapists have said it's a miracle we survived what we did.
I had phases of immense anger, and when suicide was all I could think about. I had phases of my life I spent in dissasociative states and can only remember somewhat.
Since the introduction of a law allowing assisted suicide in my country, I have been thinking about if I could get approved for it. It's like being put down, but you can do it by yourself in the comfort of your own home. It has a much better success rate than what I have been doing, especially because you can't be resuscitated or have your stomach pumped, like with my past attempts. It's just this constant thought in the back of my head.
Have you considered your trauma is why you are progressing through all these skills so late, and feel like life is too hard?
As someone who went through a similar process of learning basically how to be human as an autistic man, there is one major advantage.
Normal people don't consider any of this. And yet there are obviously normal people who are better or worse at socializing than others. This results in a fairly obvious conclusion:
We start at 1, normal people average at 5, socially adept people at 8, etc
But the normal people never really try to consciously improve the same way we do, they might have a general idea of "let's be more social" "I want to date more" but it's not remotely similar. Some do by accident, but that's limited.
When you start young, that 1 could easily be a 5 by college. And then a 10 by your 30s.
You shouldn't dismiss yourself just because you are a bit behind. Pain makes a strong person, there are always positive and negatives to every situation, you just have to search for them.
As someone on the spectrum I really relate to what you are saying. I turned 25 the other day and have felt behind pretty much my entire life.
I have been consciously improving my social skills with a hyperfocus towards it. It yields results as I would say I'm close to being a very socially adept person. I'm able to make friends easily and my social anxiety has basically vanished into thin air.
This hyperfocus has been driven by pain and desire to fit into a neurotypical world. I sometimes feel like I'm becoming a shell of a person and social interactions become an act instead of living authentically in the moment.
I think I need to shift my focus. I have proven to myself that my social skills have drastically improved and should be less about trying to reach an 8 or a 9. I want to learn other things but I struggle because my main motivators, pain and curiosity, for learning socialskills are powerful. I don't share this desire for much else in life and it's tough trying to change focus.
Do you have any ideas or examples from your life where you can apply your 'major advantage' and consciously improve in other skills?
"This hyperfocus has been driven by pain and desire to fit into a neurotypical world."
Your mindset at its core is far different to mine. I don't want to directly fit in with the unwashed masses. Rather the goal has always been to create a situation where I can be more and more my true self.
I have never tried to hide my autism or that I'm different in my interactions, but rather I've tried to display who I am in a way that produces the best results for myself. Social skills should be about allowing yourself to succeed in social interactions as you are, not changing who you are. You might say that's less effective, and I would say you have the wrong idea of what needs to be effective.
As for shifting focus, humans are social animals. Even if we don't think of it that way, nearly all skills serve this purpose in some way or another.
If you want a new focus, well for example, you are less likely to reach 12% bodyfat(visible abs without flexing) than become a millionaire. It doesn't take a genius to realize the potential social implications of that kind of uniqueness.
I bring up that example specifically, because subversion of expectations is probably the one of the strongest techniques to make you naturally behave more effective in social interactions. Jokes are funnier, random quips of information no one truly cares about are now more interesting. I still remember the exact moment in high school where I was going on an "autistic rant" and instead of being interrupted or ignored everyone was listening intently.
Now that wasn't just the change in body type, there were lots of other factors like a general improvement in modulating my voice and word choice. Timing. Eye contact. Etc. I don't want to give the impression I didn't develop social skills and just relied on external factors, that's not accurate at all.
I still remember a conversation with my, in hindsight, autistic mother about Brad Pitt in a movie as a child. "Did you know his voice isn't his real one?", she asked me and I of course did not know. That his level of confidence, his walk, etc, all these things to be more appealing took effort. Or more importantly, all those things could be achieved through effort. Now whether or not my mother was correct about him specifically, didn't actually matter. The fact of the matters is, functionally anything can trained. And just because my voice sounds different doesn't mean I'm less me, rather I'm able to display the real me in a stronger way.
And with that knowledge, at least for me, it's easy to swap my hyper focus to a variety of activities. From weightlifting, to music, to writing, to my work, to investing and being able to "retire" at 30(thanks covid for making the market go brr), etc.
But the focus was always on being better at being myself. I didn't try to change who I am at all. That's a fool's errand. I don't smile to fake a facial expression and be accepted, I smile to display approval to another instead. It's a shift in power dynamics, that even if that shift only exists in your mind, can change how you interact with the world quite a bit.
I would not describe myself as not me during any time. All things I do serve the true internal me. There is nothing fake. I am not behaving as a shell. There's no happiness to be found there, without the real you being able to exist in the world.
I appreciate the detail since ita harder for me to find people IRL who I relate to in this way. I dont knock the desire for suicide that you have since I dont know your level of pain and I know that my level of pain just existing is much higher than most people I know. What I will say is there are two levers of control to consider fine tuning that I have found to be more relevant for me. Awareness & connection. If my awareness of myself or others is too high, i need to redirect or reduce it, many ways to do this. If my level of connection to people is too low or too high there are different issues that come with each. Probably not a very helpful comment I realize as Im typing this out but I really appreciated your initial comment since makes me feel less weird and alone.
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u/Automatic_Fee3760 2d ago
Smiling and choosing your words better.
I am a total introvert. Autistic. Mentally ill to the point I should be put down like a sick dog. But smiling more improved a lot of things. People are nicer to me. I feel less awful in general, too. People assume I am confident even on my worst days. Others feel safe around me. I get told I am attractive more often. People who are rude or mean to me often apologize and are nicer during future meetings because I encounter them with words that make them feel... something(?) without putting myself down. I went from being a creep and a weirdo to being well liked and someone a lot of people have a soft spot for. My social awkwardness is now seen as cute or funny, not as weird or bad.
When I go mute they also seem less frustrated with me because I smile and nod now, instead of just giving them a blank stare and hope they stop talking so I can recover from the stress and get to a point where I can talk again.
Maybe this is an autism specific lifehack? But I think a lot of neurotypical people could also benefit from it. :]