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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

  • I concur with the others, try to find out which situations make him say that -- maybe something stresses/annoys/pains him, and he just articulates it in an uncommon way?

    If one is in pain, one has two options, remove the pain (the perception) from you, or remove yourself (the perceiver) from the pain.

    If he isn't aware that he can remove the pain (pain in the broadest sense of the word!), then he comes to the conclusion that he can only make the pain end by making himself end. Maybe he just means to say "make [that] stop."

    If you and he find out what "that" is (it can be several different situations), then you can look out for it. For example, say, he sees a bright light and says, "I want to be dead". Then you say, "If this bright light was dimmed down, would you want to stay alive?" If he agrees, you say "Then I show you how to dim it, and next time, just tell us 'I want to dim this light' and then go dim it, and then you don't have to be dead."

    Similarly in the case with the sister, maybe he just wanted her to stop doing something (being too close, interrupting him with objectively harmless things). Then tell him, "If she went out for 15 mins instead of being dead, would that make you feel better?" if yes, teach him a polite phrase to tell her to leave (and tell her to listen!) Wink

    PS: And I agree that "I wouldn't care" could be interpreted as "this question is redundant, because after I'm dead, I wouldn't care".

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  • I concur with the others, try to find out which situations make him say that -- maybe something stresses/annoys/pains him, and he just articulates it in an uncommon way?

    If one is in pain, one has two options, remove the pain (the perception) from you, or remove yourself (the perceiver) from the pain.

    If he isn't aware that he can remove the pain (pain in the broadest sense of the word!), then he comes to the conclusion that he can only make the pain end by making himself end. Maybe he just means to say "make [that] stop."

    If you and he find out what "that" is (it can be several different situations), then you can look out for it. For example, say, he sees a bright light and says, "I want to be dead". Then you say, "If this bright light was dimmed down, would you want to stay alive?" If he agrees, you say "Then I show you how to dim it, and next time, just tell us 'I want to dim this light' and then go dim it, and then you don't have to be dead."

    Similarly in the case with the sister, maybe he just wanted her to stop doing something (being too close, interrupting him with objectively harmless things). Then tell him, "If she went out for 15 mins instead of being dead, would that make you feel better?" if yes, teach him a polite phrase to tell her to leave (and tell her to listen!) Wink

    PS: And I agree that "I wouldn't care" could be interpreted as "this question is redundant, because after I'm dead, I wouldn't care".

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