#restricted 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.

people will tell me the most personal things after not knowing me for very long and i'm wondering if it's because of my minimal reactions. for me at least, i don't always like telling other people particularly shocking things because it can be overwhelming to then have to deal with their strong reaction. but someone can tell me the most shocking, out of pocket, horrifying, or taboo thing ever and i'll just be like "okay". for a long time i viewed this as a negative, like i wasn't responding properly, like i was "supposed" to be mirroring others' emotions better. but now i'm wondering if it actually helps me sometimes? by providing a more low-stakes listening ear?

I have been told that my facial expressions are so subtle that it's hard to notice changes in them, and the same happens to be true of my tones of voice. I think it's called "restricted affect" when you don't show emotions a whole lot in your facial expression or vocal tones, and it's not uncommon for autistic people to have restricted affect like that. I've met a lot of autistic people who are more emotionally expressive in their facial expressions and vocal tones than NTs are, conversely. So I would say that for autistic people who experience it, it's related to autism to have affect that is more emotionally expressive or less emotionally expressive than NTs.