• Replies 11 replies
  • Subscribers 25 subscribers
  • Views 7530 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Wishing he was dead - fantasy/reality??

Mhairi

My 9 yr old son with ASD went through an extremely traumatic academic year, last year, was depressed and often in the heat of the moment said things like "I wish I was dead", "I would kill myself" , "I wish you were dead" to his younger sister and once did grap a screwdriver and threaten to stab himself in the eye with it.  At that time I was very concerned about the self harm of the screwdriver, albeit I managed to distract his attention and he did not follow through. 

When he is stressed he oftens will throw into the conversation, "I wish I was dead" despite seeming ok and asking if he can have a bag of crisps etc.

He has been very happy all this academic year, however I discovered today from school that they think to keep him safe he should not go on fighting computer games as they believe this is why he has said things to LSA's when stressed such as "I wish I could put a gun at my head and fire".  I do not believe the fighting games will make any difference - we are talking Star Wars, lego Universe not the graphic human images.  I also think this is fantasy and my son has no proportion for what is acceptable in society.

Having just heard this in a meeting today that this kind of language has been going on for some time I am a little in shock and beginning to doubt myself.  What if he is on the edge of a sort of role play/fantasy which I have seen him do previously with a batman baddy and I was worried he would come to harm getting carried away in the role.  I touched on it with him this evening saying to him, when you say things like "I wish I was dead" some people who do not know you so well will think you mean it and it will worry and upset them.  He said "I do mean it sometimes".  I tried to bring the reality of this saying well you don't mean it as you would never be able to enjoy x,y,z then and he said "I wouldn't care".  But yet, he is very happy in himself?!   Help!

He clearly needs support from somewhere on the acceptable use of language when stressed out but I am wondering should I be getting a psychiatrist involved before we reach the teenage years of up's and down's in mood and susceptibility to depression??

Should I be concerned?  Where can I get support for this sort of thing?

I am trying hard not to react emotionally to him but have explained to him it has upset me hearing him talk like that.

Any experience, thoughts or advice welcome.

 

 

 

Parents

  • Apparently when I was little I used to say similar things. Try not to look at it entirely from 'I'm gonna kill myself point of view', because to me it was more logical thinking, if something bad happened and I didn't like the way it felt, it would make perfect sense that to stop feeling those things was to not be there. So when you hear what death means (which I interpretted as 'no longer there') you take that word and put into a sentence, 'I wish I was dead' would mean to me 'I wish I don't feel these things'.

    My parents used to then freak out and yell at me to get the point across they didn't like it so I stopped saying it when I was about 6. Its only as I've grown older that I've understood all of the problems and darker disturbing things associated with death, like the pain involved, the effect it would have on everyone else etc. But those are all things I learned, they weren't things that came to me naturally. I have never really seen the point of suicide or self harm so I've never gone down that road even though I've attempted to think it through in my head.

    "I touched on it with him this evening saying to him, when you say things like "I wish I was dead" some people who do not know you so well will think you mean it and it will worry and upset them.  He said "I do mean it sometimes".  I tried to bring the reality of this saying well you don't mean it as you would never be able to enjoy x,y,z then and he said "I wouldn't care".  But yet, he is very happy in himself?!"

    For me I remember bad times more clearly than good times, and it would stand to sense that if given an ultimatum between having really bad times and some good times, or nothing at all, I'd rather go for nothing at all. But as I said, it wasn't until I was older that I fully understood the gravity of what I was saying. But at the time I said things like 'I wish I was dead' it would be isolated to one incident, not a general period of time.

    Sorry if this doesn't make sense but its really hard to explain, the simplest I can boil it down to is this.

    'It hurts, I don't want to hurt and the solution to remove the hurt would be to remove myself.' That was what I think was my general thought process.

    'Violent' video games for me are more of an outlet for my anger or frustration, like World of Warcraft etc. where not only can I hit things, I can be distracted from all my problems in real life.

    Hope this isn't as confusing as I think it is.

     

Reply

  • Apparently when I was little I used to say similar things. Try not to look at it entirely from 'I'm gonna kill myself point of view', because to me it was more logical thinking, if something bad happened and I didn't like the way it felt, it would make perfect sense that to stop feeling those things was to not be there. So when you hear what death means (which I interpretted as 'no longer there') you take that word and put into a sentence, 'I wish I was dead' would mean to me 'I wish I don't feel these things'.

    My parents used to then freak out and yell at me to get the point across they didn't like it so I stopped saying it when I was about 6. Its only as I've grown older that I've understood all of the problems and darker disturbing things associated with death, like the pain involved, the effect it would have on everyone else etc. But those are all things I learned, they weren't things that came to me naturally. I have never really seen the point of suicide or self harm so I've never gone down that road even though I've attempted to think it through in my head.

    "I touched on it with him this evening saying to him, when you say things like "I wish I was dead" some people who do not know you so well will think you mean it and it will worry and upset them.  He said "I do mean it sometimes".  I tried to bring the reality of this saying well you don't mean it as you would never be able to enjoy x,y,z then and he said "I wouldn't care".  But yet, he is very happy in himself?!"

    For me I remember bad times more clearly than good times, and it would stand to sense that if given an ultimatum between having really bad times and some good times, or nothing at all, I'd rather go for nothing at all. But as I said, it wasn't until I was older that I fully understood the gravity of what I was saying. But at the time I said things like 'I wish I was dead' it would be isolated to one incident, not a general period of time.

    Sorry if this doesn't make sense but its really hard to explain, the simplest I can boil it down to is this.

    'It hurts, I don't want to hurt and the solution to remove the hurt would be to remove myself.' That was what I think was my general thought process.

    'Violent' video games for me are more of an outlet for my anger or frustration, like World of Warcraft etc. where not only can I hit things, I can be distracted from all my problems in real life.

    Hope this isn't as confusing as I think it is.

     

Children
No Data