“My Fantasy Family, My Existence”

“I go to sleep every night and visit my fantasy family. They save me from the nothingness of everyday existence. I do not feel alone with my fantasy family. They protect me and make me feel alive. I do not want to have a fantasy family, but sadly there is no other answer. So once again I crawl into my bed and cover my face and dream of being real.”

What is this autistic boy telling us? He seems to find comfort in his fantasy family versus his real family. He creates a family that seems to give him something he cannot find in his relationships with his own family. He seems to depend on this fantasy to exist. This fantasy allows him the control over his existence, which he does not feel he actually has. This fantasy family seems to be a substitute for what he cannot find in his own family relationships. This made-up family can help him survive and give him the psychological ‘strokes’ and validation he may be missing.

He also talks about his life feeling like a ‘nothingness existence.’ He seems to be saying that he cannot be a ‘real’ participant in everyday life and thus his life feels like a state of nothingness. He also seems doomed to this fantasy existence. It does not seem like he wants to live in a fantasy world, but feels there is no other alternative. Finally, he dreams of being real, which tells us that he may not feel in touch with his genuine self.

Let’s make sense out of this boy’s experience with his made-up fantasy family, his nonexistent life and not feeling ‘real’. It seems that this autistic boy is very creative. He knows there are things he is not receiving from his family and so creatively makes up a family that can provide what he feels he is missing. This fantasy helps to sustain the child even if only in a very fragile manner.

He is also telling us that he does not feel ‘real.” I believe ‘realness’ comes out of feeling in touch with one’s genuine self versus living as a made-up or false self. A false self is created when the child complies with the needs of the caregiver at the expense of his own needs. This is done unconsciously between the child and caregiver. When things go as expected during the attachment process, the child gains the needed validation of his affective experience (feelings and emotions) so he can in turn feel a sense of being 'real' in the world. In this child’s experience, he never fully developed this validation so he is left to feel ‘unreal’ and as I also have previously described as having an “Incomplete Attachment.”