Wrong Planet Indeed *possible tw -> suicide, self harm

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Hi...
This is my first post here. I don't really know how to start this off. I'm not very good with forums, so, I hope I do this right.
I'm just going to start... I'm 17. When I was a child my family thought I may have aspergers, though they never got it checked out. When I was younger I would harm myself as a way to cope with my feelings, or punish myself. I stopped doing the latter entirely, as I try to work on myself instead, but I still relapse once in a blue moon in hope of it giving relief again. It doesn't. I first felt suicidal when I was 12, I was always a pretty good student but within the shift from primary school to high school I started pushing myself down more when I could no longer keep up, my grades dropped like crazy, I felt I was losing myself and it seemed nobody noticed. Year eight came, and I dropped out before it finished.
I was put into CAMHS early the next year, they told me I had depression and anxiety, though I was a young teen and they weren't direct (a bad habit of theirs I have given feedback on, as they often make it out like they've diagnosed somebody when they haven't, at least where I live) I didn't realise it wasn't a formal diagnosis. They put me on medication, though it had no effect. In one of my inpatient experiences the psychiatrist there told me I had a personality disorder, but he was pissing me off so much I just stormed out of the room. He didn't specify what.
Over a year after that experience, I went back to CAMHS as I was always in-and-out. The psychologist asked me if I knew what my diagnosis was and I said I was told I had depression and anxiety. It was from there she told me I had an adolescent form of BPD, and that I was never diagnosed with depression and anxiety, it was only suspected.
Things spiralled even more so, here are some main points:
- The intake psychologist suspected I may have ASD
- I tried more meds, no results once again, though it did help my PMS symptoms which I have just begun looking into PMDD with my psych so...
- Was diagnosed with ASD level 1 in September, found out I was never diagnosed with BPD either and they don't think I have it anymore but we're still keeping our eyes open. Sometimes I think I do, others I think I don't. Most people think I don't.
- I know I'm diagnosed with ASD this time as I went through the whole screening process and have a load of paperwork. I have no other diagnosis.

I guess what I'm saying is... I'm suicidal. My mental health team and I believe this is most likely due to the fact I wasn't diagnosed for a long time. I just feel like I can't live here, and there aren't exactly any treatment options available for people like me...

I don't really know what to do here... I guess I'm still holding hope and looking for things I don't believe in. Validation. Anyone to relate to. Something new.

Lots of love.
-lonelylogic

Hi
In my family there is a lot of undiagnosed ASD, as well as suicides over four generations. Hm.
At your age I also felt utterly alienated from my surroundings and was extremely depressed and confused.
In my country there was no awareness of ASD or applicable therapies, advice etc. Absolutely zero. For diagnosis you could choose either depressed or crazy.
Even now, 25 years later, there is practically no information or support for so-called "high functioning" autistic people. Developing a survival strategy was therefore a stressful DIY process that took a long time and involved many failures. All people need a survival strategy in life, but people with ASD are more likely to have specific areas they need to deal with.

In my experience, the number one thing to address is sensory processing issues and sensory overload in particular. Some people theorise that autism is fundamentally a sensory disorder. Many "talk-style" counsellors know nothing about this, therefore it is commonly overlooked during psychological assessment, in favour of emotional analysis... so you need to do your own research. There is a significant overlap between bodily "feelings" and emotional "feelings", which can cause a person with sensory processing issues to feel tortured physiologically, have chaotic emotional regulation and behave erratically.
Sometimes a person with ASD also has a condition such as BPD, but sometimes their behaviour is an expression of sensory processing issues (anxiety, fluctuating mood etc). Sensory therapies will help both ASD and any psychiatric issues, making a foundation for further personal development.

Once I understood this, my life became.... not easy but more manageable. When I was your age I also harmed myself. This began in childhood as a way of over-riding my scrambled sensory system, but as I became a teenager and the intensity of my experience grew, so did the level of my self-harm. My life revolved around repressing my drive to self-harm, as I did not want to be sent to psychiatric hospital, with the "crazies". So I exercised and studied compulsively.
When I learned about ASD at the age of 30, I realised I was not crazy, that is was neurological not psychological; but I had to develop more purposeful coping strategies.

This is the main thing to manage: regulating the body and mind together, to keep the intensity and fluctuations minimised.
Study your diet, sensory needs, check your hormonal balances, and develop ways to soothe yourself that are healthy for your body rather than destructive. Try swimming underwater, taking a hot water bottle to bed, having a heavy blanket, wearing a snug singlet or vest. Try gentle, repetitive movement, Tai Chi or yoga. Learn calming breathing techniques. Make sure you sleep adequately. Check for things like tooth grinding at night, or other sleep disturbances. Spend time with animals. Try herbal remedies such as St Johns Wort.

Another thing that can happen in adolescence, is for a non-verbal thinker (like myself), to begin to have verbal thought. This is extremely alarming and disorienting, as "hearing voices in your head" is a stereotypical sign of madness. It took me a few years to realise that it was my own inner voice and become accustomed to it. A typical "talk-therapy" counsellor, by definition, will have absolutely no grasp of this concept. So read some books by ASD authors.

I also find it useful to observe suicidal thoughts in my own mind, making a note of how frequently and how intense the thought is. This helps me to create distance from the thought, rather than being driven by it, or tangled up with it.
It is important for me to stay mindful, so that I am not taken unawares by my genetic tendency. I interpret my "being suicidal" or having thoughts of suicide as the mind expressing a high level of distress. Tony Attwood is an ASD researcher and therapist who has written about the tendency for people with ASD to "catastrophize" emotion. I agree with that; it is an important aspect of ASD survival strategy to regulate emotional turbulence.
I use the suicidal thoughts as a feedback / measurement for how I am doing with my regulation. More than two suicidal thoughts in a week indicates to me that I need to do more. No suicidal thought this month? life is good.

I don't intend to sound flippant here, because I am very familiar with the reality of suicide. The truth is, only you can know yourself. You are responsible for your own mental and physical health, just as I am responsible for mine.
If you truly feel that you are going to damage yourself badly or kill yourself, please go into supervised healthcare until that urge passes. You can identify a suitable "time-out" healthcare location in advance, preferably one that provides a calming sensory experience, so that you can access this if required and know what to expect.
If you have a general distress, "feeling suicidal", please take steps to improve your physical and emotional regulation. Gradually learn to tell the difference between the above thoughts and feelings. Make the most of resources and therapists available to you, knowing that you must determine which approaches work best for you. Understand that you being "ok" will require extra effort and discipline. Also, that this is a lifelong task. But also know that those "cool" teenagers who seem to have it all now, are frequently burnt out by midlife, whereas a person who has taken care of their wellbeing is now a success.

Also be aware that the internet and social media can be helpful sources of information and support. However, cyberspace can also be dangerous as many people normalise or even encourage emotional distress as trendy, attractive, expressing yourself (therefore good), or part of being "friends" with them. This can trap you in a loop of suicide talk ("I'm suicidal..... yeah me too, everything is so bad" "yeah we are sharing and supporting each other" "yeah lets keep telling each other how suicidal we feel"...). Please avoid this kind of interaction as it is very unhealthy.

Well, that's my rant. You will probably always feel like you are on the Wrong Planet, though there are more of us here than you may realise. We just tend to stay in the background.

The only thing I can offer is to give yourself a chance. And reaffirm that every morning. Being 17 is difficult for everyone, add ASD/Asperger's to it and it's doubly hard. But, it's doable, one day at a time. Avoid looking into the future, stay in today. Tackle only what is right in front of you: the test, the book, the person. Life is just a series of moments... And you can do this moment over and over as you learn more effective coping skills.

Come here, we are here with you. Don't give up

Since this is your first post, Welcome to Wrong Planet!

In primatology, self-harm is called self-injurious behavior (SIB) and is associated with anxiety. The single most common denominator among animals that self-harm is isolation — social isolation. Primates bite themselves, parrots pull out their feathers and dogs and cats lick themselves. Such self-injurious behavior tends to occur in emotionally disturbing situations, particular those over which the individual has little or no control (like being locked up alone).

Stress can cause tail biting in swine or self-mutilation in monkeys. Tail biting in pigs is an abnormal behavior whereby a pig uses its teeth to bite, chew or orally manipulate another pig’s tail. Tail biting typically occurs under the following stressors: indoor facility with a high density of pigs housed in a confined area (like a pen); lack of a substrate material; poor ventilation system, or poor feed quality and accessibility. In another case, rhesus macaques monkeys displayed self-biting behavior. They repeatedly bite part of their own bodies while intermittently showing signs of intense excitation such as threatening, trembling, head jerking and piloerection. The stressor in this case was the stress from relocation and isolation.

Bonobo apes were observed to pull their hair out leaving patches of hairless skin. In one example a bonobo mother who actually pulled her child’s hair out. She did it for so long that the hair stopped growing back. This was not aggression, but “grooming gone wild”. Grooming is nature’s self-soothing strategy. Animals groom others as well as themselves, and that builds soothing social bonds. When the going gets tough, mammals groom. Many repetitive behaviors are variants on grooming. The behavior may get repeated endlessly if a mammal has a persistent sense of threat.

Intelligent species of parrots often pull out their own feathers when they are very unhappy. Known causes include loneliness and isolation from other parrots to interact with, stress from loud noises or not turning lights off at night, and boredom from not having enough to do in their cages (toys, climbing areas, room to move around).
King snakes will eat their own tail if they are stressed by overheating.

Self-Injury in humans is a mental health condition that occurs when someone cuts or burns or otherwise harms himself or herself. Probably the most extreme version of self-injury is suicide. Generally, it is a product of extreme stress and trauma.

So the bottom line is self injury and suicidal thoughts are driven by extreme stress and trauma. (and also isolation)

Therefore the tools to deal effectively with this stress are the same tools used to deal effectively with soldiers returning back from war with PTSD or trauma victims. In my case I suffered an extreme amount of stress and trauma in school. I was subjected to psychological and physical abuse at the hands of my peer group. This is commonly given the name bullying but the term downplays the damage that this does. For males this generally peaks during Junior High School and for females it peaks during High School. Then it diminishes dramatically afterwards. But by then the damage is already done. So I do not know if this is a factor in your case.

So what is the answer? There are probably many ways to deal with this condition. I am not a big fan of the medication solution. Young Male Aspies are sometimes referred to as "Little Professors". But in females they are sometimes referred to as "Little Psychologist". I see a little of that in your narrative. So I will try to give you a different perspective by recommending two books for you to read.

The first is "In an Unspoken Voice" by Peter A Levine. It provides a very good description of how the brain works and how it deals with stress.

The second book is called "The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process" by David Berceli. This book shows a very strange form of exercise that allows the release of stress energy at the core. This method is sometimes referred to Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE). This is not a cure-all to venting all your stress and trauma but it is a beginning. This is a YouTube video that talks a little about this exercise.

Thank you all for your advice, I'm really grateful. I wasn't expecting to hear such well thought out and written responses.
I'll take everything into consideration, and try my best.
I have a lot to think about.

Thank you, truly.

What are you REALLY interested in, Lonely Logic?

I don't quite know what you mean.

I mean....are you interested in astronomy? In autism? In literature? In art?

Are you science-oriented, or art-oriented?

Art oriented. I used to draw but it's hard for me these days with my nagging perfectionism that weighs me down, but I'm trying to get back into it. I don't really have any specific interest, tbh. Getting back into hobbies and things is something I've tried and am trying with my psych but yeah, it's pretty difficult.

Do you like abstract painting, or something like Renaissance painting?

I am horrendous at painting myself but I like sort of abstract realism as such?? Like Malcom T Liepke and Mark Tennant? I used to follow a lot of people with similar art styles like that on Instagram but I don't anymore and I wish I could remember who they were.

I like Impressionist painting---like Monet or Renoir.

I like people like Picasso and Salvador Dali.

I'm not really too much into purely abstract painting.

Fair enough, I'm not typically either but they still make me feel something. I don't really know much about art whoops...

Neither do I.

You might know more than you think you know. People are often their own worst enemies.

I'm probably a worse artist than you. I can't even hope to be "perfectionistic." I don't go too much beyond stick figures.

I'm glad you've found this Site. Are you feeling a little better?

I'm happy I found it yeah, I've been lurking it since the dx. I might introduce myself more formerly in a bit, I don't exactly know how to go about doing so though. Thank you for the welcome.

There's a section in "Getting to know you" where you could fully introduce yourself.