Head hitting a problem?

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My wife has AS. When she's in meltdown mode one of the things she does is hit herself hard with the heel of her hand to her forehead. This is not every day, and has never left bruises, but she's worried if there might be lasting effects for this.

It's scary for me to watch, but what I figure is happening is she's having a meltdown, therefore is experiencing extreme stress and anxiety, and hitting herself produces a rush of endorphins that make her feel less anxious, out of control, and angry, and help clear her mind a bit. If that's the case, I'm hesitant to see it as a problem, unless there's a risk of long-term damage. Otherwise, it's a lot less destructive than other self- (and prescription, honestly) medications for handling the extreme emotional distress she suffers.

What do you guys think? I browsed through a couple old threads and it seems like this is pretty common.

I do, yeah.

http://www.autism.com/symptoms_self-injury

This link has reasons why people with autism hurt themselves, and what can be done about it. So what you're looking for on that link is what triggers the meltdown and look under that subheading. For example, is it sensory, is it frustration?

My most common one is scratching and picking at my skin so hard it bleeds. It's been recommended that I instead wear a bracelet or something to pick at instead. It seems to be working alright, I have yet to hurt myself again.

So stimming is a good thing, you just need to help her find something a little less harming that provides the same effect of calming on her. Has she tried hitting other things, like pillows or anything? The action of hitting might be the calming effect. It's a lot of trial and error and no one method works for everyone.

Thanks for sharing, I actually read that before posting. To choose among the sub-headings in the article, the cause is frustration: overwhelm from either sensory or communication problems building up. Such as, repeatedly bumping her head on a lamp. Or repeated calls to customer service. Unfortunately, the article is pretty unhelpful about this. She doesn't have/need a caretaker, and she doesn't hurt herself instead of communicating. Usually she resolves the issue (leaves the room with the lamp, ends the call with customer service) and then breaks down afterwards.

Stimming is definitely an issue...I worry because there are many things she has repressed for almost her entire life (she is 30, discovered AS only last year), so she doesn't really have any outlets, and that contributes towards escalation into meltdowns (and anxiety, depression, etc.). If we could find positive stimulation that would help her self-soothe it would be helpful.

I wish I could help beyond this but this is really all the help I can give. It's still a work in progress on me after they thought I was suicidal for what I accidentally did to myself

There are people on here with solutions that worked for them, I can guarantee it. I hope they can help.

I'm sorry to hear that :/

I hope so too!

I do the same thing when I have that type of meltdown. I am usually psychically restrained from hurting myself (or tearing things up). This is only done by my parents (usually my dad) or a teacher assistant, because they know how to do it right and help talk me down or at least get me to go into curl up mode. Sometimes I'm sore from straining against being restrained, but I'm okay with them doing that. It's always done with love from my dad and care from the assistant.

It's good to hear you get the support you need from your dad and TA, EzraS. If I may ask, do you find the restraint itself calming, or does it just keep you from getting physically out of control until your feelings have calmed down a bit?

It's 3 in the morning but I felt compelled to reply before I went to bed. I only learnt about ASD after many years of self injury. Looking back it becomes very obvious. Since I have done a lot of introspection and self analysis I am happy to say that I have pretty much stopped most self injurious behaviours.

For me, the self injury often had to do with internal mood states (anger or frustration at myself often). So it was after a particularly stressful or unpleasant event that I would self injure. Being physically restrained only ever made me feel much worse / more frustrated / out of control.

Things that helped for me, non-injurious stimming. Listening to music (one of my special interests). becoming aware of situations that seemed like they were going to cause enough frustration to get to self injury, and avoiding / leaving before it became too much. I also found that being mentally prepared for as many outcomes and to have plans around them helped in cases like customer service calls. I.e. to have a way to bail out or get someone else to take over for me when it got too much.

I hope this was helpful in some way.
Maz

Thanks for the response, Maz. Sorry for not responding sooner, I was traveling. Yeah, any kind of physical restraint/feeling confined just makes everything worse for her. The only way she has to kind of deescalate her mood when approaching a meltdown is complete avoidance—usually getting on her phone and reading articles online so she can stop ruminating over whatever happened. But once she's past the tipping point, which can sometimes happen within seconds of an interaction (so no time to intervene), there's no way to stop it. I think maybe she pushes herself too hard to be "normal"—which means she denies being bothered by things that wouldn't bother a neurotypical person, because she feels embarrassed or childish that she can't just 'get over' things, which ends up putting her on a bit of a meltdown hair trigger.

Thanks for clarifying, Ezra; that's pretty much what I figured.

I used to do that when I was younger.
Though I did it on the side of my head.
Usually when I failed at something my parents expected of me, or when I had bad interactions with NTs.

When I was very young a used to bang my head against the walls (not super hard) while humming, it felt good to me. Until my parents saw I broke a wall mirror. (you know those walls that are covered entirely with a huge piece of glass).