Book of Choice Blog Post: "Look Me in the Eye"

 In Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison, the memoir takes the reader through Robison's narrative of living with an autism spectrum disorder without receiving a diagnosis until later on in adulthood. While growing up, Robison spends his time between Massachusetts, his home, and his grandparents farm in Georgia. 

As Robison goes through his childhood, the reader gets to experience how Robison's way of socializing leads to his understanding that what he does is not like those around him-- leading to feelings of isolation. The title of the text itself, "look me in the eye," is a nod to how Robison found it uncomfortable to look people in the eye, which was viewed negatively by his friends, teachers, and especially, his father. His inability to follow "normative" social cues paints him as an outcast and leads him to be labelled as "bad" by the authority figures around him. Because he shows little outward emotion, he is often labelled as a sociopath. Unfortunately, as the reader sees the challenges of Robison's childhood unfold, we also follow how his father grows increasingly frustrated with his son and eventually begins to abuse him physically while becoming an alcoholic. 

As Robison tries to overcome the challenges of his experiences, he tries to find kinship with his classmates through humor. Robison began the habit for creating elaborate stories, pranks, and lies to play tricks on those around him. Because he was a highly intelligent and capable student and reader, he had that advantage. However, the reader sees Robison's sense of humor become increasingly dark due to the bullying he has received from his fellow classmates and oftentimes in his home life. One rather dangerous prank he played on his brother was digging a hole in the backyard and leaving his brother in the hole to where he could not get out. He continues this path with his pranks becoming more and more harmful to the people around him. 

Fortunately, in the late 1970's, Robison finds some independence with a band and finally making his own money. He gets paid to work on music equipment, which is a nod to his intelligence and fine-tuned capabilities with technology. Though he is independent, he still finds his experiences different from that of the bands he works with. He often does not understand their actions or, at least, can't follow in how they engage with others. Robison's mind is put into perspective as he explains the reasoning behind his gift with electronics or any kind of machine. He appreciates machines because they are made of patterns with no bad intent. They just work. Robison is capable of not just working on machines, but can also build guitars and seems to have an excellent understanding of how things work. Because Robison is now speaking to us in adulthood, we get an even further glance into how his mind processes his interactions with others. When someone asks Robison a question, his brain must ask himself several different possibilities of what the person is asking, how to respond, questions he has in return, and any hidden meanings behind what the person is saying. Based on how the conversation goes, he is often left feeling confused at what an appropriate response to a conversation might be and never really knowing the right answer. With machines, there is usually a right answer to how they work, which is a source of comfort for Robison. Eventually, Robison receives his official diagnosis and can reflect on how the knowledge of his diagnosis alters his perspective of his childhood and gives him an appreciation for his capabilities. 

I enjoyed reading this text along with our conversations and readings in this class because it offered an insightful perspective of how isolated someone who has a disability might feel due to a failure on our society's current makeup to not provide an inclusive experience for all. As I learned from reading this text, those feelings of isolation can turn into something damaging-- potentially altering the person's life as they know it and furthering them even more to being considered "deviant" from what is normal. We need to always consider that people communicate in varying different ways and be inclusive to those forms of communication. Thinking, too, from providing a library service to someone, to maybe offer training for staff on how to make people on a wide range of abilities comfortable asking for help in the library or offering as much self-help services as possible. I would imagine that if someone is more inclined to figure out their question on their own, they may experience anxiety or not prefer to speak to a library staff member. In our library, we have options like meeScan where someone can download an app to check out library materials to their own account and we have book drop boxes where patrons can return their items without even interacting with someone. We should also lead with the understanding that everyone we come into contact with is not going to have the same preferred methods of communication and not to assume something about someone based on their experiences. My drawings from the beginning of the semester come to mind where I drew someone with a disability in a wheelchair, which is absolutely inaccurate and slightly shameful to me. We need to lead with empathy and less stereotypes when providing service.