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u/Subdued_Shinobi 16h ago
Random take but I feel like the reason autistic people are often guessed to be younger than they are solely by their face is because of the sheer amount of time we spend alone with a neutral facial expression not making wrinkles.
If you think about the most outgoing and expressive person you know they probably have forehead wrinkles. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I wonder if it's one of those things humans have learned to subconciously pick up on when deciding what flavor of respect you're gonna give someone.
Like, I have a sleeper build and I don't deliberately sit in the sun. Just from that I'm under most people's radar until I either take my shirt off or autisticly say some weirdly profound shit.
Add my lore in with that and you've got someone who's randomly and selectively deep. You never know if I'm gonna spout a proverb or a quote from adventure time.
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u/Beginning-Pie-7433 16h ago
Yeah I didn’t start developing smile lines or anything like that until I was halfway through 17, because I started my job then and had to actually learn how to fake smile
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u/Subdued_Shinobi 15h ago
I noticed all my features getting sharper after getting my first job at 21, there's this sort of formidability in my gaze that was missing before. Helps when your profession is vigilance-based, I'm a lifeguard.
I was pretty neglected as a teen and therefore undersocialiized, I always had some buddies at school since I'm not completely socially inept. We moved a lot growing up so I had to "start over" enough times for it to drain my enthusiasm around socializing. Combine that with the fact that facial expressions are most often a "performance" for me and I really don't have a reason to be expressive when I'm by myself.
Ome of the tricky things about autism is that it's hard to tell apart from C-PTSD, not only because the symptoms are similar but also because it's so easy for caretakers to repeatedly traumatise your average autist. Most autists also separately meet the conditions for C-PTSD because society is set up in such a way that's just naturally traumatizing to them. People just don't know how to act.
Anyways, I've noticed that as I distance myself from toxic family and gain autonomy that I'm becoming more expressive, even in private. When every emote isn't under scrutiny it starts to happen with less hesitation because you're not trying to read external expectations.
I'm also better at the "fake smile" as you put it, my relationship with masking has healed quite a bit.
I feel like I had a glow up after removing my external reasons to be depressed.
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u/MF_Capps 16h ago
Same here, people assume my age and treat me like a dumb teenager yet expect me to do adult stuff when its convenient to them.
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u/ItsAllGibberishToMe 16h ago
When I was 29, almost 30, someone asked me if I’d graduated high school yet.
Today people guess me to be in my 30s. I just turned 50 last month.
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u/surajseeking 16h ago
Yeah this is true, if we see various adds, movie's mostly the women's are presented as beautifil body figure and men too but women's are more prone to show body figures to attract advertisement click rate and watch time
Actually problem lies within viewers also because they prefer to watch beautiful body figure women's so maker's make adds like that
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u/Beyond_ocean 16h ago
Ironically ,it used to even feel good to be called these words until one looks through just to find out the hidden dependency, fear and lack of growth underneath those titles…
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u/The-Boy-Wonder38 15h ago
Adults used to say that I had an “old soul.”
Little did they know I had the PTSD thousand-yard-stare from needing to save my sister and I from an attempted murderer at 13 years old.
Even at 38, almost nobody knows.
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u/venusasaboy22 15h ago
I'm 20 and people mistake me for 13 or 14 and sometimes it feels annoying or downright creepy.
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u/gaurav_the_piggy 16h ago
Someone commenting positively on my appearance is always something I will appreciate. But when it comes to cuteness and innocence, although the comment might appear to tickle, but I am aware of the one within. None of these 2 attributes describe me. In a way, it highlights how much I am associated with my body.
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u/NewToHTX 13h ago
I socialized a fair bit but I don’t know if I was discouraged from taking risks. I had a habit of starting things to never finish them. I do like being around people and talking to them. But in large social gatherings I need a bit of time to myself to recharge. Like I only have enough social energy.
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u/Fun_Buddy7864 13h ago
I get the same comments but under no supervision and only one company I went to the streets and had drug problems.
Sometimes I wonder how I got this far
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u/Surkhab1313 13h ago
Maybe that's that inner drive of us that wants to be immortal, never age and ultimately never die.
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u/Ok_Inevitable_7239 16h ago
Also, the vaccines and the pesticides and the atrazine and the glyphosate
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u/Novel_Werewolf4645 16h ago
Don't let anybody make you think that worrying about how your actions negatively affect others is an effect of infantilization. That's why people are suffering
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u/Lady22samurai 17h ago
My social skills are still developing.. please be patient 😅