Does anybody else do this?
LoverOfDragons
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daydreamer84
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This is perfectly normal for people with and without ASD. It's the fight or flight response. When extremely aggravated people will either fight (harm themselves , others or things) or flee (run away and hide). The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for this response. Of course we ASDers might get extremely aggravated more easily than NTs. This might happen to them once or twice a year and to us once a fortnight, for example. I get aggravated easily and I self harm sometimes (I scratch at myself and punch my legs) and hide out in my room. Hiding out is usually the best option, in my experience.
Absolutely. Run off, hide, or hurt myself... possibly all three.
Nobody's going to judge you, trust me. That's something many--perhaps most--of us deal with. Some people storm off to their rooms and slam the door... others hide under the desk and curl up in a fetal position. Some people punch a wall; others punch their heads. I don't bolt much anymore, but I have, and still do occasionally. When your brain's screaming "Get out get out get out!" you can't really do much but run away.
It's a normal autistic tendency. When you're overloaded, you want to get the heck out of that situation, because it's downright painful.
The risks of course... well, you don't want to go running somewhere unsafe, like into traffic. Some people who are perfectly sensible and wouldn't run into traffic if they were thinking straight, can get overwhelmed and go bolting off without thinking when they're mid-meltdown. Naturally that's something you have to plan for; an aide, an assistance dog, or just learning to predict when you're going to panic and aiming for somewhere safe. And while most self-injury is not particularly severe (bite marks aren't exactly going to kill you), there's the problem of not keeping any injuries clean, which could lead to doctor's bills; so make sure you take care of yourself. Head-banging is a special problem because it can lead to detached retinas, and you don't want that--if you do a lot of hard head-banging you probably need a helmet, at least until you can find a way not to do it. If you have a warning you don't have to wear the thing all the time... lord knows I'd hate having something on my head all the time. But it's better than losing your eyesight or scrambling your brains.
Hiding is usually fine. Adaptive, even. Overloaded people will calm down best when they are somewhere quiet and alone. But there's one situation where it's a problem: A fire. If the building's on fire, you do not want to hide. You want to get out of the building. So if you have that tendency, either tell any aide you're working with that you do hide under stress and where you're likely to be; or practice exiting a building until you can do it without panicking, until it's automatic.
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