Sleepless in Phoenix

Well folks... Cody is on day... ten? twelve? Fourteen? (I'm not actually sure) of an insomnia bender.

He goes to bed at 8.

He sleeps for an hour or so.

He wakes up thinking he hasn't slept.

He freaks out that he hasn't slept.

He comes running out into the living room, frantic and screaming at us that he's not sleeping. He thinks we're lying to him that he has, in fact, been asleep.

He wants water, tea, crackers, medicine, backrubs, pressure massage, beanbags, blankets, books, vidoes, music... anything that he thinks might put him to sleep.

None of which actually work. It's all stuck in his head now and it's the very suggestion that he MIGHT not be able to sleep that is eating at him. It starts the minute he walks in from school. Nothing distracts him from it. Nothing redirects his obsessive thoughts away from it. It just keeps happening and we are at a loss to break the cycle. Is it the obsessiveness of the autism biting him in the butt? Is it the sleeplessness of the bipolar playing in? Is it just an anxious 8 year old stuck in an ugly cycle? Is he eating something that is messing with his sleep cycle? A side effect of his meds? AHHHHHH!!! I don't know.

Over and over again, night after night, he wakes up and gets more and more frantic about not being able to sleep. He's angry, demanding, anxious and LOUD.

We're tired, concerned, frustrated, baffled and - yeah - a little annoyed.

"Go to bed."

"Go to bed."

"Go to bed."

"Go to bed."

"Go to bed."

"Go to bed."

"Go back to bed."

"Go back to bed."

"Go back to bed."

"Go back to bed."

"Go back to bed."

"Go back to bed."


It's. All. Night.

Anyone got any ideas?

Echolalia

Yesterday, I learned that there is an actual name for the thing that makes me want to run screaming from my 8yo autistic son...

Echolalia. :)


Definition: repetition of a word or phrase. Some autistic people and people with Asperger syndrome may use repetition as a method of allowing themselves more time to process language. A typical pediatric presentation of echolalia might be: a child is asked, "Do you want dinner?" the child echoes back "Do you want dinner?" followed by a pause and then a response, "Yes. What's for dinner?" In delayed echolalia, a phrase is repeated after a delay, such as a person with autism who repeats TV commercials, favorite movie scripts, or parental reprimands.


So by my best guess, I would be experiencing Post-traumatic Echolalia Syndrome. Or perhaps Anti-echolalia. Or Echolaliaphobia. Something like that. :)