It is my serial killer face, disconcerting even to me. 

An I-am-Dead-Inside blank expression, perhaps the addition of a slight smirk when discussing things unpleasant or horrifying.  Maybe even a giggle, badly stifled. 

A conditioned response, far removed from conscious thought, way way out of the understanding of others.  Even my counselling-degree-graduated friends have never clued on.  Although they have psychobabble names for it: “blunt affect”, “flat affect”, or “inappropriate”. 

Irrespective of the label, a body broadcasting a combination of dead and amused or just dead, makes others pause, then take a long inner-self step back as their guessing game begins, them desperate to interpret my expression (or lack thereof). 

Stone-cold hearted?  Disdainful, aloof, bored, sour, clueless, menacing? The kinder ones see it as the wise, thoughtful expression of a sage.

And every single one of them (kind or not), fail to recognise that this death mask is my ‘front’ face.  Neatly obscuring the real one, visible solely to me. 

Which is unfortunate, because as I beam at friends, I puzzle at their “hello Grumpy” greeting, alarmed at their failure to recognise an upturned mouth as that universal symbol of happy. 

Forgetting that the smile in question exists only on my ‘behind’ face. 

I simply cannot consistently remember to jerk the expression forward.  Even the I-will-train-her-to-match-facial-expressions-to-emotions-and-contexts determination of therapists has failed to reliably join the two. 

There seems no antidote for my rifted faces, parted far too long ago for full reconciliation.

See, the front face was fashioned by 10-year-old me in a survival-of-the-fittest manoeuvre, cleverly crafted to mask real emotion.  Expressions must be fake or absent, I decided.  If they do not know what I really feel, they can harm me, but not destroy me.  Not completely.

So, happy, sad, petrified, angry, whatever…feel that pull of an arising emotion and my features changed as one face glided over the other, guarding the real me.

My expression was rarely genuine.  My mouth a fibber even when closed. 

It was an impressive survival strategy.

Threaten me, and there was no reaction.  Call me names – not a flicker on my face.  Never tears. 

But.  But.

Physically harm me and that eerie mask suddenly smiled and laughed.  A sound as hollow as my eyes, as disturbing as his smothering laughter. On and on it went. Until the awfulness of it all floated me away.  Every haywire ounce of fear, sadness, anger shrouded as my features blanked out. 

That laughing version of the mask (overused), served just one purpose - the pain ended faster when I laughed.  It all ended better when I had that happy face glued on. 

To abusers, tears are rejection, frowns a red flag to a bull. 

Smiles won praise. 

But even my own sent shivers up my spine. 

And laughter can still hook fear.

Clever the strategy may have been, but crafted by a child’s troubled mind, the mask was limited to those two expressions:  dead or inappropriately merry (with an occasional false-smile-for-family-photo version).  Clad too often in it, by adulthood I forgot there were expression ‘choices’ – a facial smorgasbord of them visible to others.  Which matched my emotions.  And which I did not use.  And when I did dimly recall the options, producing them was now effortful, like mobilising Botox-ed lips. 

Years on, despite practice, age, ?wisdom, prompting, and despite my malicious wrenching, inner-child me still cannot quite part with that mask. 

A bone of contention between us. 

Because, even I recognise the inappropriateness of that flash of fear when I hear laughter, my own manic chuckling over my banged knee, my mouth reluctantly twisting at that joke – a battle between two faces as one attempts to conceal the emotion.  

Even I can see the confusion it may cause, all of us wishing in vain that my expression (or lack of) would arrive with an explanation.

So, comment if you must, about my creepy face.

But do not interpret it, those features of a child in a homemade mask.  A bit battered from age and use, peeling in places, and unable to be entirely removed – like melted cling wrap. 

I am not unfeeling – that trait of psychopaths.

But, I am two faced.