Seeing rainbows, black lines and a giraffe. Afraid to be alone.

[WeeMadKillerKelpie]

My 7 year old ds is currently being assessed for ASD. The school and I are expecting a diagnosis of autism.

The last two months he has refused to be on his own in any room in the house. I talked to him tonight and he said one night he heard scary breathing in his room and it hurt him in his heart so he is scared of being alone now.

He also told me he has an eye infection that means he sees rainbows and swirling colours often. He said he could see them when he was talking to me then. He said he sometimes sees a black line which he doesn't like.

At bed time, he says sometimes he sees a giraffe and it touches him sometimes, then he knows he will have bad dreams.

Does anyone recognise this and have any advice?

Aww your poor ds.

My ds is 14 now, he has asd.
When he was younger he was also afraid to be alone in a room at any time. He still won’t sleep alone but he will be alone at other times now.
I think I can relate to what your little one is saying, well everything other than the giraffe.

The breathing may of been his awareness of his own bodily sounds, but maybe creating fear. When your frightened everything does seem louder. ‘Hurt in his heart’ this would be a way my ds would say he was frightened.

The black lines- maybe eye floaters. I have them all the time. I think people on the spectrum notice everything that others possibly wouldn’t. Same with the coloured squiggly lines, I think it sounds just like over analysing the senses.

I think children often become overwhelmed by things, and I think many asd children live in a constant state of being overwhelmed.

I’m not sure if I’ve been helpful at all - I know it’s awful trying to lessen you child’s anxiety.

THE rainbow may be a migraine aura. You can have them without the usual accompanying pain.

It could be a form of sensory processing/visual stress. My 3 dc have this and are affected in different ways. They see this man and wear coloured lens glasses.

Fascinating!

We just took dc with asd to a behavioural optometrist - might be worth a try

Perhaps synesthesia?

I have visual migraines occasionally and it looks like a zig zag rainbow in my vision. It could be that?

Yes to the migraine suggestions - I have visual migraine without subsequent headache, and when it started, I used t think it looked like a giraffe's head and neck growing and covering my field of vision - it would be a silhouette "coloured in" with squigly rainbow and black lines.

That's exactly what I have and no pain, but I feel drained afterwards. I thought I was having a brain hemmorage or something when it first happened!!