Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello, my son now 11 with little speech but high logic has an increasing list of phobias that prevent him from taking part in school activities so I am trying to understand them in order to find ways and help him cope. Therapists strategy do not work so far..
The biggest problem in a video/photo/cameras world is Scopophobia, he cannot stand seeing himself on a photo (even his passport cannot be opened when around but has no problem with mirrors). He has huge meltdowns when someone wants to take a picture and he is around, screaming: "No photo, No video, No Future!". It expanded to watching videos at school on which he has no control whereas at home he knows he can switch off TV when it distrubs him and watch videos he choses on his tablet.
Would anyone understand this link to the future? Thank you advance, I am a bit lost with this one.
This is something that I have experienced my entire life.
As a child I would scream and cry and have meltdowns if anyone tried to take my photo. Early photos show me either crying, hiding behind my mum or disappearing out of the picture.
As an adult there are very few photos of me. If I do have my photo taken I try and stay as far away from the camera as possible, so that my image is a tiny dot. I would never dream of uploading any photos of myself online. If I am on a video call I prefer to have my camera off or at least not to have to look at myself on the screen.
The reasons behind this are hard to explain. I believe it is an intense dislike of being observed and not necessarily a phobia.
Does your son have a camera himself? If not it may be worth getting one for him. I do like taking photos and nearly always have my camera with me. However I usually try to avoid having any people in my photos. I am more inspired by landscapes and patterns in objects.
I suspect the 'future' comment relates to the unwanted attention of being shown or having other people look at that photo in the future.
It may be worth you researching more about autistic exposure anxiety. Exposure anxiety was identified by Donna Williams, an autistic author who wrote "Exposure Anxiety: The Invisible Cage" in 2002. It can be summarised as an extreme and overwhelming form of self consciousness.
Even though the book was written 20 years ago there is very little online about it. Googling the term just brings up lots of results about 'Exposure Therapy' for anxiety, which is completely different. Aucademy did a video on the topic a few months ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-ma_UG3f2U
Autonomistic said:I suspect the 'future' comment relates to the unwanted attention of being shown or having other people look at that photo in the future.
That definately makes sense knowing him!