I Feel Real Pain… on My Side of the Face. Not a “Glitch” You Train Away…
What’s the Autistic “Thing” with Eye Contact?
I Feel Real Pain… on My Side of the Face. Not a “Glitch” You Train Away…
I read faces,” he says. “I have to know who’s got it. Who’s full of shit. Now, you… You don’t read faces. You stare hard…”
He does that two-finger move, back and forth between our eyes.
“Then ya look off like you’re thinking. Or you consult papers, then peer up… for a second.”
Then the naked killer…
“I don’t know if you look into my face. My eyes. Or just stare at my forehead…Quote goes here.
Eye Contact. I can pretend. But I can’t hide.
My wife & I are musicians. We’re finishing our 15 minutes of fame playing Rusty’s open mic. Maybe Shorty’s Bar, I disremember…
It’s 4 B.D.… 4 years before diagnosis. We’re couch-surfing at her mother’s. I haven’t landed my first job after refugeeing to Indiana.
She’s pumped… like always. At least, whenever our friends rush up and tell us they loved our set. Eyes dancing, flirty mouth pouting…
Looks me in the eye, “C’mon. I wanna dance…!”
I love her green eyes. Always treasure seeing them…
Can’t ever remember ’em. Cuz face blindness.
Can’t ever more than peek at ’em… without looking away. Cuz autism.
Look, I’m the Worst Dancer in the World. Problems with balance. Outrageously uncoordinated… Teen nickname? “Hey-You-Spazz.” At this moment… It’s “58-Year-Old-White-Dude-Who-Never-Learned-to-Dance”…
Back in 2012? I still believed I could survive bars. You know, by entering my own dissociative bubble. Become invisible. Sorta like Richard Mulligan on Soap back in the day… except only room in my bubble for Kimmie & me.
All the while chanting in my mind, “I don’t care what they think… I don’t care what they think… I don’t CARE what they think…”
And, I had one survival rule. Never dance…
But Kimmie… My wild-woman gypsy. Cuz, something deep inside autistic me… Moth meets flame. So, caught in the moment, I say, “Sure.”
For about 5 minutes, I’m doing the White Guy Rock. Weight on right, shift left… weight on left, shuffle right. Eyes sliding around the room, never lingering, never focusing…
“Look at me, hon,” she whispers. “Look at me.”
So I do.
A few seconds. Her face upturned. Eyes glistening… A few seconds more…
So calm. So happy. So big…
Then… Bigger…
Only her eyes…
Brighter…
Enormous…
I can’t hear anything but a roar. Spinning. I’m going to fall… I shout or something. Jump back. Stumble through some dancers to sit down.
Kimmie’s shocked. You know, everybody’s shocked. Especially me.
This is what happens when I gaze too long into eyes…
Even eyes I admire, respect, trust…
So…
If you and me meet for a beer? I won’t look you straight in your eyes.
Not cuz I don’t care.
Or I’m mad.
Or I’m hiding something.
Or I disrespect you.
Or I’m lying…
I CAN’T look into your eyes. Because I PANIC. And sometimes…
I disappear.
At least, I lose what I recognize as me. For a moment. Sometimes more. What pros call “ego dissolution.” For most folks, this only happens at a moment of certain death. Or on Acid, um, so I hear…
But lots of autistic people describe similar feelings during intense eye contact.
And we have been telling you this… for a long time. Like since that screaming fit I had in the A&P. When I was 4. After that serious parental “talking-to” about controlling my feelings in public.
The same feelings that…
parents,
educators,
gurus, and
psychiatrists
tried to beat,
teach,
meditate,
therap, or
medicate
out of me back then…
and too many neurodivergent kids… today.
Forcing kids to maintain eye contact.
Using “behavioral” rewards… and punishments.
Using physical, mental and emotional restraints. So we’ll adopt what they deem a “necessary social skill.”
See, avoiding eye contact isn’t a “glitch” for me
Maybe no one knows why I do it yet… for sure. It may be part of my brain wiring. It may be a powerful human instinct. Just like most mammals.
Maybe like sensory input is amplified for me and many autistics, eye contact is also amplified for me.
So… stare in my eyes?
Maybe you’ll attack me.
Maybe eat me.
I get ready to
Fight…
Flight…
Freeze…
Or Appease… and avert my eyes.
You look into my eyes. Maybe you’re expressing sincere earnestness. Maybe you’re expressing love. But I see an angry person cursing me with the Evil Eye. Instant gut fear. Double when I sense danger or hostility.
Whatever the reason, forcing me to endure it? Causes me and many others pain. That scientists can measure.
And measure it they did. Back in 2017, Hadjikhani and her co-researchers did “live streams” of autistic brains. And what did they see splashed across their fMRI screens… when “subjects” stared straight into images of eyes? Real-time scans of the discomfort… the pain… the suffering of those autists.
Top-lining the authors, here’s what I took away. … It ain’t that autistic people are insensitive about others. More like many of our brains are hyper-sensitive. Especially in the amygdala. Where we process faces, eyes… and likely, fear.
But honestly? The research-of-the-moment “explaining” autism…. means less to me than my own naked experience. Or that of my autistic mutuals.
When I look into ANYbody’s eyes…
For more than a few seconds, even the love of my life’s…
I begin to lose my surroundings.
Sounds deaden.
Details fade…
Lights get brighter and brighter…
I can’t see the face, only the eyes…
My heart races…
I begin to feel faint…
There’s a sensation of spinning,
then falling…
I not only feel panic… I lose who I am. No joke. Not amnesia. No me.
Like that sick panic when you stumble on stairs, fall out of a tree, jump at a car horn, sometimes, when I fall asleep…
As if I’m dying.
Maybe it sounds extreme… to you. It is the way things are… for me. All I ever knew. For most of my life, I never thought about it.
Until I pitched a venture capitalist on my startup computer magazine. 1984.
You know how used-car sales types read your face… nonstop… looking for an angle?
Try sitting across from a Silicon Valley vulture capitalist. As you coolly ask for a couple hundred K for “expansion”… scared shitless inside that you can’t make your next payroll.
“I read faces,” he says. “I have to know who’s got it. Who’s full of shit.”
I glance at him. This is it. I either close the deal. Or…
“Now, you… You don’t read faces. In fact, I’m not sure what you do.”
There’s a kinda neutral curiosity to a seasoned investor. Like a reptile, eyeing you as a potential meal… Stating facts.
“You stare hard,” He does that two-finger move, back and forth between our eyes. “Then ya look off like you’re thinking. Or you consult papers, then peer up… for a second.”
Then the naked killer…
“I don’t know if you look into my face. My eyes. Or just stare at my forehead…”
And that was that. Sure, I took another meeting or two. With his subordinates…
But I never landed that deal.
Eye contact. I knew enough… on some level… to fake it.
Somehow… I knew people required it. But the fear was always there. I remember distinctly horrific fear of eyes at age 2 or 3…
Odd pertinent fact. I’ve been both a salesperson & therapist in my life… And pulled it off. For short periods. Cuz, like they label me… “high functioning?”
But it’s only a few years ago… I realized I always shift my gaze from eyebrows to cheekbones to nose. Ya know, quick, constant, reflex glances… To mimic looking into your eyes.
So you won’t know. Because, if you find out I can’t look in your eyes… We end up hurting each other.
Listen, being articulate has nothing to do with survival…
That’s why I immerse you in my experience, not bury you in professional terms. Cuz trying to explain eye contact trauma… in polite, office-cubicle words? Pretty much kills your chances of ever being understood as an autistic. Take it from me.
Not every autistic person has words to explain. So I tell my story. To anyone who will listen. Hoping parents, friends, lovers, teachers, bosses, strangers in the street…
Stop demanding the right to torture me, many of us… just so you feel more comfortable.
I hope you take this away, we autistics do have moral character. Strength. Honesty in abundance… Most of us.
Before you judge our character by our eyes…
Or “train” us to do something unnatural, and terrifying…
I give you the experience of what eye contact feels like to me.
Cuz if you’re looking for our souls… you won’t find ’em in our eyes.
One last truth to Power…
Truth about any form of forced training. Names you may recognize… ABA, or Applied Behavioral Analysis. PBS, Positive Behavioral Support. Or CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Their goal is to control human behavior they label undesirable… But their true desire isn’t to increase the comfort, functioning, or joy of autistic children. Or adults. So they just use a gate-keeper-polite term for annoying behavior. To make parents, teachers, caretakers… and ultimately, doctors… feel better.
Punishment & reward does change behavior in kids AND adults. Science says so.
Temporarily. Same as it works on rats.
Come to think of it… Please think of it. Just accept our reports of pain.
Then think about what we really need.
Acceptance… Confidence… Energy… Control.
Not forced eye contact. Not more panic.
- If this excerpt grabbed you… more here: The Book: Frag by Frag.
This is Fragment 9 of my upcoming autobiography, My Autistic Life is My Art, arriving Fall 2026.
I’m building a book out loud. Frag by frag. Just like I lived it.
The Next Act
Don’t trust a corporate algorithm’s decision about whether you get to see the next excerpt or not.
Join my Substack for free… and the next fragment comes straight to your inbox. And you get a free digital download of my complete poetry chapbook.
Why I Write My Autobiography
I’m only an expert on my own life. Born 1953, diagnosed at 63. Your mileage will vary.
Individual marginalized voices speaking truth out loud? They build bridges to mainstream readers. Think Malcolm X. Think Maya Angelou. Think Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness.
This Fall, I hope to deliver that kind of impact, that power with My Autistic Life is My Art. For our neurodivergent community.
Since 2019 I’ve published a quarter of a million words. Over half the size of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Gotta be a pony somewhere in that shit.
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