Look Me In The Eye - John Elder Robinson

Devon Heisler
Abnormal Psychology
Look Me In The Eye
By: John Elder Robinson
Look Me In The Eye is an artistically written memoir about John Elder Robinson’s life with Aspergers – a form of Autism that was unknown during his childhood. John Elder constantly struggles with trying to fit in with his peers at young ages, but quickly discovers how to play the game of life. He says what he realizes other people want to hear. This form of deception, being harmless at times but certainly more severe in other cases is a trait that John Elder uses throughout his childhood, and surely is still being used in his adulthood today. Although this memoir is an interesting read, I am not sure it justifies the actual form of Aspergers proficiently. John’s family issues growing up were severe – his father a raging alcoholic and mother in and out of psychiatric hospitals. In some way, shape, or form, John’s dysfunctional family had an impact on him (good or bad), that most Aspergian children probably haven’t experienced. I believe his family situation affects him, making it so he never feels comfortable to be home, allowing him to fine-tune is interests and eventually venture into the world of sound engineering and producing guitars for the legendary rock band KISS.
John Elder clearly favors a more neurodiverse look on Aspergers and Autism. His savant-like abilities render him capable of engineering extreme technology that require schooling, and lots of it, to reach the stage of developing fire-breathing guitars for KISS. His character trait to pay special attention to fine detail is just want John needs to do the amazing things in his life that he accomplishes. John Elder’s very difficult childhood was filled with unstable parenting and difficulty making friends and maintaining good grades in school. He refers to himself as a “misfit.” His mother and father never really paid attention to his grades and what he was doing the majority of his time, so he had a ton of spare time concentrating on the things that interested him most. John Elder’s teachers comment on his starring. One of his teachers yelled at him for it, and he made a rather rude remark about how he was fantasizing of her death, essentially. This isn’t something a typical child would say, and he was sent to the principal. At least she never called him out on starring again.
When John Elder was in preschool, he wanted to make friends with a little girl named Claire. He did everything in his power to win over her friendship, but it just wasn’t working. John Elder also tried fitting in with his neighbors who were playing cowboys and Indians, but that didn’t seem to work for him either. He was socially different, and couldn’t pursue a conversation that the other kids wanted to hear from him. As an adult, John Elder never really wanted to drink or party – he was interested in his work more than play time. John Elder is told countless times that he can move to the city to pursue his work when he’s not on tour, but he can’t do it because he doesn’t like people and living in the city would scare him too much.
In reality, it’s clear to tell John Elder has Aspergers. It’s difficult for me to see how there was no diagnosis for him as he was growing up because it is obvious to me he has some sort of autistic condition. How psychologists could not see this – I am not too sure. John Elder tells an inspirational story of his life experience and what it’s like growing up with Aspergers.

Busy, Busy, Busy.

This week has been very busy for me - school, 2 part time jobs, bartending school, and applying for colleges out West. My to do list keeps growing and growing, and keeping up is getting to be tough. Last week in Abnormal Psychology we discussed OCD, and did a writing exercise where we were asked what behaviors we did that could be classified as OCD. I wrote about when I was younger had this obsession with counting and making sure both sides of my body were "even." I would need to take the same number of steps per sqaure on the sidewalks, make sure my feet always took the same amount of steps.. or felt like they took the same number of steps. I would need to chew my food in both sides of my mouth until it felt right, etc. I don't really do any of these behaviors anymore, I suppose you could say I "grew out of it."
We also spoke briefly about the Phenomenological/Humanistic Theory which is an "innate drive toward personal growth" or, self-actualization as Dr. Welkowitz said. I connected this with my philosophy class, where we are learning about Jean-Paul Sartre and reading some of his works (Being And Nothingness, Nausea). In philosophy, the phenomenological theory is defined as how you percieve things through your five senses.

That's all for now. :)