Did your parents take away your obsession?

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Disagreement with and anger due to gross mischaracterization does not equal hate.

Interesting post! Thanks for bringing it up.. never really thought about this in debt.. but now I can see that I relate to this very well.

When I was 13.. I became obsessed with the film Boys Don't Cry... I thought I related to the character and came out as transgender pretty much the same day! (day one of 4 years of hell)... but I thought the character was the only ever person in life I saw myself in... because I knew I was a girl biologically... but I felt more like a boy and then to see someone who was like that for the first time... it all made sense.... and after having nnumerous meltdowns, I came home to see my DVD in the bin and I had another meltdown... I remember my dad saying 'no-more of the film that's taking over your life!'



So that was pretty much my teen years...

I'm happy staying biologically female.. I don't want a sex change anymore... but now having being diagnosed an Aspie, I now know why I cannot relate to women... sorry girls!

I guess this was the biggest thing I had taken away.

Another thing.. which I supose may sound trivial to most, but actually caused me to have meltdowns was when my dad would take away my PC or music (because I was having a meltdown)... so parants being parents before I got diagnosed... they just thought it was me being badly behaved... so they took away my posessions.... which made me even more mad... even suicidal... I know that sounds extreme.. but.. there we go

Charlie x

When I was in my early teens, I had a strong obsessions with fish (live fish, not food). I used to borrow tons of books about fish from a library, constantly talked to my parents about it, and when I had to do a report on an animal in science class, I chose salmon. The fish obsession lasted for about three years, later replaced by urban planning. (All throughout, I had no problem eating fish.) At first, my parents supported me: listened to my conversations (more like monologues) about fish, took me to the aquarium, and bought me a birthday present related to fish.

But over time, I guess the obsession got to them. They started asking me to stop talking about it; with me being an aspie, that did not work well. I guess eventually, they got fed up with it, and took me to a psychiatrist. (I was starting to get slightly fed up with my obsession too.) In the office, my parents spilled their guts to her. Then she and my parents started shaming me together, for about 40 minutes. I felt so intimidated that I couldn't even give straight answers. On the way out of the building, I even held my hand over my face. But that session did the trick: it completely obliterated a three-year obsession in less than an hour.

After a five-month period of not having any obsessions, I discovered urban planning. But this time, I kept conversations with people about it to a bare minimum. Also, my parents gave me internet access, so I now had the benefit of going to chat rooms related to the topic.

Hand-eye and fine motor control development is good! Problem solving...well that's not exactly how he's been using the DS games, at least not a lot of problem solving. It is more repetition, he hasn't developed an interest in the "RPG"/storyline type games yet (he's got Zelda, it just doesn't do much for him...I understand because I don't like CRPGs either, I need action ). We are going to try expand his range a bit this Christmas, at least get some new games in the rotation to build this. The part that makes it less constructive is what he's doing to his body. He's also recently mentioned that his eyes hurt after playing a long time (not showing up anywhere else, even after hours spent on his Mac). That's not a good sign. He might not be blinking properly using the DS? Or there is something about it's screen? I'm not sure, I don't play on the DS much myself, I just fill in when he's got a really tough, fustrating part he wants me to help with. He's due soon for an eye check-up, hopefully he's got my genes on that rather than his Mom's.

No it hasn't, that's the thing. Even playing games or doing work on his Mac (he likes doing stories in Keynote and using Comic Life, recording himself on the camera, plus he has some Wall-E mini games and Scrabble), which we don't really time limit, and he'll spends hours on it some days. But it has happened on the wife's iTouch (he doesn't get to play on that often). I think what is happening is because it is so portable that he can move around and still stay "plugged into" the game. His body tells him to move, independent of the bladder, but this doesn't break his hyper-focus enough for him to pay attention to his bladder.

EDIT: With the DS he'll be playing while running around the house and going up and down the stairs, leaping off to the floor a few steps from the bottom for deep pressure stim.

One other thing the DS has been training for is dealing with frustration. Or at least it was something that was an issue to start with and he's worked past it, no he'll come to me for help and also self regulate more when stuff doesn't go right for him. Monkeyball was tough going to start with. The problem at this point now is that most of the time that he comes to me with Monkeyball I'm less able than him because he's so practiced with it. Fortunately he's learned to deal with that too. But this is something he can work on elsewhere too. He used to let his frustration get away on him with the Mac too. He's a standard user (the child-lock is so limiting) so he can mess with setting that probably shouldn't mess with, and gets it into a state where it doesn't do what he wants. He once tossed his Mac on the floor. In that situation we packed it away for the day, telling him I wasn't sure I could fix it. Turned out it just needed pluging in again, as when he pulled it onto the floor the power cord pulled out, but I didn't know for sure at the time if that was the case. When never having it again, because of a very natural consequence, was on the line it was pretty good motivation to get a better handle on his anger the next time the frustration started building.

DOOD I R GAM3R! I've been playing computer games longer than you've been alive.

His Mom on the otherhand ... well there are issues there. But I've made some headway there, for myself. So he's inheriting that progress.

As for consequences we try to keep things "natural" so as not to build up weird cause-effect models in his head. We do use the DS for "carrot" stuff though. Such as if he gets up, dressed, and ready for the bus early he can have some bonus time with the DS. It is a bit problematic right now because he then says he doesn't want to go to school, so as to keep playing. But we are getting over that hump.

P.S. He's playing his new Garfield side-scroller behind me right now as I type this. He's doing pretty good, this would be the problem solving phase for him.

My mom would take away my Calvin and Hobbes books and would sometimes put some of my stuffed animals in bags to donate to "poor kids..." I think they were just thrown away, tho. She also forbade me from watching Disney movies I liked that I'd repeat dialogue from.

My stepmom used to complain about how many stuffed animals I have/buy, but it's not so much an issue now that I'm at college.