Deja Vu & Aspergers

[joencaitlinsmum]

Hello

 

This is my first post since finding this site and registering.

 

My son is 10 and we are just starting out on the road to getting a diagnosis as after a distressing few months his teachers feel he has aspergers. Looking back over the years many things we put down to just being "Joseph" may have been classic signs and symptoms.

 

We saw our very helpful GP last week who is making a referral for us to CAMHS hopefully as quick as possible as we have to decide on a suitable secondary school by the end of this month.

 

She had a good chat to my son who really opened up about how he feels and he mentioned that he experiences what can only be explained as deje vu on a regular basis up to 3/4 times a day. Can anyone tell me if this is a symptom or sign of aspergers or something else.

He really suffers with acute anxiety as well so I'm wondering if its related to that?

 

Any advice would be grately appreciated!

 

Donna

[Kathryn]

Hi Donna,

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

Interesting question. There doesn't seem to be any established link with AS or any other condition as far as I can gather although there is a suggestion that it may be a neurological blip similar to epilepsy. (That's courtesy of Wikipedia - you may need to dig a bit deeper to see if there has been any serious research!)

 

I don't have AS but I get occasional deja vu moments lasting a couple of seconds- usually when someone is about to say something, and I know exactly what they're going to say.

 

K x

[Mumble]

It could potentially be related to extreme anxiety (not to AS per se) in that the body can react strangely under extreme stress, but as it is happening so regularly, I think it would be worth looking into further. Does it happen even when he is not anxious? Does it bother him? Is he aware of it happening when it happens? Is it obvious that something's happening - is he still aware of what's going on around him? I'm assuming the GP would have picked up on it, although it may be worth going back for an appointment just for that. I have this, as well as other symptoms, for me it does have a neurological basis, but it took a while for this to be accepted/believed because it was put down to stress/ASD/background.

[coolblue]

Don't want to scare you, but it is associated with seizures. Before you panic, seizures are many and varied and are due to electrical activity in the brain. Many people have some types and don't even notice.

 

My son, at 8, was experiencing deja vu to the point where it was beginning to disorient him. He also reported out-of-body experiences (also associated with seizures), kept getting episodes of uncontrollable shaking, and frequent nocturnal nosebleeds. It was during a time when he was extremely distressed by what was happening at school - he'd had a year of poor support and physical bullying by other children. His symptoms were the last straw for us and we took him out of school. All the symptoms disappeared within a few weeks and haven't returned. Saw the GP who said if he had been having seizures he wouldn't have known anything about them, but that view hasn't been confirmed by what other people have said.

 

Deja vu isn't a symptom of Asperger's because AS itself is a cluster of symptoms. We don't know if those symptoms are the result of a single condition or several different conditions.

 

So, from our experience, I would say yes, your son's deja vu could be due to extreme anxiety, and that it is likely to disappear once he is settled at a new school. But I would advise asking him to let you know when it happens and to keep a diary, which might help with identifying trigger factors. Don't worry about it, but keep an eye on it, basically.

 

cb

[lizj]

Are you sure that he means "deja vu" in the true sense of the term? It seems a very sophisticated thing for a ten year old to recognise and express - unless he is high achieving, in which case he might well know and understand the phenomenon.

I ask because my OH, who is mildly Aspergic, used to experience what he called "nears and fars" at about that age. This was visual disturbance and dis-orientation, caused by stress in social situations. Experiences like these are quite common in people with AS although maybe not a diagnosing factor.

[Mumble]

Saw the GP who said if he had been having seizures he wouldn't have known anything about them, but that view hasn't been confirmed by what other people have said.

Well from my experience, I would say that what the GP said was nonsense. I have seizures, often, yes, I'm unaware and only know when people around me tell me what's happened, most often, I'm aware something's happened, but I'm not sure what, and occasionally, I've been aware what's happening, I can hear people talking to me and kind of understand what they're saying, but I can't respond in any way - to me that's much more frightening than not knowing what's happened.

 

I think the advice to the OP to keep a diary is sensible, and I would suggest following it up if it appears to cause distress or impacts on other areas of functioning.

[coolblue]

Are you sure that he means "deja vu" in the true sense of the term? It seems a very sophisticated thing for a ten year old to recognise and express - unless he is high achieving, in which case he might well know and understand the phenomenon.

I ask because my OH, who is mildly Aspergic, used to experience what he called "nears and fars" at about that age. This was visual disturbance and dis-orientation, caused by stress in social situations. Experiences like these are quite common in people with AS although maybe not a diagnosing factor.

 

What my son said (he was 8) was "I can predict the future." I asked him what he meant. He said "I see things happening before they happen and then it happens like in my prediction." I thought he was fantasising. After it had happened a few more times, he started to get quite upset about it and was shouting "The same thing keeps happening to me!" in a panicky voice. I asked him to describe exactly what happened and what he described was deja vu.

[lizj]

What my son said (he was 8) was "I can predict the future." I asked him what he meant. He said "I see things happening before they happen and then it happens like in my prediction." I thought he was fantasising. After it had happened a few more times, he started to get quite upset about it and was shouting "The same thing keeps happening to me!" in a panicky voice. I asked him to describe exactly what happened and what he described was deja vu.

Wow, that's really interesting, at such a young age - I have no idea if it's linked to AS, but it would be fascinating to investigate.

[Jannih]

Hi,

 

It can be associated with disturbances in the temporal lobe of the brain, as in temporal lobe epilepsy. With this type of epilepsy, the person does not necessarily lose consciousness.

[coolblue]

Wow, that's really interesting, at such a young age - I have no idea if it's linked to AS, but it would be fascinating to investigate.

 

 

I think it's important to bear in mind that a diagnosis of AS means that a group of symptoms have been identified, not a specific medical condition with a known cause. Lots of different things might cause AS symptoms. Including whatever causes deja vu.

 

cb

[Suze]

My son has periods of extreme "day dreaming"...we saw our gp and petit mal seizures were mentioned, again nothing to panic about.My son was totally unaware that he had zoned out, usually it would happen when tired , ie in the afternoon at school after a busy noisy morning.Hope you get some answers suzex. <'> ><

[joencaitlinsmum]

Are you sure that he means "deja vu" in the true sense of the term? It seems a very sophisticated thing for a ten year old to recognise and express - unless he is high achieving, in which case he might well know and understand the phenomenon.

I ask because my OH, who is mildly Aspergic, used to experience what he called "nears and fars" at about that age. This was visual disturbance and dis-orientation, caused by stress in social situations. Experiences like these are quite common in people with AS although maybe not a diagnosing factor.

 

He is hign achieving, he didnt actually use the word himself but described the meaning exactly.

[joencaitlinsmum]

What my son said (he was 8) was "I can predict the future." I asked him what he meant. He said "I see things happening before they happen and then it happens like in my prediction." I thought he was fantasising. After it had happened a few more times, he started to get quite upset about it and was shouting "The same thing keeps happening to me!" in a panicky voice. I asked him to describe exactly what happened and what he described was deja vu.

 

I asked my son what he was seeing & feeling expecting him to say its when he is at school and maybe under stress etc but he said its even when he is watching his favourite football team he can see what is going to happen but only minutes before! I have to say that is when he is surronded by noise and lots of people which I feel is a trigger for him and makes him feel anxious despite really wanting to be there iykwim?

[Mumble]

I asked my son what he was seeing & feeling expecting him to say its when he is at school and maybe under stress etc but he said its even when he is watching his favorite football team he can see what is going to happen but only minutes before! I have to say that is when he is surrounded by noise and lots of people which I feel is a trigger for him and makes him feel anxious despite really wanting to be there iykwim?

It seems odd that it's happening so regularly, but maybe he's having the experiences everyone has but is unable to comprehend them and so they unsettle him. I mean experiences such as thinking about someone and then that person calls you or you meet them on the street. The issue is that we have millions of thoughts a day, but unless something matches with them, we don't think about them anymore - I may think about my friend Joe Bloggs, but if I never see him / he doesn't call that day that thought is just another thought in my random stream of thoughts, but if Joe Bloggs, totally independently, happens to call me or walk down the road I'm walking down, it brings up that thought and makes it seems like a premonition or deja vu when really it's just a normal human experience.