Anyone read "Look Me In the Eye" yet?

Post Reply New Topic

CLICK HERE FOR AUGUSTIN BURROUGHS WEBSITE

All I know about "Running With Scissors", is that it is another look at the life these two brother's shared, as well as more specific details of Christopher's (his birth name) life when John was not around.

I'll know more when I read it, but you might find info on his website.

Jeeze, I cant remember if you were on david letterman, i think so, I happened to catch a glymps of it while on break at work, heard about the book and watched because I was curious, it looks very facinating, tho I dont have much time these days, i, considereing purchasing a copy this weekend and reading it. I think they said on tv you worked for a toy company, as an engineer (my father is an engineer for a nuclear facility and I absoltuly beleive hes an aspie, very good quality in engineers) and that you just blended in and did what you had to do throughout your life and it was only in recent history that you were DX'ed as an aspie.

looks very good!

Particularly related to, or found instructive/insightful:
pgs. 20-21, 30-33, 189-194 (Logic vs. Small Talk), 206-217 (Becoming Normal), 247-250 (Units One Through Three), and 254-257 (Married Life). Mostly the chapters post-diagnosis, in mid-age.

Enjoyed a few funny & clever stories about elaborate tricks he played, though was disturbed some of the others that seemed cruel (in consequence, not in intention).
I'm dx'd & also female-didn't have lot in common with his activities or experiences, however the thinking behind his emotions (to extent book includes those analyses or explanations) is familiar & makes sense to me. My father drank (though I didn't notice at the time) & my mother was considered crazy (by some, incl. myself, at times), so there were some similarities in family story/situation (chaos, secrets, neglect & abuse). Also 'positive' commonalities in upbringing/environment-I was raised in New England, to creative intellectual liberal parents.

Took 2 days to read, 250 pgs. but they flew by rapidly (except for couple places where I got confused by author's special interests that I don't share-which is bound to happen in any book).

I'm about halfway into it and it is damn depressing. It keeps reminding me of all the horrible things I've done and had happen to me.

The father burns his baby with a cigarette?!?!?! What kind of horrible reading is this. I can't sleep with that image in my mind!

There are some parts of your book that I thoroughly enjoyed, however, I found certain parts really disturbing. Especially the time when you were fourteen and your brother six and you hid him in a shed in the petting zoo and let your mother believe he had wandered off or walked off with a strange man named "Paul". You seemed to thoroughly enjoy making your mother suffer and panic as she desperately sought the whereabouts of Varmint. Being a mother and a grandmother, and worrying about the frightening rise of child predators, this "prank" pretty much alienated me from about page 38 on. This was followed by the extremely elaborate plan to frame your teacher and destroy his reputation. Yeah, so he was a lousy teacher and treated you in a disrespectful way, did the punishment really fit the crime? However, I do admire you for having the guts to include these examples of bizarre behavior in your book.. While I do believe that your book will shed light on Asperger's and bring inspiration to many people struggling to cope and become successful, there is also the possibility that other teens might be inspired to follow in your "trickster" footsteps or be looked upon with suspicion by NT's who will be quick to correlate "criminal mind" with Asperger's disorder. At least if you had explained that now, upon becoming mature and looking back at this behavior you realize it was wrong and not in the least bit funny, I would not have been as turned off by what appears to be your nonchalance and complete lack of empathy. This is my honest opinion. When people ask me for it, I try to comply. I hope you won't have two tons of stone dropped off in my driveway for my trouble.

In a "Visit From Management", are we really supposed to believe that a VP coke head from Milton Bradley would snort lines of formica dust, not once, mind you, but four times. Come on, this is freaking ridiculous. First of all, he would taste it to make sure it was coke. This is an insult to my intelligence. And if he was a VP he would have enough money to buy real coke, he wouldn't have to break into your work place at night to snort big fat lines of formica, which would probably have done some serious damage to his nose and respiratory system the first time. And then fork over 500 bucks cause you caught it on tape? I can't fathom how the editor and publisher of this book could act so irresponsibly as to let that nonsense appear in print. They committed a serious dis-service to not only Mr Robison, but to the readership. This is supposed to be a true story, isn't it? Maybe this chapter.should have been called "The Toymaker and The Elves. Did the VP think that the coke-fairies were laying out lines for him? How am I supposed to believe any of it now, after that example of BS. This makes me sad.

cosmiccat,

two posts above you talk about his disturbing behaviour as a kid.

When I read those parts of the book, I related in this way...

When I was young, I took part in a few incidents like he described.
As I remember them, I didn't realize they were 'not funny' and 'disturbing behavior'.
I believe I honestly hadn't learned how bad these things were in our society.

I think this is part of having a brain that works so differently from 'the norm'.
One incident I will relate is the time another kid and I took a cup of urine(I think it was mine) to another kid and convinced him (or tried to) that it was lemonade.
I cannot remember now if he drank any or not.
This would have been around the 3rd or 4th grade I think.

I would have seen it as funny and not actually realized that someone drinking urine was disgusting, potentially harmful, and would probably be seen (at least in current times) as assault.
I just thought the idea that someone would not be able to tell it was urine and then go and drink some was hillarious.

Growing up, I learned those things were inappropriate.
I still kept a 'warped' sense of humor.
I was in my 30's working on a wildland firecrew once.
On a supervisor's vehicle, someone wrote on the backwindow, "PEACE", in the dust.
For some reason my mind instantly thought that it would be funny if I wrote, "is not possible", right after it. So I did it. The supervisor was upset and I finally fessed up about it.

At that time I had no idea why I would do something like that. Being over 30, I was supposed to be a more mature example for the rest of the 20-something crew. It was spontaneous at the time.

There are other times when people have had to tell me that my jokes were a bit overboard.
I've tried, over the years, to be more conscious of the difference between my humor and the humor accepted by the other people around me.

Anyway, I just felt I could understand that his intentions as a child were not malicious.
He seemed to honestly not realize the actual impact of his actions.

Quoting Wsmac:

.
Did this happen in a movie theatre? If so, I think I may have been the one you gave the cup of urine to. I asked my brother and his friend to bring me back some lemonade when they got up for popcorn and they came back with a cup of something that smelled like pee-pee. I remember saying "this is not funny!"

But really, I agree with you that Mr. Robison's pranks, considering his age and the conditions of his life in the midst of dysfunction and mis-understanding of his neurology, may have been from a source not necessarily malicious. That's why I stated that if he had said (and maybe he did in a round about way in his Epilogue), that looking back now as a mature adult, he understands that there could have been serious and harmful consequences to his actions, I would not have been so alienated by the accounts of his pranks.

However, I am still perturbed by his account of the "formica snorting VP" and find it incredibly hard to swallow. That makes me wonder how much credibility I can give to the rest of the book. And, I will repeat, his editor and publisher might have worked with him to omit that incident or tell us how in the hell the VP could mistake formica for coke. This seems completely ridiculous to me.

OH, I remember now... I was going to respond to your last post cosmiccat, but I think something went awry with the computer and it never made it onto this thread.

I can't remember what I was going to say.

Anyway, I wanted to mention here that ... wait... I remember something... No, it was not in a theatre, it was at an apartment complex in El Paso, Texas... ummm. the peepee incident, that is.

Back to why I'm here tonight... ... I was at a Costco (warehouse/big box store) and I saw this book for sale for something like $16!

Perhaps this will educate a whole world of folks about AS!

I have read it, as my husband got it for me for my birthday. I liked it and really liked his stories about KISS. I did relate to quite a bit of it. He had a large amount of trouble in his life and still found ways to survive and to find what he really loved. I am now reading 'born on a blue day' by daniel tammet. I really can relate to many of the things he went through and his experiences too. both these books are great reads.