Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

[Guest guest]

Haven't posted in awhile, sorry. I've been painting & reading and charging into the new school year. The books were Ender's Game and The Fountainhead. WOW, can't believe it took me until now to read these. The painting I've been doing is in our living room & kitchen area. Problematic with two dogs around but I've found it enjoyable to let my mind wander while rolling it out.

Raven, Tom, & , thanks for doing what you do and the passion and zeal you have for this.

Hi to any new persons aboard.

This is a new book out and I was wondering if anyone has heard about it.

Kim

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by Elder Robison HardcoverAvailable: Now

Video: Elder Robison Talks About His Book http://e.bordersstores.com/a/hBHAcEcAQfEXsBbY14CALVtcv1s/bio40

The older brother of author Augusten Burroughs (Running with Scissors), Robison spent a good part of his life feeling awkward and out of place. Living in the mayhem that was his home probably didn't help. Diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at the age of 40, Elder Robison hopes to shed light on the disorder for others who are struggling with the socially inhibiting symptoms. Poignant, thoughtful, and eye opening, this memoir is as entertaining as it is enlightening.

ExcerptPrologue"Look me in the eye, young man!"

I cannot tell you how many times I heard that shrill, whining refrain. It started about the time I got to first grade. I heard it from parents, relatives, teachers, principals, and all manner of other people. I heard it so often I began to expect to hear it.

Sometimes it would be punctuated by a jab from a ruler or one of those rubber-tipped pointers teachers used in those days. The teachers would say, "Look at me when I'm speaking to you!" I would squirm and continue looking at the floor, which would just make them madder. I would glance up at their hostile faces and feel squirmier and more uncomfortable and unable to form words, and I would quickly look away. My father would say, "Look at me! What are you hiding?"

"Nothing."

If my father had been drinking, he might interpret "nothing" as a smart-aleck answer and come after me. By the time I was in grade school, my father was buying his Gallo wine by the gallon jug, and he had made a pretty big dent in a jug every evening before I went to bed. He kept drinking long into the night, too. He would say, "Look at me," and I would stare at the abstract composition of empty wine bottles stacked behind the chair and under the table. I looked at anything but him. When I was little, I ran and hid from him, and sometimes he chased me while waving his belt. Sometimes my mother would save me, sometimes not. When I got bigger and stronger and amassed a formidable collection of knives (about age twelve), he realized I was becoming dangerous and quit before coming to a bad end over "Look me in the eye." Everyone thought they understood my behavior. They thought it was simple: I was just no good.

"Nobody trusts a man who won't look them in the eye."

"You look like a criminal."

"You're up to something. I know it!"

Most of the time, I wasn't. I didn't know why they were getting agitated. I didn't even understand what looking someone in the eye meant. And yet I felt ashamed, because people expected me to do it, and I knew it, and yet I didn't. So what was wrong with me?

"Sociopath" and "psycho" were two of the most common field diagnoses for my look and expression. I heard it all the time: "I've read about people like you. They have no expression because they have no feeling. Some of the worst murderers in history were sociopaths."

I came to believe what people said about me, because so many said the same thing, and the realization that I was defective hurt. I became shyer, more withdrawn. I began to read about deviant personalities and wonder if I would one day "go bad." Would I grow up to be a killer? I had read that they were shifty and didn't look people in the eyes.

I pondered it endlessly. I didn't attack people. I didn't start fires. I didn't torture animals. I had no desire to kill anyone. Yet. Maybe that would come later, though. I spent a lot of time wondering whether I would end up in prison. I read about them and determined that the federal ones were nicer. If I were ever incarcerated, I hoped for a medium-security federal prison, not a vicious state prison like Attica. I was well into my teenage years before I figured out that I wasn't a killer, or worse. By then, I knew I wasn't being shifty or evasive when I failed to meet someone's gaze, and I had started to wonder why so many adults equated that behavior with shiftiness and evasiveness. Also, by then I had met shifty and scummy people who did look me in the eye, making me think the people who complained about me were hypocrites.

To this day, when I speak, I find visual input to be distracting. When I was younger, if I saw something interesting I might begin to watch it and stop speaking entirely. As a grown-up, I don't usually come to a complete stop, but I may still pause if something catches my eye. That's why I usually look somewhere neutral—at the ground or off into the distance—when I'm talking to someone. Because speaking while watching things has always been difficult for me, learning to drive a car and talk at the same time was a tough one, but I mastered it.

And now I know it is perfectly natural for me not to look at someone when I talk. Those of us with Asperger's are just not comfortable doing it. In fact, I don't really understand why it's considered normal to stare at someone's eyeballs.

It was a great relief to finally understand why I don't look people in the eye. If I had known this when I was younger, I might have been spared a lot of hurt.

Sixty years ago, the Austrian psychiatrist Hans Asperger wrote about children who were smart, with above average vocabulary, but who exhibited a number of behaviors common to people with autism, such as pronounced deficiencies in social and communication skills. The condition was named Asperger's syndrome in 1981. In 1984, it was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders used by mental health professionals.

Asperger's has always been with us, but it's a condition that has flown under the radar until quite recently. When I was a child, mental heath workers incorrectly diagnosed most Asperger's as depression, schizophrenia, or a host of other disorders.

Asperger's syndrome isn't all bad. It can bestow rare gifts. Some Aspergians have truly extraordinary natural insight into complex problems. An Aspergian child may grow up to be a brilliant engineer or scientist. Some have perfect pitch and otherworldly musical abilities. Many have such exceptional verbal skills that some people refer to the condition as Little Professor Syndrome. But don't be misled—most Aspergian kids do not grow up to be college professors. Growing up can be rough.

Asperger's exists along a continuum—some people exhibit the symptoms to such a degree that their ability to function alone in society is seriously impaired. Others, like me, are affected mildly enough that they can make their own way, after a fashion. Some Aspergians have actually been remarkably successful by finding work that showcases their unique abilities.

And Asperger's is turning out to be surprisingly common: A February 2007 report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 1 person in 150 has Asperger's or some other autistic spectrum disorder. That's almost two million people in the United States alone.

Asperger's is something you are born with—not something that happens later in life. It was evident in me at a very early age, but, unfortunately, no one knew what to look for. All my parents knew was that I was different from the other kids. Even as a toddler, an observer would have thought that I was not quite right. I walked with a mechanical, robotic gait. I moved clumsily. My facial expressions were rigid, and I seldom smiled. Often I failed to respond to other people at all. I acted as if they weren't even there. Most of the time, I stayed alone, in my own little world, apart from my peers. I could be completely oblivious to my surroundings, totally absorbed in a pile of Tinkertoys. When I did interact with other kids, the interactions were usually awkward. I seldom met anyone's gaze.

Also, I never sat still; I bobbed and weaved and bounced. But with all that movement, I could never catch a ball or do anything athletic. My grandfather was a track star in college, a runner-up for the United States Olympic Team. Not me!

If I were a child today, it is possible that an observer would pick up on these things and refer me for evaluation, thereby saving me from the worst of the experiences I describe in this book. I was, as my brother said, raised without a diagnosis.

It was a lonely and painful way to grow up.

Asperger's is not a disease. It's a way of being. There is no cure, nor is there a need for one. There is, however, a need for knowledge and adaptation on the part of Aspergian kids and their families and friends. I hope readers—especially those who are struggling to grow up or live with Asperger's—will see that the twists and turns and unconventional choices I made led to a pretty good life, and will learn from my story. It took a long while for me to get to this place, to learn who I am. My days of hiding in the corner or crawling under a rock are over. I am proud to be an Aspergian.

Copyright © 2007 by Elder Robison. All rights reserved.