John Elder Robison
I was born in rural Georgia, where my dad worked as a country preacher. I was kind of a misfit growing up. In fact, the bigger I got, the more misfit I became. At age 8, I got a little brother, and he was a misfit too. I dropped out of school in 10th grade, and never looked back. My brother dropped out a few years later, following in my footsteps.
I've had a number of careers . . . I designed sound systems for discos. I designed effects for KISS. I designed sound systems for more bands than I could count. Then, I took up electronic game design. I worked on fire alarms and power supplies. I even worked with lasers. Finally, 20 years ago, I gave up technology to start an automobile repair business.
That was where I was when my brother told some of our story in his 2002 memoir Running With Scissors. A few years later, I decided to tell my own story.
I wrote a book called Look Me in the Eye, my life with Asperger's. Well, that kind of changed everything for me. I was, like, fully out of the closet and under the public microscope.
Over the past decadeI've published four books and hundreds of articles. I've written chapters in a number of academic books and articles in peer reviewed scientific journals.
I served two terms on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee for the US Dept of Health and Human Services, and I am on the board of INSAR, the professional society for autism researchers.
Today autism is recognized as a part of human neurological diversity, conferring both disability and exceptionality. I am the neurodiversity scholar at the College of William & Mary and advisor to the Center for Neurodiversity at Landmark College. I am also neurodiversity advisor for the Livermore National Lab.
Today, I have an active speaking schedule, and I'm also involved in autism research. I'm a member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee of the US Dept of Health and Human Services, and I'm on the Science Board of Autism Speaks.
My books are:
- Look Me in the Eye (2007)
- Be Different (2011)
- Raising Cubby (2013)
- Switched On (2016)
Switched On is currently in development as a feature film with Focus.
In addition to being a book author, I own J E Robison Service Co in Springfield, Massachusetts. Robison Service does service, repair, and restoration work on European cars, with particular emphasis on BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover, Bentley, and Rolls Royce.
I'm interested in music, photography, small boats, hiking and the outdoors, and reading.
Read more on my blog at http://jerobison.blogspot.com
Join me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/JohnElderRobison
And follow @johnrobison on Twitter
“I tried to show him things, but he didn't seem to study what I showed him. Usually, he just put whatever I handed him in his mouth. He would try to eat anything. I fed him Tabasco sauce and he yelled. Having a little brother helped me learn to relate to other people. Being a little brother, Snort learned to watch what he put in his mouth.”
“It must be my logical consideration of a decision many see as purely intuitive or emotional that throws other people for a loop.”
“Last summer, when he thought I wasn't looking, I observed Cubby telling one of the neighborhood six-year-olds that there were dragons living in the storm drains, under our street.'We feed them meat...and then they don't get hungry and blow fire and roast us.'Little James listened closely, with a very serious expression on his face. Then he ran home to get some hot dogs from his mother.”
“We began reading books together. He loved Dr. Seuss. I read those books so often I could turn the pages and say the words from memory. I became bored with repetition, and I began to make subtle alterations. The story turned into:One fishTwo fishBlack fishBlue fishI eat you fishAnd:See them allSee them runThe man in backHe has a gun”
“The hard part was living the contrast between being rich and being broke. It was like being smart, and waking up one day to find yourself dumb as a rock, but able to remember your former brains.”
“Nice people like them by children like him and raise them as pets. But he didn't want to be a pet today.”
“This is a f***ing mess," I said tactfully.”
“When we pulled in, the customs officer looked in the back. The back of the wagon was filled with cases stenciled PINK FLOYD--LONDON.'Got Pink Floyd in the back of the car, do you?' he asked.'Righto, mate. We shrunk 'em and stuck 'em in fookin' boxes, we did,' said Nigel.Amazingly, the customs officer laughed and waved us through.”
“I used to fear barking dogs. I would cringe and say to myself, 'Nice doggie please don't bite me I'll just go away,' but by that night I could look at them and think, I am your worst nightmare. Come closer and I will impale you upon my stick. The more I firmly visualized it, the more the dogs believed it. Now the tables had turned. Now the dogs feared me.”
“Soon I was spending all my time in the basement, and I had moved from taking things apart to putting new things together. I began by building simple devices. Some, like my radios, were useful. Others were merely entertaining. For example, I discovered I could solder some stiff wires onto a capacitor and charge it up. For a few minutes, until the charge leaked away, I had a crude stun gun....So I decided to try it on my little brother. I charged the capacitor to a snappy but nonlethal level from a power supply I'd recently removed from our old Zenith television.'Hey, let's play Jab a Varmint,' I said. I tried to smile disarmingly, keeping the capacitor behind my back and making sure I didn't ruin the effect by jabbing myself or some other object.'What's that?' he asked, suspiciously.Before he could escape, I stepped across the room and jabbed him. He jumped. Pretty high, too. Sometimes he would fight back, but this time he ran. The jab was totally unexpected and he didn't realize that I only had the one jab in my capacitor. It would be several years before I had the skill to make a multishot Varmint Jabber.”
“...delineated with signs reading:TOWN OF AMHERSTWATERSHEDNO TRESPASSINGWhich every boy in the neighborhood understood as:PRIVATE PRESERVE FOR KIDS”
“It does not matter what sixty-six percent of people do in any particular situation. All that matters is what you do.”
“Simply making myself aware of others has remarkably improved my social life. People accept me much faster now that I ignore them less.”
“And now I know it is perfectly natural for me not to look at someone when I talk. Those of us with Asperger's are just not comfortable doing it. In fact, I don'treally understand why it's considered normal to stare at someone's eyeballs.”
“a crying grown-up with no visible damage, who knew what that meant?”
“Unlike some older brothers, I never set him on fire, or cut off an arm or leg, or drowned him in the tub. ”
“In the past, when people criticized me for asking unexpected questions, I felt ashamed. Now I realize that normal people are acting in a superficial and often false manner. So rather than let them make me feel bad, I express my annoyance. It's my way of trying to strike a blow for logic and rationality.”
“I am sure antidepressants, drugs, and liquor have their place. But so far, that place is in others, not me.”