imagination gone awry

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Looking for help/guidance--posted in parents, but I find older people with AS themselves helps me understand my son so much better.

He has been absorbing everything lately (images from tv) and it becomes scary to him later on.

He has always been able to recall imagery vividly since he was small. He can replay cartoons and clips from tv. Lately, he's become fearful.

For instance, he watched cartoon network (doesn't usually watch this channel) and something turned into a snake. Yesterday, this was his fear. He'd carry on with his business--swimming--and then come up to me and say I'm afraid I'm going to come out of the water and be a snake or I'm afraid I'm going to come out of the water and it will be my ghost. His fears are so vivid and complicated. I tell him no you won't and it's okay and then he's fine (for a moment). Yet, he continues to have these fears. Should I remove all tv? Does this sound familiar? It's been happening on a daily basis. I think he's getting mentally exhausted (he looks tired lately).

thanks,
equinn

My experience with those sorts of fears and terrors is, they all pass eventually. Some may pass in days, others linger for years, but as he matures. he'll learn to cope with many different types of anxieties, one by one. I saw sharks released from an underwater grate in a cartoon as a child and for years wouldn't go near a swimming pool drain. At forty-nine, the things that haunt me are very different now, but I've managed to survive them all with a reasonable degree of sanity.

As for the ability to replay longs segments of absorbed media material verbatim, I turned that savant talent into a three decade career in broadcasting, doing commercial voiceovers, celebrity impressions and cartoon character voices. Whether some AS traits are disabilities or blessings depends on point-of-view.

Problem is I'm not good at knowing what a young child would be able to understand. So I guess it would depend how old he is. Personally I would tell him that it is unrealistic for that to happen.

Even to this day I have constant thoughts I can't get rid of them. Yes it is tiring. It can make you so tired you can't sleep. Thoughts can be quite random in nature. A nuerophychologist once told me because my brain is working over time and I am constantly analysing things in my head, I miss the little observations in the 'outside' world that most people take for granted and give them a sense of security. So with that in mind an approach could be to encourage him to try to make outward/external observations, and to seek evidence. It will probably be a continual and conscientious effort throughout his life.

Restricting TV might be an idea. Not really just because of what happened, but because it is good idea to encourage learning from different mediums. TV can actually be a good way to learn. However there is some evidence that constant TV use in childhood can effect concentration. Personally I don't watch a much TV at all, but I do watch nature programs, documentaries, comedy, news, which tend to stick in my mind more if they are interesting.

Is he getting enough sleep?
Sometimes lack of sleep makes people "see" things. It has happened to me and my little brother (little=22 y.o.!).

Welcome to my life. My girlfriend and I joke that we both have "Over-imagination Syndrome." Basically, we have delusions about everything and obsess over all kinds of stupid fears. My only advice is for him to reassure himself constantly that it is not real. I saw a horror movie when I was in fourth grade and not a single night went by for several years that I did not think about images from that movie and fear having nightmares about it. It was absolutely terrible. But, sure enough, one day I just didn't give a **** anymore because I knew that it was ridiculous and that it couldn't hurt me.

I used to be like that when I was small*. You could try logic - explaining why it's impossible for somebody to turn into a snake. I was very amenable to logic as a child, more so than my agemates.




*I still get scared by images in books and movies, but only in my sleep.

Actually not all delusions are bad. There was a study recently that suggested that people who are more content are actually more delusional about what other people think about them and those that are more anxious are surprisingly accurate. However the anxious people are self defeating in worrying to much about what other people think of them, and this has a cyclical effect on how they are perceived.

However an ASDer is probably less accurate. But it isn't that fact that you are accurate or not it the fact that you are over analysing that is the problem.

Some delusions have they ability to distract from things that could go wrong. Confident people are delusional, they need to be in order to be confident.

I guess it depends on how old he is...

I channeled my imagination into books, about the time I could read (there was no Internet, heck, they'd just switched away from punched cards back then.... It was easier to do than visual bits, but then I missed a lot of TV in the 60s (was on an island with no TV for 2 years, and the rest of the time, I was only allowed to watch it on the weekends...

Other things might be music, or drawing, or rendering programs (3d stuff. One thing young boys seem to like is a program called Doga L1...which allows you to assemble robots, spaceships, etc. from premade-parts. Can be soothing... It's free, and out there on the web.

hope that helps.