u/Ill-Cartoonist2929

I'm looking for suggestions.

My son (14) had an autistic burnout and stopped going to school a little over a year ago. Recently he had the chance to try EMDR as a way of dealing with some of his anxieties about returning to school.

We're going through the 'get-to-know-you' process with the psychologist but yesterday he told me that he's scared to try EMDR for two reasons.

1. He is scared to think about school, and the idea of someone forcing him to think about it (even if the end goal is to lower his fear) is so scary, he doesn't dare try it.

2. He doesn't understand how it works and 'it feels like manipulation'.

Does anyone have tips for #1 and perhaps resources (e.g., like a really simple but realistic / factual video) for #2?

Is it normal for a kid to get worse after a diagnosis due to unmasking? We just had the worst flight ever because my high functioning teenage son got completely overwhelmed by the noise (normal plane noise but he couldn't filter it out) and ended up having a meltdown. Unfortunately his noise cancelling headphones broke just before the flight and we couldn't find the exact model as a replacement (and he refused to try any others).

I'm struggling to understand it because we've taken dozens of flights since he was tiny, including much longer ones, and never had an issue. But now ("all of a sudden" it feels like to us) he just can't handle it. He seems to need noise cancelling headphones in so many situations which he previously handled just fine (or apparently so).

He got his diagnosis less than a year ago.