Self Harm as a part of AS?

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I used to cut myself. It was never out of any great emotional distress. I don't actually feel strong emotion most of the time. If I had to guess, it stemmed from control issues, maybe doing it made me feel more in control. It was kind of a way of having a meltdown, though it was quiet and self contained and not very emotional.

When the psych world found out I cut, they latched onto that one symptom and decided I had Borderline Personality Disorder. Being slapped with that label was horrible. I do have bipolar disorder, I agree with that diagnosis and several doctors have corroborated the diagnosis, and when they slapped me with Borderline my psychiatrist stopped listening to me and I went through a manic episode while he decided I was just being manipulative. I was asking him for help and he was just saying "Oh, you look fine to me." I found a new psychiatrist.

A little while later I was turfed to psychology services and they put me with a psychologist who only treated patients with Borderline Personality Disorder. She ran some tests on me and determined that I do not, in fact, meet the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. Because of that, she said she couldn't treat me, and she dropped me. I was supposed to get a new psychologist but they closed my file so that never happened.

I am very angry with how I was treated when medical professionals assumed I had Borderline Personality Disorder. But recently a lot of change has happened to me and I'm dealing with several transitions and I found myself cutting, just once. I would mention this to my current therapist but I don't want the cycle of misdiagnosis to start again.

But if it's not BPD, why am I self harming? Is it consistent with the self harm that can come with an autism spectrum disorder? It's not coming from emotions, I don't really feel emotions at all. Does anyone else have experiences like this?

it's probably something to do with not having any damn sense. i mean, what exactly is the point in slashing yourself up? it looks like a cry for attention to me. maybe you should go out and do charity work or something to keep yourself busy and not doing dumb crap like this. you'll get attention, you'll help people out, and you won't being doing dumb crap. it's a triple win. it will also better your job prospects. that's another thing. try getting a job if you can. making money is better than wasting razors.


if you're perfectly fine, then keep that diagnosis of being perfectly fine. some doctors have big egos which interfere with their judgement. remember, these idiots come from the same pool of people you do and they can have the very same problems anyone else can. this is one of the issues in psychology and psychiatry. we use subjective rules to judge people. and stay away from dumb docs if you can.


this explains things to a certain degree.

http://counsellingresource.com/lib/dist ... -criteria/

i never assumed others don't do it. i assumed that it made no sense and that there was no logical reason for him to continue. i also assumed that him doing something positive with his life would not only give him less time to do such illogical things, but would also provide him with the understanding that doing such things is silly and therefore not worth his time.


also, realize that i realize that he knows he shouldn't be doing it. i just happen to think he doesn't fully understand why he shouldn't be doing it. understanding is a form of knowledge reinforced by emotion (when used in many common contexts anyway) and the ability to logically reason about such knowledge. if he is put in a situation which is positive, causes him to think "hey, why would i waste my time doing dumb crap like this", then that emotional impetus to stop doing such a thing, will reinforce the knowledge he already has (i assume he knows this is a bad thing to do).


this is a newly formed thought of mine so please feel free to argue against it as i think that may help to form it into a functional thesis as to why a person does something that has no productive value to themselves and which they also know is destructive.

i'm not judging him as a person BTW. i'm judging the sensibility of his decision to not impede himself from doing this.

good.

and agreed, it is all up to him. he has no reason to continue doing that and i think his description of this situation shows that he realizes that on some level. it's just a matter of how he wants to tackle it.

Well I have done things that are harmful, intentionally but nothing direct like cutting.....more like continuing to smoke ciggerettes even though they are unhealthy, maybe drinking excessivley and that sort of thing the slow suicide route I guess. Except for when I attempted suicde that sucked.

I used to read a lot about cutters. (I had to prevent someone from starting that, it's their story, not mine). At any rate, I don't understand why someone would be judgmental and try to assign logic to someone's problem. Lots of people who cut aren't feeling in other ways and feel that way. Just because I'm not a cutter doesn't mean that I would try to tough love them about it. Ugh, sorry but that just makes me so angry. It's like before I knew about any of this & people would tell me to just "get over it" about my problems. That is not helpful.

That's an interesting article. It sounds like those people have feelings but can't name them, but I feel like I'm cut off from any deep feelings. My therapist is working with me on that, and I did tell her about the self harm. She doesn't think it's Borderline either. I did experience a lot of physical, emotional and sexual abuse growing up and she thinks that my emotions were never mirrored back to me as being all right, that I was never validated for feeling emotion, so eventually I just shut them off as a defence mechanism. Now we're working to turn them back on again. She also thinks I dissociate.

I also agree with Callista that sometimes self injury is beneficial. It can really keep you from breaking down or hurting yourself worse. I don't know that I can just "stop being stupid". And I'm not doing it for attention. And I do volunteer. I'm an A student and am currently taking extra courses over the summer and am also in a prominent volunteer position with the 100+ person University choir, as part of their executive. Maybe I'm not what you think a cutter is, because simply adding more volunteer hours isn't going to solve this problem. I'm not selfish, I care quite a bit about my school and my community and my friends.

I have cut myself several times. I don't do it frequently, maybe twice a year on average. I ended up doing in in residence because I broke down and stopped myself from banging my head on walls or doing something else that would cause noise and disruption. As a result, I had to turn my expression of emotions toward my body. I did have an emotional basis for hurting myself, though. I agree with Callista that there would almost always be emotional basis for hurting yourself; it might not be negative emotion, necessarily, though. You might just cut myself because you enjoy pain. That is one of the factors behind my self-injury. Another reason why I cut is because I was in desperate situations where I felt trapped and helpless; injuring my body was a symbolic act of trying to break out of my shell. I felt trapped because I couldn't express myself properly and was thus completely misunderstood by others. I believe that the comments about having nothing better to do are offensive and ignorant. I always try to utilize my time as productively as possible. In fact, sometimes the amount of things I have to do makes me so overwhelmed that I do accumulate these negative emotions. Often, not letting myself have any time to process things and to reflect upon things leads to a buildup of tension that is then released in one huge breakdown, so I believe that it is crucial to do that just to preserve your sanity. Feeling a need to take time off for yourself is not a sign of having a busy enough life; often, it signifies just the opposite. Also, not everyone has the luxury of having supportive people in their lives. When every day is a challenge due to your difficulties in communicating with other people, your self-esteem and mood get beaten down by every such encounter. For most people, such situations tend to be few and far in between. For people on the spectrum, they tend to be the rule rather than the exception. So I wouldn't be surprised if cutting rates for people on the spectrum are much more prevalent for those who aren't on the spectrum.

Warning: Triggers. So if you're trying to avoid SI, please don't read. Thanks

Yeah, the different experience of pain that people with autism have can definitely factor into it. Personally, I experience pain as what is probably a pretty normal way; but certain sorts of pain do not have the aversive aspect that is apparently expected. In general, superficial skin injuries--bruises, burns, abrasions, etc--are painful to me but do not feel unpleasant. That might be odd unless you've experienced it. Other kinds of pain, such as menstrual cramps, affect me normally, and I can get to the point that I go into mild shock from the pain (sweating, clammy skin, paleness, dizziness, fainting); so I have normal pain sensation in some parts of my body but not others.

It seems pretty natural that somebody like me with an odd experience of some kinds of pain would resort to self-injury in order to tolerate overload. It doesn't feel too unpleasant and it can kick me into overdrive by forcing a fight-or-flight response. Of course, this is a maladaptive way of handling stress because it doesn't allow me to actually deal with the stress; essentially, I run on overdrive until I break down and become unable to take care of myself properly, which was what landed me in the hospital a while ago (I needed stitches and was admitted from the emergency room--that was the only time I ever needed stitches, and it was an accident due to clumsiness--I highly recommend that you not use anything sharp enough to cause this kind of thing).

By the time I got it under control--not by refusing to self-injure, but by finding other ways to deal with overload--it had gotten to the point that I am now unable to hide the scars unless it is winter and I can cover myself from neck to ankles. I still self-injure occasionally, but the frequency is much decreased and I consider it no longer to be a problem. Most of my self-injury nowadays is scratches, bites, and bruises, rather than the classic cutting/burning that seems so common among those with depression, so that means there are fewer scars sticking around to add to the collection.