I spoke with my counselor yesterday about eye contact...or lack thereof. So, I thought I'd post a little bit of why, for me, eye contact is so difficult to keep. Personally, I find eye contact to be quite difficult. However, I was challenged to look at eye contact in terms of difficulty on a scale. As I was estimating the discomfort levels for certain people, there were basically only two categories that showed a difference. At the most comfortable end of the rating scale, eye contact with my family members (living with me) was present...even if it is minimal. At the other end of the scale, I put mental health professionals as the group I have the least eye contact with. I think this is due in part because I really don't like to be picked apart or analyzed. However, there was a huge gap of minimal eye contact between the two catagories. I found that everyone else I come into contact with receive roughly the same amount of eye contact. The only two distinguished groups are that I have a little more eye contact with my family, or people I am accustomed to seeing regularly throughout the day, or within my routine schedule. Mental health professionals, get the least, and everyone else gets minimal. Is this true with anyone else out there? These are just my personal experiences but I would be curious to know about anyone else's experiences as well.
As for WHY I have little eye contact with people is somewhat of a mystery to me. For me, I think that it is due to my inability to focus on a person's eyes AND what they are saying verbally, and ESPECIALLY non-verbally. I find that I am either staring at people (which I have found out is considered rude), or not giving enough eye contact (which may also be interpreted as rude)! Maybe my brain just can't process all of the info coming in through my eyes at once? Does practicing eye contact make a difference? Has anyone found a solution or reason why this is so difficult for people on the AS?
1 comment:
Noah has trouble with this too. In fact he says it is physically "painful" sometimes to try to look someone in the eyes. I think you got it correct when you said (and I think they have proven this to be true in most cases)...your brain (if you are looking at the eyes) finds it too difficult then to process what is actually being said (by the mouth)...which makes your brain just sort of hurt. You know..like when you are trying to figure out a really hard math problem....your brain sort of like is screaming OUCH! haha..At least mine does.
SO if you are NOT looking at the eyes....you can spend more time actually HEARING what is being said (even if you are not looking at the person) and processing that....as all your senses are more in tune with the words and not being distracted by other things.
I think......
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