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

In the brief Prologue, John Elder Robison provides a few highlights of his misunderstood childhood. His inability to follow common social conventions (like looking at someone when talking to them) creates conflict with his parents and peers. He finds eye contact distracting, and his father’s constant demands that Robison look him “in the eye” only make him anxious. Consequently, he is labeled a deviant and a sociopath. His behavioral eccentricities are misinterpreted by his parents and teachers as bad or asocial. His lack of outward emotional expression is even equated to “some of the worst murderers in history” (2). Over time, his father lapses into alcoholism and beats him.

His condition, Asperger’s syndrome, was first identified by Austrian psychiatrist Hans Asperger in 1938. He wrote about children who are above average verbally and creatively, but “who exhibited a number of behaviors common to people with autism” (3). Asperger’s syndrome was not officially codified until 1981; in 1984 it was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Until then the condition was often attributed to depression or schizophrenia. Robison mentions that, despite “Aspergians’” considerable gifts (musical talent, uncanny insight), their lack of social skills can make growing up extremely difficult.