For as long as I can remember, my family used to joke about my "Paddington Bear hard stare." Whenever I looked at people with a fixed, intense, or unblinking gaze, it was laughed off as a quirky little habit.
It wasn't until my late autism diagnosis at 45 that the puzzle pieces finally clicked.
In the diagnostic criteria, they talk about "differences in non-verbal communication," which can include a fixed or stiff gaze. But looking back with love and clarity at my younger self, I now know exactly what that stare really was: a coping mechanism.
When you are neurodivergent, processing a conversation isn’t simple. Your brain is trying to decode words, read facial expressions, filter out background sensory noise, and manage internal thoughts all at once. Sometimes, to focus entirely on listening and processing, your eyes and facial muscles just freeze. It can also be what happens when we try so hard to force "normal" eye contact that it ends up feeling binary—total focus or looking away entirely.
Turning neurodivergent traits into family jokes is so common for girls who grow up undiagnosed. It’s how the world laughs off our differences instead of trying to understand our comfort levels.
To any woman out there who was teased for being "too intense," for "staring," or for having a face that didn't do what society expected it to do: you weren't peculiar. You were a brilliant child navigating a high-sensory world using the exact processing tools your brain gave you.
Our "hard stares" weren't a defect—they were our focus, our processing, and our protection.