not being able to tell whether you're showing emotion

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invisibleboy
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30 Jun 2015, 7:49 pm

I'm an amateur actor and one of the things I've worked to overcome is a flat affect. Even as recently as a few years ago, I ended up disclosing my diagnosis to one director I thought I could trust, because I needed to let them know what difficulties I was having (for example, the flat affect) so that they could let me know how I was coming across so I could adjust accordingly. It helped, because there were times I was coming across a bit flat and while that sometimes works with the character, it didn't in this case and I needed to adjust. Having an open dialogue with the director helped me fine tune it because I couldn't tell on my own.

Does anyone else have trouble telling how much or how little they are emoting? I think with practice, and the experience with the fine tuning I mentioned above, I've learned how to pass better/show emotion more appropriately. I've found recently that now I actually emote more than I feel like I do, because people's reactions surprise me. When I think I'm not showing emotion, other people can actually pick up on the emotions I'm feeling, even when sometimes I'm not even aware that I'm FEELING it until it is pointed out.

I've worked so hard over the years to SHOW emotion that I'm kind of surprised that now I do when I'm unaware of it.


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ToughDiamond
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01 Jul 2015, 12:36 am

I've sometimes been surprised to find that people seem to have read my emotions when I thought I wasn't displaying any. A supervisor of mine began to explain a task she wanted me to do, and then completely backed down. All the time I'd been thinking "that doesn't sound like my kind of thing," but I really thought I'd managed to stay inscrutable. She wasn't the type to give way to protest when she delegated. Another time, a doctor told me I was looking very stressed out when I thought I was acting completely calmly - indeed I'd thought I was calm, though when he asked me if anything stressful had happened to me recently, I remembered that I'd had a blazing row with somebody I was close to the previous evening.

Yet I've also noticed the opposite, e.g. feeling anxious or upset, and on explaining this, people telling me they'd never have thought so by the look of me.

My general affect is (I believe) fairly calm but not lacklustre - I hardly ever express emotions in vivid ways, rarely raising my voice in anger or delight. I don't usually talk in a monotone voice except when I'm tired or bored, but there's a limit to how much tone variation I use - my voice is noticeably animated, but never more than moderately so. I use my choice of vocabulary to convey the greater part of my emotions. I guess it's because I find over-animated voices rather overwhelming, and they seem false and sometimes undignified to me, so I try not to inflict that kind of thing on people myself. I use some gestures while talking, though not to the extreme. I sometimes wonder if I tend to come over as rather unconvincing because of underplaying my communication, but I have little hard evidence for it. I perform music sometimes, and when I talk to the audience between songs, I'm pretty sure I don't project very well (though when I sing I use a wide dynamic range for dramatic effect and for the conveying of various emotions), but I've noticed that many amateur musicians sound similarly weak and mumbly when speaking to the audience, compared to professional showmen.



nick007
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04 Jul 2015, 12:45 pm

I show emotions but I have problems showing the emotions I'm feeling. What I show gets misinterpreted.


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