I will be your voice!

To the world, you are just one, but to me you are the world.

Friday, October 10, 2008

New OCD Behavior


For the last few months Mickie has decided that he has to have his TV and DVD player on all day and night. I turn it off when he leaves for school, in order to give the appliances a break, but as soon as he gets home he runs in his room and turns it back on.

The DVD player plays the same DVD everyday. I don't know what I will do if the disk breaks. I have tried to play other movies. He used to love Ren & Stimpy, Cars, and the show Ed, Ed and Eddie, but now it has to be this one. It's got a blond baby boy and an Asian baby girl, while a really soothing womans voice sounds out single words.

If anyone turns off the TV, he goes ballistic! I can't even turn it off, when he falls asleep, because he instantly wakes up.

Mickie has a new Obsessive Compulsive behavior. Last night he discovered that a switch by his bedroom door turns of the plugs for the TV and DVD player. He turned it off and then back on, but the DVD won't turn on by itself, so I have to go fix it and by then he has started changing the channels and so the movie won't play.

He did this about 50 times in a row, becoming more and more upset each time. I finally stopped fixing the problem for him and just went to my room and waited it out. He cried and yelled and stimmed for 30 minutes by my door and then he stopped making so much noise and walked to his room. I then fixed the TV again and just jumped for joy. He laid down and fell asleep.

This morning at 5 o'clock in the morning, I was awaken by a rattling on my door. It was Mickie and he was trying to get me to fix the TV again, because, you guessed it; he turned the darn switch again. I didn't give in this time and I made him wait until seven. Needless to say he left the switch alone for the rest of the day.

3 comments:

kristi said...

Maybe go online and look on E-bay or half price.com...we have that issues with movies too!

Anonymous said...

My son started obsessing about his little TV (all TVs really). They all had to be on, at all times. Like you, I would turn them off after he went to school; but, as soon as he retuned, he would turn them all back on again.

I then asked him why he needed the TVs to be on. He answered that he was scared of the TV being off, that a bubble monster was going to come out and get him. I spoke to his doc about this and she suspects Charlie might have had a seizure while the TV was off and now associates the bad/funny feeling with a blank screen.

I ended up just taking the TV out of his room. Now he plays in there happily and for hours (with his Legos), where before he would only go in if the TV was on.

Not sure if any of this helps or even makes sense. Just thought I would share.

:-)

~Zurama Arencibia Nuñez~ said...

I don't know if that would help Mickie. He is non verbal and I mean 0 words. So he can't tell me why he wants it on.

He does watch it more now. He used to just turn it on and walk out of his room. I do worry about a fire if the tv heats up, though I don't know if that's possible.