A question from an NT - Have some pretty good answers now, thanks!
I've asked this in a couple different places on Facebook, but nobody seems to have noticed, so...
I have a question for all the autistics/Aspies on here, and I would like to have it answered in as much detail as possible (please and thank you :))
I plan to write a book following two autistic characters. I've worked so closely autism I have a pretty good idea of how it works and what it's like inside the autistic mind, but I'd like to be able to write it in as much detail as possible. So, I ask you this: if you don't make eye contact, why exactly not? How do you feel when somebody forces/tries to force it on you? If you stim, why exactly? (Note: I'm not asking what you do to stim; that information is NOT important for what I want to know. I just want to know WHY you stim.) Thank you very much for your help.
Eye contact is uncomfortable. I don't know the 'rules' for it. I make myself look in people's eyes sometimes, but mostly I find myself looking at their mouths. If I can't see someone's mouth, it's harder to follow what they're saying, yet I'm not hard-of-hearing. I can't think when I have to figure out how to look into someone's eyes. I only do it because it's expected.
As for stimming...I used to rub my eyebrows until I wore the hair off. I still do it now and then, but not to that point. I also find my self biting my lip or the inside of my cheek, especially when I'm concentrating. In the last few years, I've started picking at the skin on my thumbs. I pick until they're practically raw, but it's relaxing and I can feel the tension being relieved.
I grew up with every label from ADD to PDD/NOS, before as an adult they said, 'OH, you're Autistic', yeah, DUH.
Growing up without benefit of that dx, you have it forced on you that you MUST look people in the eye or you'll be punished. As a result, I appear to look you in the eye, while I actually focus on something behind you, or occasionally on a piece of the person, ie, ear, nose, usually mouth, though. But people perceive it that I'm looking at them.
I doubt this is really helpful.
When forced to directly look someone in the eye, I allow my focus to go fuzzy and it makes it where I don't see them. If you watch my eyes, my pupils will dilate some when I do this (yeah, I was curious what my eye did when it went out of focus, so I filmed it).
Eye contact just feels uncomfortable, and with watching lips, I can catch some of the words people say, not many. I don't understand them at all without watching the lips.
Stimming. I stim a lot. When I'm excited I flap my hands, especially around music. I need a lot of touch, I like deep pressure. Pulling my hair and digging at my skin does that, as does hitting my head, but I try not to do those because I know in my head that it will hurt me. So I rub my head a lot, with pressure. I smell my fingers and hair, helps with being overwhelmed by all the smells around me. I rock and it's calming.
That's a good way of saying it.
I don't know if upset or angry quite hit it. It's a very uncomfortable thing, and depending on how insistent and demanding they are, it can make me quite irate. It is very anxiety-inducing when people are insistent. Noone has ever really busted me on my non-eye contact eye contact, lol. The only way I've had trouble with someone realizing I wasn't really looking them in the eye was if my mind wandered and i started looking in other directions. Truly I can have my eyes focused dead at someone's eyes, yet have my eyes out of focus and never SEE their eyes. I know that sounds hard to explain, and it IS hard to explain, but I can do it. if you have video chat ability, my gmail/gchat id is eva.77.robinson@gmail.com I'm online almost fulltime, and I will happily gchat on video with you, and I think I can show you what I mean that way.
I also was raised without the benefit of the diagnosis so I was forced to make eye contact. It was always very hard for me because it overstimulates me. I have trouble both hearing and looking at the same time so I get confused by the facial expressions (or lost in them) so that I can't hear what was said. Or if I focus only on what a person is saying then I have to make little to no eye contact. It's been hard trying to explain this to NTs who think I am not listening if I am not looking. It is quite opposite with me. So anyway, I don't look much now and I am much better at comprehending what was said as well as not getting as overstimulated or emotionally dysregulated by other people. It took a long time to learn that it really was much easier for me not to look all the time at people. Apparently from what my mom said I didn't look at all when I was a toddler and that it was only when people started forcing me was when I started looking. I don't know what they did to punish me but it must have been severe enough to be worth it for me to look at people. Now at 28, I like to look into the eyes of a very close friend or partner when we are alone but other than that I don't look at people.
As for stimming, I do that to help drown out all the extraneous stimulation that is getting in the way of concentrating on what I am supposed to be concentrating on. Or to numb out if things are too overwhelming. I do it a lot when my brain is on overload, usually when there are too many loud noises of certain pitches that irritate my nervous system along with too many bright lights or people touching me and smells etc....if I get on overload you bet I'll be stimming! I can't think of any other reason I might stim. Probably if something happens with someone, like I am angry at someone, or sad about something and it's too much emotion for me to hold, I may stim.
Hope that helps.
-squirrel
I'd like to ask a question? Why are you interested in creating a character with ASD?
Perhaps if i know your motivation I can better understand what you need?
I recently came across a writer on another Autie site asking questions. He was less open than you are and he didn't seem to know anything about ASD so a couple of us challenged him a bit. That site has a large number of very naive people IMO None of of are especially worldly but I feel very protective of us.
One answer i would give to yr question is that not looking in yr eyes while answering this allows me a clear space to think. Eye gazing is too distracting for thinking. I have loads of tricks i have developed to give others the impression i am looking at them when I am not. My powers of observation are such that i can notice how other people don't look others in the eye while talking. Some of it actually makes me look good. Actors playing Sherlock Holmes do lots of these things. Gazing off into the distance while listening. Some don't work too well like his staring too hard at times. Way too intense for many people.
Fidgeting with an object is a good way to stim on the sly. Perhaps smoking is a form of stimming for many. When upset the stimming gets worse. All people self comfort. It is a way to calm down when over stimulated or upset. It is just more "out there" than most as we need a bit more calming down than most people.
If you know anything about Aspies, you will know that we are honest to the point of tactlessness. So here's my answer to your question: DON'T.
Aspie adults are all but invisible in the media. Portrayals of us by NTs tend to be a sort of ticked-off lists of traits, all very planking and obvious - pedantic speech, obsessions, not understanding colloquialism, savantism, etc etc bloody etc. Then NTs read these books, see these films, and think we're All Like That. And every time we say the word "Asperger's" we have to explain that it's NOTHING LIKE RAINMAN and NOTHING LIKE "THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME". And this drives me up the wall.
Since we are so under-represented and so stereotyped, I believe that autistic people ought to write the first books about autistic life. When there are dozens of popular titles about us, then the NTs can have a go. We do not want NTs representing us. We are perfectly capable of doing that for ourselves. In the 1950s, say, LGBT people would not get into print, and would have all sorts of rubbish written about them. We Aspies are pretty much at that stage. We need to write our own stories.
Asking why we don't like looking people in the eye is much like a heterosexual asking a lesbian what it feels like to fancy other women: it indicates, I would say, an impossible distance from your subject.
I am sick to death of other people speaking for me - whether they be NT parents of autistic kids, "experts", or sympathetic liberals. I don't want any more of it.
I found that reading other people's comments to be helpful to me... helps me make sense of my experience. And it makes me think that my making eye contact is stressful for me even though I do it (because I'm supposed to); I think it adds to my sense of overload and why I find human interaction so stressful and have to keep it to a minimum. Around the house, I communicate a lot without ever looking at anyone's face. Eye contact is more often than not saved for sitting/standing face-to-face, and mostly, that is with people I don't know as well. Perhaps this is why I always liked riding in a car with my ex-partners... we could talk for long periods and I never had to look. And I can't focus on anything other than the words... someone has to be obviously angry for me to notice it, and cues like jangingly keys? I see it happen, but my brain doesn't process until after the person is gone. Too much to take in at once.
So thanks for asking the question.
I never knew I was making less eyecontact that others until somebody told me I was "on the spectrum" and I started putting the pieces together and was informally diagnosed. Making eye contact briefly is fine for me. I can make long eyecontact with speakers and teachers and people that are addressing the group, but not one-t0-one. With speakers, often they stare back and it does not bother me at all, in fact i just figure they are glad somebody is actually paying attention. With a person I am conversing with, eye contact feels too intimate. I can almost see into them or something and I don't want to know them that deeply. (I am just thinking and saying what I remember). It also feels like they can see into me too and I don't want to be known that well either. It's like it's overwhelming going both ways. Also I don't want them to know what I am thinking. I don't stim.
I recognize myself in your description. Perhaps the difference has to do with the fact that as a member of a group/in a classroom you are playing the role of audience... and it's a controlled environment. Whereas, one on one the environment is not controlled and you are not playing a role; you're being you. That's a more vulnerable position to be in.
For me the issue is whether it is a controlled environment and whether I'm playing a role if it is not. (I'm not talking about eye contact here, but whether I am comfortable in the interaction.) For example, I can play the role of crisis counselor, mediator, business person making an initial contact, church greeter. I can be a workshop facilitator/speaker. After church, when everyone else is getting coffee and catching up on their personal lives, I can make new people feel comfortable by playing the role of someone who makes new people comfortable. I am not likely to be thought weird playing a role and only meeting people a limited number of times. However, in the work place, over time, I fail water cooler and eventually the "weird" label gets applied because the environment is less controlled and I can't keep up a role.
What I have trouble doing is talking to people I already know in the unstructured coffee time after church. At work (before I became disabled), I didn't know how to judge how much time to devote to building a friendly relationship... how to mix that in with work. When to talk, how much to say, how long to talk.
So my whole life I have gravitated toward controlled environments. And where the environment is not controlled, I try to create a role for myself so I can limit awkward social situations.
Because of my giving too much eye contact (or also being too real), NTs have accused me of "reading their minds" and looking into other people's souls. While I miss facial cues, I tend to be very empathetic when I first meet people and that makes them feel uncomfortable... that combined with the eye contact. Ugh! Again, I fail coffee and water cooler.
For me I always felt that I was on trial whenever I had to make eye contact as a child, that part is better, though now I am uncomfortable mostly because I have a lazy eye. I used to chew on my hair alot, then a pen as I got older, it helped ne focus and not get overwhelmed.
Eye contact is emotionally disorganizing for me. So if I try to look at someone's eyes, all my resources are devoted to emotional processing and I can't listen or think of what I want to say. It interferes with other processing.
Stimming is a way for me to calm myself by letting my attention rest on something simple and repetitive. That reduces emotional arousal and lets me think again.
Some of us make and want eye contact. Somewhere I understood eye contact was important and so it became a rule for me, but apparently I make too much eye contact. Having gotten that message in many different ways, I try to mix it up and look away. Apparently (from reading body language books), when you're comfortable with someone (NTs), you can look away more, and when you are very intimate (you can look longer... psychopaths also use longer looks to create instant intimacy). In trying to mix it up and look more normal by looking away (I mean literally making sure I am looking away), I feel very weird... like I look like I am guilty or something. Probably because looking away does not come natural to me. Fixing someone in my gaze does.
Everyone stims, including NTs... people with Asperger's may do it more in general. I stimmed a lot as a kid/teen/early adult. I chewed pencils, pens, and my nails, flipped my hair non-stop, rocked my knee, made a repetitive tapping noise with both feet that was rhythmic (always the same rhythm), and straightened my arm and eyebrow hair. I understood this made me look weird to other people, and I stopped the chewing at age 12, I eventually stopped the flipping, rocking, and tapping in my 20s, and the last two hair straightening stims in my 40s. Onset of very stressful situations makes some of these tempting even today.
People say that stimming for both NTs and folk with autism is relaxing, helps calm the mind. I chose to focus on my breath as a way to not stim and that focus helped calm me. When I would feel the need to stim, I would try to acknowledge that and then focus on my breathing.
My two cents.
~~~ Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. - Kurt Vonnegut