Every child has fears. The dark, monsters under the bed.
My little darling had fears that went way beyond these rights of passage. We did the normal fear of the dark, and we had a spray bottle with water in it and a felt marker label that said MONSTER SPRAY in big red letters. Every night I would spray in both of the kids rooms, under the beds, in the closets and any dark corners that looked like a monster could fit.
About the time that we were conquering these normal fears, the Tsunami hit in Thailand. It didn't matter what channel we flipped to there were pictures of people and animals getting swept away by an avalanche of water. It was on the news every day for weeks. We made a point of limiting our kids exposure to it but even on the channels were their shows were on, commercials would announce new coverage on the news that night.
One particular piece of footage I will never forget was of a displace toilet, outside in the middle of a sea of water, with water exploding up out of the center hole. My youngest son, with at the time undiagnosed Asperger's, never forgot that picture and developed a pathological fear of plumbing and tsunami's. Even pipes rattling in the wall when we flushed toilets when he was really little would send him into hysterics. If we ended up with a plugged toilet he would have a complete meltdown.
Every night for years he would ask me if we could die in a tsunami in Edmonton. Every night my answer was the same, " Honey, we live in the middle of a very big country far away from the ocean. Even if a tsunami came, the water would never reach us. If it did we would have much bigger issues than the tsunami! "
Thinking back on it now if I had understood how an Asperger's person's mind works I would have given a much different answer. They need a black and white yes or no. I left the door wide open, which is why he kept asking.
I got really creative with the toilet fear. I tried to take him to the worst case scenario to show him that nothing was that bad. " So what if the toilet overflows" I said, "we live on a hill! We'll just open up the door and that water will run right out the front door and down the hill! " He looked at me like I had lost my mind and continued flapping his hands with full anxiety.
The first thing I would point out, would be that in so far as a fear could be logical, these are not logical fears. There is no way to talk them off the ledge around whatever fears they develop. The more I rationalized why they didn't make sense, the more he clung to them. In the end I talked to him when he was older about taking a plumbing course with me at Rona. I figured maybe feeling like it was something he knew how to control would make the difference. He just couldn't fathom that.
The other thing that plagued him was nightmares. I haven't read much about whether or not that is common in Aperger's or Autism. I do know that you tend to remember what you dream mostly when you wake up at a specific point in your sleep cycle and because we had desperate sleep issues my son had sometimes two or three nightmares a night. This made him afraid to close his eyes and go to sleep at all.
Since getting our diagnosis and starting him on the Melatonin to regulate his sleep and putting the kids on the gluten free, casein free diet our life has dramatically changed. With regular sleep, we now have the odd nightmare, but not three a night. The other day the toilet was running in my ensuite. He and I were reading on the bed. He jumped up, and walked over, took the back off the toilet to see what was happening and pulled the chain a bit and said " Mom, the flappers stuck!"
I was glad he couldn't see me, with tears in my eyes clutching my book to my chest. I wiped my eyes trying to look normal and jumped up to help him fix it. Never in a million years did I think he would ever be able to manage something as simple as checking a toilet. One of this greatest fears.
Sometimes life's greatest blessings come in funny packages. I would also never have thought I would shed tears over a toilet!!! LOL!
In love and light,
Kathryn
My little darling had fears that went way beyond these rights of passage. We did the normal fear of the dark, and we had a spray bottle with water in it and a felt marker label that said MONSTER SPRAY in big red letters. Every night I would spray in both of the kids rooms, under the beds, in the closets and any dark corners that looked like a monster could fit.
About the time that we were conquering these normal fears, the Tsunami hit in Thailand. It didn't matter what channel we flipped to there were pictures of people and animals getting swept away by an avalanche of water. It was on the news every day for weeks. We made a point of limiting our kids exposure to it but even on the channels were their shows were on, commercials would announce new coverage on the news that night.
One particular piece of footage I will never forget was of a displace toilet, outside in the middle of a sea of water, with water exploding up out of the center hole. My youngest son, with at the time undiagnosed Asperger's, never forgot that picture and developed a pathological fear of plumbing and tsunami's. Even pipes rattling in the wall when we flushed toilets when he was really little would send him into hysterics. If we ended up with a plugged toilet he would have a complete meltdown.
Every night for years he would ask me if we could die in a tsunami in Edmonton. Every night my answer was the same, " Honey, we live in the middle of a very big country far away from the ocean. Even if a tsunami came, the water would never reach us. If it did we would have much bigger issues than the tsunami! "
Thinking back on it now if I had understood how an Asperger's person's mind works I would have given a much different answer. They need a black and white yes or no. I left the door wide open, which is why he kept asking.
I got really creative with the toilet fear. I tried to take him to the worst case scenario to show him that nothing was that bad. " So what if the toilet overflows" I said, "we live on a hill! We'll just open up the door and that water will run right out the front door and down the hill! " He looked at me like I had lost my mind and continued flapping his hands with full anxiety.
The first thing I would point out, would be that in so far as a fear could be logical, these are not logical fears. There is no way to talk them off the ledge around whatever fears they develop. The more I rationalized why they didn't make sense, the more he clung to them. In the end I talked to him when he was older about taking a plumbing course with me at Rona. I figured maybe feeling like it was something he knew how to control would make the difference. He just couldn't fathom that.
The other thing that plagued him was nightmares. I haven't read much about whether or not that is common in Aperger's or Autism. I do know that you tend to remember what you dream mostly when you wake up at a specific point in your sleep cycle and because we had desperate sleep issues my son had sometimes two or three nightmares a night. This made him afraid to close his eyes and go to sleep at all.
Since getting our diagnosis and starting him on the Melatonin to regulate his sleep and putting the kids on the gluten free, casein free diet our life has dramatically changed. With regular sleep, we now have the odd nightmare, but not three a night. The other day the toilet was running in my ensuite. He and I were reading on the bed. He jumped up, and walked over, took the back off the toilet to see what was happening and pulled the chain a bit and said " Mom, the flappers stuck!"
I was glad he couldn't see me, with tears in my eyes clutching my book to my chest. I wiped my eyes trying to look normal and jumped up to help him fix it. Never in a million years did I think he would ever be able to manage something as simple as checking a toilet. One of this greatest fears.
Sometimes life's greatest blessings come in funny packages. I would also never have thought I would shed tears over a toilet!!! LOL!
In love and light,
Kathryn
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