Speaking Of Expressing Myself - Hoping To Get Back To Posting And Streaming More Soon!! - Tumblr Posts

Real Life Acting

This may come as a shock to no one, but I’m not usually the most interesting person to be around in real life. While others are talking or doing things, I’m often lost in my own space, saying very little and not moving much. At best I’m usually invisible to others in the room, and at worst I’ve sometimes come off as cold or disinterested.

It turns out, in practice, that my first reaction when something happens is usually... nothing. My emotions are very responsive, but that stays entirely within my head; it doesn’t translate to anything tangible - my body isn’t emotive, and my brain is too busy processing to come up with something to say. This is probably 90% because of autism, but the other 35% is just because I was never around enough people growing up. There’s no social instinct that tells me what to do.

So my solution is to act out how I’m feeling. I put a megaphone to what my brain is processing and speak it out, putting effort into being as expressive as possible. In an almost cartoonish manner, I become a character who represents what I truly feel inside, and clearly showing others what that looks like.

In a way, this feels disingenuous, like I’m just overreacting and pretending how I feel about everything. Yet it is how I feel about everything - just not how I would react to it normally. And as I practice more and people respond favorably, it has started to become instinct in a few cases, a truly genuine response. In a way, I’m finding my own voice!

Plus, since I have little prior experience, I’m able to start with a blank slate and mold it into the character I want to show myself as. I get to choose the kinds of responses I give, ones that (hopefully) make people feel comfortable and happy. Of course, that’s still a work in progress, but I like to think that it’s working ^_^

I have no idea how much of this makes sense to read, but I hope it gives an interesting glimpse into how my introverted self is trying to break free from being stuck in my head all the time!