How can I stop myself from staring at people in a strange way?

Hello doctor,

I am afraid of eye contacts with people, which started a few months back. I cannot figure out how it first started, but just suddenly one day, I started to feel strange when I am facing people. I could be talking to them in a normal way, and then suddenly I would feel like I am looking at them in a strange way. The strangest thing is, this is not just my feeling, the other person can see the strange way of me looking at them. I do not know exactly how my looking at them makes them feel, but I could notice a sudden change in their reaction towards me. They would look at me in a strange way as well, and then quickly finish the conversation and walk away.

When I am facing customer service people, it is the same. I feel like I cannot look at people in a normal way. I have received very bad service many times just because of my weird eye contact. And because this has happened so many times, I am getting more nervous when I have to face people now. I would be afraid that my way of looking at people would make them feel bad. But the more I am afraid that would happen, the worse I would be. I am not sure what is the reason for this happening to me. Maybe it a lack of confidence or nervousness, but I am not sure. This is a terrible condition that I am having, and it feels terrible that my strange way of looking at people make them feel bad. And it also makes me feel so awful because people are treating me badly. And I am driving people away from me.

I am suffering from depression and schizophrenia. I am taking Aripiprazole, and all the symptoms are under control. Could this be part of schizophrenia? Can a higher dose of medication help? I do not want to increase the dose of medication if possible. I am taking 10 mg of Aripiprazole every day at the moment. Before I go to sleep, I could imagine the way that I want myself to be. And if I continue to do this, after a while I would become how I want myself to be. I think this method might help me with this issue of eye contact. But I am not sure how I should do it. Should I just repeat the affirmation to myself? Affirmations like 'I am a friendly person,' 'people are nice to me,' etc. I am a friendly person inside, and it is just my strange way of looking at people which I cannot control. Or should I imagine in my mind a scenario that I am facing a customer service person, and imagine that I am looking at him or her in a natural and normal way? Would this work? I hope I could use autosuggestion to cure this problem. Can you tell me how exactly I can do this?

Hi doctor,

Thanks so much for your reply. Do you mean that I should just look into my own eyes in the mirror at first and do not talk or anything until I feel the 'strange eye contact'? I tried to look into my own eyes in front of the mirror, and I also tried to talk to myself in the mirror. But during all that process I did not feel any strange eye contact happening. I forgot to mention that the strange eye contact does not happen in front of my close family members. Maybe because I have confidence in front of them and do not feel nervous in front of them. But looking into my eyes in front of the mirror, it makes me think that maybe this practice can help me be more confident when facing people because I am looking into a face and can see that my eyes look normal. Or can I practice to look at photos of different faces and look into their eyes in the photo? Then I might get used to facing people if I continue practicing this way.