ADULTS WITH MOEBIUS--SHOWING SURPRISE, IRRITATION, ETC
My friend Sophie on Facebook earlier asked a very good question--when you are an adult with Moebius, you of course don't have the facial movement or expression that you wish you have; you can't show some of the emotion you'd like to.  So how do you go about showing that you are surprised, or not happy about something?

Now of course, the good news is--as several people quickly and rightly pointed out--that your friends, the people who know you, can usually tell right away when you feel surprised, or are not pleased with something.  They know you.  They've been around you.  They can tell when your mood changes.  It's hard to exactly explain why that is; each of us with Moebius must display that in different ways.  Maybe it's because our body posture changes.  Or we look away and don't make eye contact.  I suspect especially that, when we're perhaps a bit angry about something, our faces might flush, and our body temperature--both real and imagined!--rises.  And people just sense things like this.

But I think there's an important caveat to this, and something we must keep in mind.  And that is--yes, our close friends, and our family members can see and sense this.  But remember--those who do NOT know us that well perhaps can't sense it.  And there are going to be plenty of times when we're out there in the world, making our way, and thus having to deal with those who don't know us that well.  And so we can't just rely on the notion that, well, don't worry about it, if you're mad or shocked at something, people will automatically just know.  Maybe they won't.

And so, yes, as several already pointed out on FB--persons with Moebius, and connected to it, are awfully smart--sometimes you have to do things to make this clear.  And we can do it.  We can compensate.  And the way you do it, I think, is through body language and posture.  Here's how I do it (although I can't say I always thought it through--I just kind of developed these techniques unconsciously, over time):  1] if I want to show I'm surprised, sometimes I'll step back, open my hands wide, and say "wow, I didn't know that, I'm surprised."  I think that's one key:  you either have to say something, or make more exaggerated gestures, to drive the point home of what you're thinking and feeling.

2] If I'm not happy with something--and, like Sophie, luckily that doesn't happen too too often--I think I'll tend to look away, and shake my head.  And then usually I'll have to say something--"No, I don't agree, I don't think that's right."  I think if I'm really mad, I'll get kind of stiff and put my hands on my hips.  But with those you don't know, that's the key--remember, they don't understand you through and through like your close friends and others, so you may have to compensate, and make sure your body language expressses what you want to express.  Of course, you've got to do it carefully and not go overboard, thus giving people any wrong ideas (don't for example use a real angry posture for something that's not a big deal).

No facial expression?  We can compensate.  You probably already do it; you may just not realize it.  Here's hoping though that, most often, what you're doing is using a body posture that expresses happiness. :+)


“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43)