difficult child 2's Fantasy World

gcvmom

Here we go again!
It came out in difficult child 2's self-report for the ADHD study that he wishes he lived in the "Pokemon" world and that he was a Pokemon so that he would fit in better.

Kinda made me sad for him.

I can't wait for school to start. He really needs to get back into his social skills group...
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I have such mixed feelings about Pokemon. One of the things that hit me hardest was realizing that Wiz truly believed that if he could just get to Japan that he could prove Pokemon really existed.

My family tried to convince me that he was "joking" or "pulling my chain" but they were wrong. He finally came clean to my mom about a year ago when he finally accepted reality. She was devastated. She still doesn't understand that he truly meant that he thought pokemon were living creatures that could be caught. It is easier for her that way.

I hope he can get back into the swing of things at school and sharpen his social skills easily.
 

timer lady

Queen of Hearts
It breaks my heart to see my & hear of other difficult children struggle so with loneliness & "magical" thinking.

You have to admit that fantasy land can be a much better place (not necessarily healthier) to hang out in.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
GCVMom--

At least your child's fantasy is to live among positive role models. Pokemon tries to show lessons in good sportsmanship, respect for others, etc etc etc...

My difficult child seems to be confused about an alternate vampire reality where one stays out all night, never sleeps, hunts people, kills them and drinks their blood.

Frankly, I'd take Pokemon any day...

--DaisyF
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Daisy... Yes, I know. Its the whole Twilight thing. Except my kid doesn't want to drink people's blood! She just wants to be a vampire.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Daisy... Yes, I know. Its the whole Twilight thing. Except my kid doesn't want to drink people's blood! She just wants to be a vampire.

Not to hi-jack the thread here....but yes, it originally started as a Twilight thing....and quickly morphed into something far more hideous.

Evidently, because the Twilight series was written for young adults--it was a bit too tame for hardcore vampire fans...and so a whole series of websites have cropped up featuring the "additional adventures' of the story's character. Much of it would be rated XXX. And even though husband and I monitor our daughter's computer use--the same cannot be said for many other parents around here....and so these graphic stories began circulating around the school.

difficult child even managed to assemble a 3-ring binder full of printouts from these websites before we found out about this....and so now her fantasy world includes devil worship, human and animal sacrifices, voo-doo curses, and graphic sexual scenarios such as accidentally eating your partner during lovemaking, etc. If it's gross, disgusting and completely inappropriate then it's apparantly quite fascinating to difficult child.

(And yes, we're discussing it with the new psychiatrist...)

When the books first came out....I didn't mind them at all because fantasy stories were a great way to get difficult child to read. But now I wish I'd never even HEARD of Twilight.

And how it went from harmless interest to obsessive to the point of being confused with reality--I'm not sure....I don't know what about these stories "flipped the switch" as it were.

So I can absolutely understand why GCVMom would be concerned...it's hard to know why or when or if these kids will cross that line between fantasy and reality.

Hopefully developing better social skills and interacting with real friends will help him stay more grounded.

--DaisyF
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Oh, I feel his pain!

When I was a kid, and not fitting in, and teased, it was the 60's and African-Americans were not treated well, and tended to stick up for one another and, in my mind judge one another less. I wished I could have been born African-American so that I would be accepted more and not made fun of for not being good enough. Whether or not my fantasy was true, it was my fantasy.

I also wished I could learn I was adopted so that maybe another family would love me more.

It's very hard to be a "different" child :( Although some kids may cross into fantasy, I do think most who have these wishes are just unhappy with who they are and realize that they are just "wishing."
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
Poor little guy.

So glad though that it is being seen by experts.
This can be a fine line for our kids.
There is a huge difference between wanting to escape because of loneliness which is troubling for our kids. They can sink into agoraphobia or worse depression with these kinds of thoughts.

Then there is the actual magical thinking, where they truly believe they can do it, that there truly is a way to do this and that these other worlds exist.
Which can lead or go hand in hand with them being in a delusional state at times or not being able to differentiate from the fantasy world and the real world.

Hopefully he is just lonely and needs to relate to something familiar right now. Something safe, an escape.

K right now believes she can control traffic. Among her thinking there is a world that she only knows about. Her world is truly out of her own mind, no TV influence etc.

The only funny thing about her controlling the traffic is I keep asking her make the cars behind me get off of my butt! LOL

I really think most of our kids need to escape, they have way too much going on in there heads for most people.
Our jobs our to help them keep it all straight and in order. Not easy

How long until School starts?
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
I guess I was just a little shocked that he was so serious about his statement. At first I laughed and asked "you've got to be kidding, right?" and I could see he was not joking.

He also told me that he believes he can predict the future sometimes. We had a little discussion about that, me trying to show him how unrealistic that is, but he still maintained that it was possible.

So yeah, it's going on my list to discuss with the psychiatrist on our next visit.

My take on the whole Twilight thing (which I got completely pulled into the last two weeks and am just about done with the last book) is that someone who's predisposed to this "magical" thinking is going to be affected by books like this, regardless of whether it's vampires or wizards or whatever. The whole vampire thing has so much subliminal erotic stuff in it that I think that's why young adults are attracted to it. They're in the throes of raging hormones and an emerging sexual identity that is looking for someplace to fit in. I remember being a young teen and reading Dracula for the first time. I think I read the book another three or four times that year because I was just drawn to it. But I didn't obsess about wandering my neighborhood in search of a hot date that I could eat. And that's probably because I don't have the issues my difficult child has.

My difficult child 1 got completely hooked on Twighlight. Read the series then read it again. And again. And again. I finally took the books away from him. He just doesn't know when to stop (just see my TV thread!). His dad has similar issues with not being able to put the brakes on something he likes. It's just never enough.

So we'll see if the structure that school brings can get everyone back on track. We start on the 8th.
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
I agree
For us I think we are going to have to monitor the things K reads and watches.
I have to really curb what she reads already. If they are too fantastical, she will start to spiral even deeper.
Even though she had her fantasy world before she could read, any books on fairies or with themes that are too dark. Can trigger things.

Just too much for us to think about. Huh?

That is why I was SO happy she liked the Captain Underpants books and Moody Judy!!!
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Not to say anyone is wrong - because you are NOT WRONG - but I was into the whole sexual thing very much during my early and mid teens. The more violent and disgusting, the better. And I like to think I wasn't a difficult child - though I am SURE I had my moments!!!

I'd rather be a Pokemon anyway, than a vampire. Pikachu's cool. There's a lot of people I'd like to shock the snot out of.

Regardless, there's a line between fantasy and obsession/believing it IS. It's like saying Dungeons & Dragons made those teens commit suicide in the 80s. I played D&D - but never wanted to kill myself. I think it's correct that some are predisposed to be unduly influenced by such things. And if there are already those tendencies... Watch out.

I do have obsessive tendencies, so I have to watch myself carefully with such things.
 

Christy

New Member
My son also walks a thin line fantasy and reality.

There was a time when he thought that he could make dinosaurs come to life and he would be king of the dinosaurs and control them. When he was angry at me, he would summon a t-rex to eat me (and he was serious).

Another time he actually wanted to be a tarantula and would walk around the house on his hands, crab-walk style. He only dressed in black.

Last year at school (he was 10), he went into the restroom, took off his clothes and wrapped his body in toilet paper. He wanted to transform himself into an evil mummy that comes alive.
 

ThreeShadows

Quid me anxia?
I wonder, what is the difference between their magical thinking and my own hope that Golden Guru will be all right if I pray hard enough and earnestly enough for her? Or for Paulina and Basil for whom I lit multiple candles under our pergola last night. We toasted their new lives and wished them the best.

difficult child 1 was very much into pokemon when he was younger. He wanted me to watch it with him to make me understand why he loved Pikachu. I refused (not intellectual enough, I guess). He was so disappointed. Shame on me. I missed a golden opportunity to relate to him. I have not gotten an other chance.

My half sister in Belgium REALLY believed that J.R. Ewing was an existing person and that the show was a biography.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Thanks everyone. :)

We had a little chat on the way to his soccer practice last night. He says he realizes they (Pokemon) are not REAL, he just said he really, really wishes they were and that he could be one.

Okay. I guess I can deal with that.

But then in the same conversation he told me that he KNOWS that dragons are real because of some movie/fantasy documentary that he saw which had "proof" of their exisitence. :faint: Then he proceeded to remind me that just because you can't SEE something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Like the Easter Bunny -- you've never seen him, Mom, but you know he's real!

Hoo-boy... how was I supposed to answer that? Yeah, that would mean putting Santa Claus to rest forever, too. I was soooo close to doing it... but I thought that perhaps indulging his very naive view of the world wasn't so bad, at least for a wee bit longer. His peers will eventually set him straight, and I just couldn't bring myself to burst that bubble yet. I know he's 12, but he's a very young 12 in so many ways. Part of me wants to let him hang onto those childhood fantasies to preserve his innocence a bit, and part of me is wary of the "magical" thinking because of his particular mental health issues.

So I guess at this point I'm just going to listen a lot.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
O that's a tough one!!

I can tell you that my difficult child at age 14 still fervently believes in the easter bunny AND Santa--but has figured out that the Tooth Fairy is her parents. She does have 'magical thinking'....and no amount of rational explanation will change that.

So maybe it doesn't matter whether you tell him or not? If he's like most kids, he will evetually figure it out on his own...and if he has "magical thinking" then--well, ???

by the way--you can reassure him that dragons ARE real. (I'm not sure which documentary he saw, but there have been specials explaining the dragon stories.) In this country, we know know them as "dinosaurs", but in other countries they refer to the same beasts as 'dragons'. When you travel you China and purchase 'dragon' potions, they are actually made from dinosaur fossils.

Pretty cool, huh?

--DaisyF
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Daisy, he firmly believes there is a distinction between dragons and dinos. And he believes that dragons are STILL living in this world, while he says that dinos are definitely extinct.

Sigh. I'll have to watch the movie with him so I can help him process some of this stuff.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Daisy, he firmly believes there is a distinction between dragons and dinos. And he believes that dragons are STILL living in this world, while he says that dinos are definitely extinct.

Sigh. I'll have to watch the movie with him so I can help him process some of this stuff.

O, that's different...

Yes, it sounds like you do need to help him sort this out. What movie is it that got him confused? I wish I could remember where I saw that show about dragons/dinosaurs...it was probably a Discovery or National Geographic special. If I can think of it--I will let you know...it might help.

Best,

DaisyF
 
Top