Here to explore a theory.
My wife with AS is having some interesting issues. She deals with on and off again fears that the food she is eating is poisoned. (She probably has some intolerances that just haven’t been explored yet, as I eat most of the same food she does and I feel completely fine. I know she has some issues with seed oil, higher amounts of sugar, and many processed foods.
She also thinks that the apartment we live in has been radiated and that there is radiation lingering in the mattress and couch. I thoroughly cleaned both but she hasn’t broken this down yet. Again, I think she feels this way because of some other issue (like irregular sleep, too much down time, or something to do with her diet…or a combination of all three). I own a radon detector and the radon level is coming in at under 0.25 in most areas, including directly on the mattress (the highest reading I got anywhere in the apartment was 0.36; we’re also on the sixth floor of our building and live nowhere near a nuclear power plant). By contrast, the level was about 1.25 in our old apartment. Both seem to be pretty good from my research, but averaging 0.18 around the entire place over a week is phenomenal.
For now, she’s avoiding the couch and sleeping alone on an air mattress in the kitchen. She usually breaks these things down over time, but it’s a question of when. I’m working with our new therapist to find a strategy but don’t see him until Tuesday. (Any ideas from anyone here in advance are good because I feel the air mattress is hurting her quality of sleep and, selfishly, I miss her next to me in bed).
Now I do have a theory here and I want to see if anyone agrees that this is the likely cause. Her parents have done this to her because they don’t understand the AS mind. Bear in mind she wasn’t diagnosed until 33 and that it was me who suggested it, not her parents.
Point 1: She always has had some fears because her household was unstable and in an unsafe neighborhood. As a child, maybe early grade school age, she’d put her teddy bear around the front of her neck because of a fear of being strangled in the middle of the night. She never talked about this fear with anyone (parents, siblings, peers, counselors, teachers). In fact, this was only revealed to me last night and I am the first person she has told about it. This shows me that even at a young age, there was some distrust with those in her life, including her parents. (This also was around the time her mom made her dad an ultimatum: either divorce her or kick out the kids from a previous marriage; the kids got kicked out).
Point 2: When she was younger, she tried a Japanese cookie and didn’t like it. Again, this was in those younger years, around 6 or so. When she reported to her mom that she didn’t care for the cookie, her mom told her that any food that doesn’t taste good or right will make her sick. Could this have been reinforced enough that it caused her to think the worst about any food? Was this a terrible way to parent her?
Point 3: Her dad is a conspiracy theorist. He believes anything on the internet at face value, including myths about what agencies can and cannot do. This is likely why she thinks there is some satellite that can radiate into apartments and somehow render mattresses, couches, and the like useless. She thinks that washing anything will solve the problem, but doesn’t think a couch can be washed to that extent (though I did wash all the upholstery and have a steam cleaner on hand for the mattress to see if that will be enough).
Meanwhile, I’ve been sleeping on the mattress and using the couch with no ill effects. She does see this, but still has her fears.
I blame the parents and I want to know if:
1. My theories are any good
2. These can be broken down easily (I’m OK with finding her a good cognitive behavioral therapist if need be as I feel that would be the best route to go)
04 Oct 2024, 10:51 pm
