#flat affect

shoutout to people who often get misinterpreted because they express a lot of different emotions in very similar ways.

shoutout to people who have the "wrong" reaction to a situation (e.g. laughing when bad things happen) and get treated worse for it.

shoutout to people who have exaggerated emotional expression and gets seen as overdramatic or manipulative.

Shane probably doesn’t know he has a flat affect. I didn’t know I did until I was twenty six years old. I thought I was extremely animated in both face and voice. I’m not. At all. I have a very very flat affect, very Paris Hilton “that’s hot”. This had to be pointed out to me by my wife who has known me for (at that point) seven years. (To their credit, they thought I knew).

Anyway when I learned this a lot more things made sense. I’d always been told I had a “tone” but I thought a “tone” was something you put on, not just the natural way I talked, so I thought I constantly was doing a “sarcastic voice”. I didn’t realize that it sounded like I was deadpanning every conversation I ever had and as a bonus was usually rolling my eyes, because I didn’t know that a) I wasn’t really making eye contact and b) rolling your eyes doesn’t literally mean rolling them in a circle like a goddamn cartoon character.

How flat affect presents for me:

Limited expressions, I need to be actively thinking about making an expression to have it happen. Additionally, it often takes multiple tries to get the expression I intended. This isn't limited to positive expressions, I also struggle to make expressions conveying things like surprise.

Practicing facial expressions as a child. Being told my smile is "fake" by adults when they wanted a picture.

Having limited tone, I struggle to convey different emotions through my voice unless I am actively attempting. This presents for me mostly as, I will make a joke and people will think I am being dead serious. Multiple times I have made something I thought was very obviously a joke, and then someone will ask me later on if I was being serious.

Shocking teachers and counselors when I do show emotion, but also not showing negative emotions how people without flat affect do. I had a panic attack, and one of my counselors managed to walk right past me crying, because I had a flat expression despite being actively sobbing. The day after this another counselor pulled me to ask if I was ok, she said she was so worried hearing that I'd cried because I "never show much emotion".

I take selfies over and over, because I cannot get the "right expression", which has resulted in me giving up and just taking selfies with my resting face. Of course if I show someone a selfie I took, the conversation always is about how I am not smiling, and how weird that is.

Someone who is not as outwardly expressive as expected, who is withdrawn and not really forthcoming with information, creates a sense of mystery for people. And like any mystery, people want to solve it. And when it comes to someone labelled as "mysterious", people feel a sense of obligation to "solve" that mystery—either to get to know them, to find a way to change them, perceivably "fixing" them, or something similar.

For schizoid individuals, it creates this sense of unwanted attention from people who cannot be satisfied with receiving nothing. At first impression, it's all about the fantasy—look at this stoic person who doesn't pay attention to anyone or care about anyone, imagine if they made an exception for me, imagine if I could get to see their "true" self.

You're not going to get this from a schizoid individual. This is a fantasy you're projecting onto them—that they're something special, something to be saved or explored. Don't expect an emotional response from someone who's frequently emotionally dissociated, it's not going to end up well for either of you.

And it's so common for schizoids to see themselves as not possessing any sense of personality, to be filled with a void. To try to dig deeper against what they're willing to show you, it's violating and can be perceived as controlling or exploitative, which can cause further withdrawal.

I do not speak for all schizoids, but I do speak for myself when I say to not try and make us into something different.

This has actually worked at keeping the tension down when I'm flat affect

Also to counteract any "you shouldn't have to do that" you do not realise how absolutely pissed off I sound when I am flat affect. I recorded myself once and listening back I sounded 2 seconds from murder