Look to Mental Pictures to Judge Emotional States

Yesterday, Meredith had a bad day and came home crying saying that she was depressed.  She even missed her soccer game because of it.  The problem was that I couldn't pinpoint the source of her emotions. It's not as simple as asking her what is wrong, because often she can't find a way to express her emotions and asking her sometimes just makes her that more upset. Usually she will show that there is a problem by crying, refusing to do anything I ask her to do, getting upset with any little inquiry or suggestion I make trying to help her, and being very over reactive to any minor stress. In these situations, the only thing that I have learned to do is to give her lots of space, remove any stresses, and provide opportunities to refuel her right brain like drawing, watching TV, listening to music, or playing with her dolls.

So, she watched lots of TV, drew me a picture, sang and danced in her room, and had lots of good snacks.  I didn't insist she go to her soccer game, do any chores, and made sure her little brother stayed far away.  After dinner, she came into my room and we were able to talk rationally about what was bothering her.  She had mentioned a few times last week that she was struggling with some math concepts--the relationships between fractions, decimals, and percents in particular--so I thought this could be it...especially since I knew these are generally difficult concepts for a visual thinker like Meredith to grasp.  And sure enough, that was it. 

Meredith said that she just doesn't get the concepts and can't process what her teaching is saying.  She has always struggled with these concepts in math.  She says that all she hears is "Blah, blah, blah."  Not in a disrespectful way at all--just that she literally can't process what she is hearing; it doesn't mean anything to her.

Over the last few months, I have learned a really good way to judge how Meredith is feeling or what problem she is experiencing by asking one simple question: "What's Merebith doing?"  Meredith told me that during math class last week, Merebith was in a coma being kept alive by a machine.  And because Merebith is Meredith's "Control Center," (according to Meredith) no learning was happening...the factory was closed essentially.  That gave me a pretty good idea about how math was going for her lately and what her emotional state was.  Merebith always displays an exaggerated version of how Meredith is feeling--she's like a cartoon character in that way.  This exaggeration is really helpful because it leaves me little doubt as to what Meredith is feeling!

I know that Meredith really enjoys geometry (hello again visual-spatial strength!) and so as a contrast, I asked her what Merebith does when she is doing geometry.  Meredith told me excitedly that Merebith wears a T-Shirt that has a lot of colorful shapes all over it and the words, "Math Rocks!"  She also wears a visor and has a pencil tucked behind her ear.  Usually, Merebith is furiously doing math on her paper because she loves it.

Continuing with this topic, I asked her if Merebith acts in any peculiar ways if she is having trouble or having a lot of success in other subjects at school.  The one thing she told me was that in Language Arts, a lot of the time Merebith has a frog stuck in her throat.  Merebith gets a frog stuck in her throat when Meredith is trying to figure out what a particular figure of speech means (Meredith understood the irony that Merebith is acting out a figure of speech during these times).  Until Meredith understands the figure of speech in question, Merebith continues to choke and Dogot uses the Heimlich Maneuver (in his robotic nature) to try to dislodge the frog.  Once Meredith understands what the figure of speech means, Dogot successfully dislodges the frog from Meredith's throat and it goes flying across the room and hits a wall--splat! 

At least I know that Meredith understands irony...

Watching T.V. Shows...In Your Mind

"Do you know what I do in school when I'm done with my work?" Meredith asked me.  "I watch SpongeBob."  Now, I had just learned about how Meredith thought in pictures and in movie snipets, so I had a feeling she didn't mean she actually got to watch a cartoon at school.  She explained that she can close her eyes and watch SpongeBob in her mind whenever she wants.  Hard to believe, for me anyway.  I later learned that she also has Merebith edit the cartoons to take the commercials out.  It really interests me to think that she can do this--that she can repackage her visual memories, let alone watch t.v. shows in her mind.

When I was working with Dr. Florance, she told me that she had a client who once told her that on Saturday nights, he would make some popcorn, settle down in an easy chair, and watch a movie...in his mind!  I wonder if those people who seem to remember every movie reference have this ability as well...I certainly don't!

It is hard for me to imagine how one does that so I had to take Meredith's word for it.  But one time not too long ago, I was able to witness for myself that she can do this.  Meredith had wanted to listen to some CDs in her room, so we got a CD player from Goodwill and found some old CDs from when she was younger.  The first CD we put in was a Disney Princess CD.  For some reason that I can't remember, Meredith was upset at that time and was rolling around the floor in distress, as happens when she is really stressed out about something.  Then suddenly, she stopped, closed her eyes, and started moving her finger in the air in concert with the music.  At the same time, I saw that her eyes were moving under her eyelids, like when you do when you're in the rapid eye movement phase of sleep.  It became very clear to me that she was watching the Disney movie that corresponded to the music.  After a few minutes, I asked her if she was watching the movie and she said yes.  I asked her to describe what was going on and she described it in great detail, including what each character was wearing.  Seeing it for myself was quite something. 

If you have a very visual child who is upset, maybe you could try to elicit some visual memories through music like the above example.  Using visuals is a very good way to recharge the Executive Functions of a visual thinker.  Sometimes, visual thinkers can get stuck in a loop of sorts, repeating the same thing over and over or simply getting in a place they can't find a way out of.  This is the verbal thinking pathway experiencing a glitch. 

I have had success bringing out puzzles and other visual-spatial games to help get Meredith unstuck.  One good thing to do (besides STOP talking!) is to start playing with the game you brought out and pretend like you don't know what to do with it (instead of ASKING your child for help).  For example, we have a magnetic mosaic game which comes with patterns to copy.  I started trying to make one of these patterns and purposely acted confused (without talking).  Meredith quickly jumped in to do it herself and within a few minutes, she was able to calm herself down. The hardest thing to remember is to keep quiet.  Talking just requires more energy of the child to listen, which is a function of the verbal thinking pathway.  In these situations, you want to bring the child back into her most comfortable environment--the visual environment.