Being forced to look into their eyes, teachers, etc.

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Have teachers been educated yet about how disorienting it is? I remember, I'd be listening to everything they were telling me, even responding, etc., but then - for no apparent reason - an adult will yell, "Look into my eyes!", so you do because you have to since they're in charge, and once you do everything they say just sounds like mush because your head is on fire inside. Do they know that? And they ask you if you understand so you just nod slowly hoping they don't get any angrier. It's awful. Anybody else remember those encounters?

I don't know how someone can force you to make eye contact with them. As far as I'm concerned I have a natural right to look, or not look, where I want. I've had a college professor tell me to take my sunglasses off. I told him no and that was that. It's not like they have any legal right to force you

I thought "during childhood" was implied by the use of the term "adult", but to clarify - I meant as a child. And if you don't do what you're told you get detention, extra homework, notes home to Mom. Or did you go to a mushy school?

You and I are on totally different wavelengths. I was cutting school in kindergarten and my parents were getting notes about it. By 2nd grade the notes turned into meeting with the teachers. By 3rd grade it was meetings with the principle. By 7th grade it was meeting with police. 9th grade it was off to the bad kids school. I may have given you an example of a college professor but I've been very well acquainted with disobedience since I was a child. All I can say is you and I had very different childhoods and ideas about authority.

Well, I never got that far. I always got kicked out of school. Too many fights, detention almost every day, etc. It was a frightening prison for sure! I guess, unlike you, I really wanted to be good and make the authorities happy. I had an innate obligation to do what was right, to try to make sense of all the rules and do well. But I still hit other kids (and talked too loud, and couldn't stop making noise, and rocked back and forth, and all the things ASD kids do!) and would cut them with my fingernails and head-butt sometimes anyway, and at least now I know mostly why. Yeah, I had to sit alone, I saw the principle and psychologist and my parents would scream at me and cry and ask why I couldn't just be like other kids. They made sure I knew I was a monster and made me want to die. But then they just put me on drugs and turned me into a zombie. It almost killed me, I was just bones and a gray stare! But I never stopped wanting to make them happy until I was taken off ritalin and realized how I'd been abused and taken advantage of.

But through it all I was always afraid to miss class. Fear of the unscheduled. I knew I got points just for being there when I was supposed to so it was my #1 priority. Still is now, at work! So I suppose in that aspect we are different. I had fear, and it sounds like you did not.

Yes... All the time. I could still listen while looking at their eyes but if I did I would forget the conversation later. I had to absorbe it by looking at the floor. Eventually I figured out I could just stare at something on their desk at the very least, papers in my hand (pretend to take notes) or if necessary their mouths.

Actually I don't remember teachers doing this. Maybe I was lucky =P

But I do remember my parents. I kept hearing "look at me while I am talking to you!" in an angry tone. I also remember when they were pointing somewhere and I'd look at their finger instead of where they were pointing and they'd say "look at where I am pointing" in the same angry tone. I remember the last one better, don't really know why...

They told me to obey but wouldn't tell me why so all I had was anger.

When I was 13 my Math teacher told me that I had to look into her eyes. I didn't care of what she said to me, and I didn't start doing it just because she said it. No one can force me to do something if I don't want to.

Ah, that. Yes, there was no reason. I didn't think there was supposed to be. They were bigger, and could spank! It was and still is, a silly game.

Yes they tried to do that to me but I wouldn't. I suppose that's why I took 2-3 ink blot test a year in elementary school. That made school intollarable.

I remember being told "Look at me" and I would and look away. I don't recall being told to look them in the eye. I read from my old IEP reports from 6th grade that I prefer to not give eye contact. it's not that I preferred it, I just didn't know I was supposed to keep my eyes on them. When I was little and I would get told to look at them when they say my name or other words, I just thought they wanted me to see how they say the words and how they are formed. I am sure when I was two, when my parents would hold my favorite toy up to their faces so I can see their mouths moving, I just thought they were wanting me to look at the toy there. I wouldn't give eye contact and I would look around instead as if I was trying to see where the words were coming from. Never occurred to me either I was supposed to look at them when they speak to me. Then I didn't see the point looking at people if you can hear them. So back then teachers knew I was listening to them so they thought I preferred to not give eye contact. I was 14 when I figured it out and I didn't know why I didn't look at people when speaking to them and it was like I had to remember to look at them when I speak or else I forget. I am sure teachers tried for years trying to get me to give them eye contact and I wouldn't do it so they gave up.

I don't think teachers or anyone should "force" others to look into their eyes. It seems rude of them to be so ignorant and either not know or care that some people can't and or do not want to make eye contact.

My general Physician actually never stares at me, or looks at me for long at all in the eyes, he deals with my NT partner mostly. Yet i feel he is educated about Autism and it is nice that he doesn't want to make me feel uncomfortable by eye contact.

I, too have heard before the "look at me when i'm talking to you!" or "look at me" or different versions of adults demanding eye contact when i was younger.
I don't understand why they demand so much eye contact. Forcing eye contact doesn't work well for me, i'm not sure what facial expression i am doing if i am making forced eye contact. I must look insane...

I heard that too as a kid, quickly figured out that they don't believe you that you listen to them without making eye contact - as if that was related to each other...

I remember my mother gently reminding me with "look at me" whenever she was trying to tell me something. When I was older (maybe 11 or 12) my mom sent me to this "speech therapist," who as far as I was concerned wasn't so much a speech therapist as someone who was supposed to train me to carry on conversations about the most dreadfully boring (to me) topics such as the weather, chewing gum (yes, chewing gum) trying to guess what was going on in certain pictures, and like it. I went thru about three such therapists.....they were nice enough at first, until you got tired of doing everything their way...then they REALLY got nasty.

Anyway, one of the first things the first "speech" therapist worked on with me was making sustained eye contact. I was extremely socially anxious back then and hardly ever made eye contact at all, but I figured that if they'd let me out of therapy if I did start making enough eye contact to appease them, then I could manage it. And, well...I got used to making eye contact (I'm able to do it for at least a few minutes and then it starts to feel uncomfortable) but turns out I was wrong about them letting me go if I was able to do it right....I was forced to go to that stupid therapy for at least two and a half years afterward.

I did get told I ought to look at folks when they talk to me... but I got into a habit of telling them "I don't listen with my eyes"... or similar things.
As memory serves this usually just aggravated them and led to such absurd demands as "Don't talk back to me!" ... to which the correct response was: "I'm not. I'm talking left to you." ... or right, or forward... whichever the direction was. In any case, the arguments tended to result in the other person getting more and more aggravated by my constantly outwitting them, until I eventually humoured their initial request by looking them in the eyes in the most utterly sarcastic and patronising manner possible.

Funnily enough, some people can learn. They can learn that it isn't worth the trouble trying to get me to do something utterly pointless like that.