bakaneko =) why does it hurt to smile? O.o and laugh? Akagi Ritsuko What exactly are you doing to your face? Unless you have some form of facial injury, it shouldn't hurt to do either of those things. I would advise watching other people smile and laugh, and try to emulate that. You should not need to spread your cheeks that wide or laugh that hard in order for people to understand you are smiling or laughing. Alucard Tepis I think, Dr. Akagi, she's speaking emotional, not physical pain. bakaneko, if it is any small comfort, you are hardly alone. If something has you sad or in emotional pain, holding it inside and trying to put on a brave face by trying to smile and laugh can make you feel worse than if you just let it out, and allowed yourself to be as expressively miserable as you feel. Sometimes you have to do it. But, ask yourself if you are simply being too hard on yourself and should really let others know how you are feeling? Expressing feelings helps us to deal with the emotions we are going through. It gives us a way to let the emotional "energy" out. Trying to show the world an emotion that you aren't feeling just forces you to bottle that energy up inside and expend even more to try and fake the other.