Dealing with eye contact problem

Post Reply New Topic

The eye contact problem is a popular problem for people with autism spectrum disorders. Can you explain what ways have helped you to deal with it and look people in the eye like normal people without autism can do?

I watch people's mouths, I need the extra help to understand what they are saying in real time, but I think most people can not tell if I am looking them in the eye... it just looks like that's what I'm doing.

Eye contact is natural for me...until I think about it. If I suddenly become conscious of where I'm looking then it feels weird all of a sudden.

No advice. My difficulty is when I'm feeling content, I stare, which is not NT acceptable. When I feel nervous I don't look at all, which is not NT acceptable. I'm supposed to Regulate my eye contact. Thankfully babies and young children return my stare kindly.

ASD folks get dinged for not have body language that matches their feelings, but I think my staring and looking away matches my feelings, but then I get dinged for that also. Ha! Just can't win.

Advice to self: Continue to work on emotional regulation... maybe slow down... when nervous... pause... take a moment...

When I was young my parents told me it was polite to look at people when I was talking to them so I do.

My parents never mentioned looking the other person in the eye so I don't.

I think if you look in the general vicinity of their head and are not too close to the other person it is probably not apparent that you are not looking them in the eye. At least, that I know of, this has only been an issue a small number of times in my life.

It's gotten a bit easier with time, still uncomfortable. I don't bother unless it's an important setting, ie job interview or something.

As a kid/teen my parents were always scolding me for looking at the wall while talking to them. "My face is over here"

I don't do eye contact, and rarely even make face contact.
It makes me extremely uncomfortable so I don't even fake it.

I'm terrible at eye contact and when I do make it it feels like I am letting people into my private thoughts and makes me feel very vulnerable.

I wouldn't mind seeing their face and eyes, but they aren't allowed to see mine.

I already wear dark glasses or sunglasses all the time, but I still don't like facing people because I don't want them to see me. It physically hurts when people look in my eyes. It's like they're stealing my energy or climbing into my body.

I honestly don't know if other people are looking at my eyes...because I'm not looking at their eyes. Until I began learning about Autism, in 2019, I didn't even know it might be an issue. I just looked at people but did not seek eye contact and it generally seemed to be OK.

I don't have a good answer. I've stopped trying to force something painful and unnatural for me. It has actually worked out fairly well because I am less anxious, stressed and not in pain which causes me to behave more naturally in public.

Same! I have no clue. It doesn't even occur to me that I'm supposed to look at people when they talk to me. Quite often I'll turn sideways to fiddle with something or actually start walking away a bit. It even happens with my kids. My daughter gets frustrated because she'll be in the room talking to me, but I turn away or start doing a task when I'm listening. I seldom answer until she starts walking away or she's on the stairs going to her room and we can't see each other. Then I'll call out my answer. Most of our communication is written even when we're both in the house. With strangers, I forget about etiquette until I'm out of the situation. Then I remember I likely seemed rude, so I beat myself up that I should try harder next time. Then the next time, I forget again.

I used get confused when looking people in the eye because most people have two eyes - which one to look at? I used to look back and forth a lot - left eye, right rye, left, right, left, right. Later I learned most people have a dominant eye like being right handed, or left handed. So now I just try to identify the dominant eye and only look at that one. Someone said you can look at the other person’s eyelid or cheek bone if eye contact is hard for you. Sometimes eye contact is distracting for me and makes to hard to listen, so I look at the person’s mouth or at my notes in a lecture setting or a business meeting.

I can look at a computer screen no problems but somehow when it's another person I go to bits and it's just a blur so I end up avoiding eye contact or just staring blankly at them until they look away once they realise I'm not a nutter that's going to have a go at them.

I need to trust the other person before I have proper eye contact.

^

I'm equally uncomfortable on computers / Zoom. Actually it's kind of worse because I know I'm being recorded. Most of the time I ask if I can just have an avatar showing for me. If I have to be on camera I just do my normal thing, which means I'm turned sideways or staring at my keyboard instead of the screen. I move and fidget a lot because of stimming, which I can't control whether I'm online or not.

Have you tried looking at people without looking at their eyes? Like maybe look at their neck?