how did you find out about eye-contact?

Post Reply New Topic

I took a long time to notice. My parents never complained - to be honest, I don't remember if I did look people in the eye when I was very little but as long as I can remember I looked somewhere else when talking or listening.
I only started to practice eye contact when I went to therapy (for other reasons than AS, as I am not - yet - officially diagnosed). I know of the importance and I became better in maintaining "natural" looking/not-looking intervals but it still feels odd, uncomfortable and occupies part of my mind.
Quite recently I decided to not force myself into doing that if it doesn't serve an immediate purpose other than making someone I don't care about feel better. I certainly feel better since then, although for most people around me I probably seem distracted, nervous or anxious.
I look at their mouth instead if it is a noisy environment; that helps me understand what they're saying by reading their lips and isn't totally away from them so they still feel listened to.

I do the lip reading thing, too, which seems to work OK for whoever I'm talking to, they only begin to appear concerned if I start looking someplace other than their face. It also helps me understand what they are saying, which can be hard if I'm not looking at their lips-- auditory processing issues. I became aware of this long before I knew about asperger's, and I thought it was weird, and I tried to make myself look in people's eyes, but I couldn't figure out how to do it properly. If I just stare at their eyes, they seem to get distressed. I read once that most people look each other in the eye, with brief glances away from the eyes several times at minute. So I tried that, which really didn't work, I couldn't even hear what they were saying, I was too focused on trying to get the eye contact right, and they would start to get that look they get when they think I'm extremely weird. So I went back to my usual lip reading, with no further problems.

I can't look at people at all sometimes if I don't like them, or if I'm upset at them. This has gotten a lot of comments from folks. NT's hate this. It really freaks them out, but it is so hard to look at someone if I don't like them.

I'm 22 and massively struggle with eye contact, I don't look at people when I talk to them and if I'm with somebody who I'm around a lot I can occasionally look at them but it's just a glance. If I focus on looking into people's eyes I miss conversations

When i was in 1st grade, the principal of my school scolded me for not making eye contact with him. Ever since then, I have tried to do it better. However, I still have difficulty with it. I usually either look at someone occasionally during a conversation or make a conscious effort to do it throughout the conversation. In fact, I hadn't really thought about it too much until I started researching Aspergers in earnest a few weeks ago. Since then I have made a bigger effort to do it and try to see what the other person's eyes were telling me. I still come up blank most of the time but it will be entertaining to see if I can crack this code about human behavior.

Luckily no one's given me any trouble for lack of eye contact. I started working on eye contact when I was in school, since I heard/read that eye contact makes people feel listened to and valued. If I have any social strengths at all, it's listening, so I decided to try that. I think it's made a difference in my first impressions. However, it's a struggle processing and figuring out what I'm going to say when the other person is finished. I definitely find eye contact a little overwhelming, as if eyes really are the window to the soul.

But on the bright side, the closer I get to a person, the less eye contact I can get away with. With my family, I don't give them much eye contact at all when we're talking. They're totally ok with that. But I sense that my family is different than most. I'd say we all have aspie traits to some extent or other.

I have several eye disorders so not only do I find eye contact uncomfortable but it is physically impossible for me to hold it before my eyes start doing their own thing.

my adoptive "mother" (I think of her as that woman I as randomly assigned to...) used to scream at me to "look at her" when she was in full drama mode. Best I could manage was her mouth. That seemed to satisfy her, she would continue on with whatever had set her off, as long as I stared at her mouth.