My phone rang at about 8:30 this morning. The OT’s grandfather died. Today’s appointment was canceled.
I’ve decided today (again, for the 35698th time) that there’s no possible way Little Man has Asperger’s. There’s way too much eye contact and real conversation and empathy. Today I’m totally back to thinking that it’s Sensory Processing Disorder with some possible early signs of OCD mixed in for good measure.
I need to know if something is “normal.” Little Man has a problem with me throwing things away. No, no, no, I’m not talking about toys he’s outgrown or his rock collection or Pokemon cards. I’m talking about real, undeniable crapshit garbage.
Here are a few examples:
*dead weeds flowers weeds he picked for me (three weeks ago)
*the plastic bag from the dollar store that we brought our crapshit bargains home in
*the packaging from his Pez dispenser
*the packaging from his Pez candy
*stained, used, chewed popsicle sticks (and YES! I’ve bought him the crafty kind)
*Freezie wrappers
*Gummi Fruit wrappers
*lollipop sticks
*McHappy Meal toys that broke the same day he got them, 3 years ago
*scraps of paper that are scattered on the craft table, hours after he’s already hung his actual craft on the easel
*bird feathers that he’s collected from our lawn (and why the feck are there so many bird feathers on my lawn anyway?!)
Do you see what I mean? Can you even imagine the size of the mountain of crapshit garbage I’d be typing under if I didn’t sneak around the house at night and steal his treasures so that I could toss them in the bloody bin? I feel like a thief. I feel like a night crawler. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the time waiting for the inevitable,
“Mommy. Do you know where my crapshit Pez package is?”
“Um, no sweetie. I don’t.” (And technically that’s true, ’cause once I send the garbage to the curb and it’s mercifully taken away in the truck, I really don’t know where it is.)
“Mommy.”
“Yes, babe?”
“I think you threw it out.”
Then, like a guilty thief who gets caught red-handed, I mumble and trip over my tongue as I try to find an alibi or a scapegoat. Oh, the blessed scapegoat.
“I think you should ask daddy if he knows where your Pez package is.”
This COULD be an early sign of OCD; hoarding is a fairly common OCD trait. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it unless it persists. The thing is, lots of kids go through phases where they exhibit pretty irrational behavior because of some new concept they are struggling to grasp. He may just be fighting right now with the idea that objects are not always permanent, that things that go in the trash can be gone FOREVER and he can never get them back. He might not actually care that much about the candy wrappers. It could just be that he finds the whole concept of things disappearing frightening right now.
I remember when I was a small child getting SOOOOO upset once when a balloon I had flew away, and even though someone offered me another balloon that was just as good as the first, I didn’t care– I didn’t want THAT one; I wanted the one that I’d lost. It just didn’t seem fair to me, that thinks I liked could be lost. It was my first real sense that there were things in the world totally outside of human control, that things could get broken in ways no one in my life could fix. It’s sort of a prefiguring of the sense of mortality, I guess.
You could always try talking to him about why he keeps this stuff. Maybe you could explain that when things are broken or used up we HAVE to get rid of them in order to make room for new things?
By: jaelithe on July 16, 2008
at 1:51 pm
My daughter also keeps trash, but she comes by it honestly: I did the same thing as a child. I also collected one square of toilet paper from every public restroom I ever used, until about age 10. Strangely, the collection disappeared when we moved overseas and I couldn’t collect more without the rest, so I quit. And, yes, my daughter and I both exhibit mild OCD symptoms in other areas of our lives. Luckily, they ARE mild.
The way I get around the “trash” thing is, I bought a nice-looking, smallish “treasure chest” from Michaels for 50% off (total: $10) and told her THAT is where her ‘treasures’ are kept. If it’s full, she needs to decide what to keep and what to throw out. If ‘treasures’ are found elsewhere, they go in the trash. My exact wording is, “Feel free to keep the ones you put away – the ones I find are trash to me.”
By: Andrea's Sweet Life on July 16, 2008
at 6:47 pm
Jaelithe, what is it about balloons, anyway? I remember a similar incident with a balloon in my childhood. Weird. And yes, hoarding is definitely a factor in OCD. Hubby swears he’s only a counter and a checker, but he’s definitely a hoarder, too. So’s his mom.
Andrea, I’m glad my kid isn’t alone in his “trash keeping.”
Great idea with the treasure chest. Thanks for that!
By: goodmum on July 16, 2008
at 7:30 pm
We are hoarders, the huzzles fam are tosserss. (Heh. No pun intended.) Nate gets really attached to trash too. But I think that’s normal. He will definitely ask in the morning, but that’s because he doesn’t see it as trash. The night before that pez wrapper may have been a spaceship or something. He becomes attached to the game he was playing with it more than the object.
By: Nadine/Scarb on July 16, 2008
at 11:54 pm
Yeah, Little Man sometimes wants to keep his garbage “for a craft someday.” I can see that with egg cartons and popsicle sticks, but Pez packages??? Uh, maybe he just has more imagination than me. That wouldn’t be hard!
By: goodmum on July 17, 2008
at 9:37 am
we get lots of treasures too. collections of pieces of paper she finds on the floor of stores – they turn into “airplanes”. i’ve gotten into trouble the morning after when she asks where they are, i say i don’t know, she tells me i must have thrown them out. yup, i “guess” i did. lots of dead flowers, feathers, sticks, rocks, miniscule shiny things, etc. treasures. and yes that is part of the asperger’s concern at our end too. but then i also have bins of rocks and sticks around the house that i’ve collected as an adult. i could also have asperger’s. but it hasn’t kept me from building a somewhat functional life
i like the idea of buying a treasure chest, and anything not in it becoming garbage. i will use that one.
By: colleen on July 19, 2008
at 11:35 pm