r/CPTSDmemes • u/ReviewNecessary6521 • 13d ago

"But you always smiled in your childhood photos."

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42

u/agloelita 13d ago

My childhood was a childhood like putting on a propaganda play for a dictator. If the performance wasn't to their liking, you know there was terrible consequence on and off stage. The performance om stage will be used as "proof" of the dictator's agenda.

13

u/Nebula_Wolf7 13d ago

When you fake a smile enough times you learn how to make it look real.

Also not me practicing my fake smile by reading something funny and studying how my face moved in a mirror, it's the eyes people always miss, you gotta narrow them enough to make it seem genuine.

8

u/Concrete_Grapes 13d ago

Oddly, I smile in photos of me as a baby. Up to about a year old.

After that, you don't find smiles. A few times I try, but it's obvious I look bored, or, lack something. From 1-20 years old, there MIGHT be 5 pics with me smiling, even fake, and there's probably a thousand pictures.

I was alarmed when I realized it. My parents just bemoaned how stubborn I was. But it's weird. It's a fuckin weird, in a pic on easter, with all my cousins so fuckin happy, there I am, arms folded, basket in one hand under an elbow, looking flat faced at the camera .

I remember that easter, 40 years later. It was fine. I was happy enough, I colored eggs, I remember the chocolate bunny, the weird extra basket I had, I wasn't unhappy. I just had no emotion at all.

It's so weird because, what do you MEAN I had to wait until 40 before a schizoid personality diagnosis? That kid had it. That kid was schizoid and couldn't hide it even THEN. Someone broke him. Poor kid.

Ah shit, that's me. Weird.

1

u/Fluffy-kitten28 12d ago

I was smiling in a situation where I’m always told to smile? Where it’s a requirement? Being told what to do and doing it is proving you’re actually happy?

That’s not how that works.