If you make that face, it'll stay like that.

I was told this as well, so I'd try to look as sad, afraid and angry as possible. I'd contort my face for hours, trying to push the corners of my mouth down till it hurt. I wanted it to stay like that, so when I went to school the next day somebody would ask me what's wrong and I could tell them about my father beating the shit out of me every day. Unfortunately, it did not stay and nobody asked.