Cutting:So it's more common with aspies? Let's see!

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I think it's just the self-preservation instinct. People are wired to keep themselves safe as a very high priority, and when other people appear to disregard that, it seems completely incomprehensible and thus frightening or disgusting. There are also many people with a blood/injury phobia, which is so easy to get because a fear of blood and injury is also hard-wired. If you are desperate enough to hurt yourself, you're doing it for survival or something close to it (unless you don't have that natural fear of injury)--but that's not easy for the observer to see, and if he does understand it, it's still difficult to shake the visceral reaction.

I have cut in the past. I've always felt so alone and cutting was a way to release my emotional pain. I hid my scars from people.
That is why I hate it when people think cutting is emo or goth. And people that make jokes about it have no soul.
Now I self medicate or hit things. I have bruises instead of scars.

I agree with daniel here. the issue and practice of cutting or self-harm for many autistics is about body agnosia and a different pain and sensory processing.

i think KoR makes that perfectly clear in her post above. SHe is at one extreme perhaps - in not feeling at all on the outer body. Others of us have had variants of that and shifts over time with it.

I always get pissed when i see people making assumptions about sensory issues in other autistic people. Some have sensory processing difficulties and that leads to a different processing of what may be considered pleasure or pain. it is not about "appeal" or about "emo attention-seeking." Others do not experience this.

I am dx'ed AS and yet my presentation with a lot of sensory issues would probably be more typically classified "autistic." not that i give a toss - but i rock, i have a history of self-harm, i have had body agnosia and vestibular issues. MY processing is different.

I have a nephew who is autistc. He screams and is terrified of butterflies. SHall we also start telling him he shoud "get over it and pick up a pencil or musical instrument?"

jeesh.

Last edited by millie on 27 Mar 2009, 2:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

I told someone once that I would rather cut myself than touch a cat or dog or any animal fur. They didn't believe me. Cats = painful, Cutting = feels good. If one touches me I have to scratch myself or something similar to make it gooo awayyyyy.

I voted no, although I have done it once just to see what it felt like... It had nothing to do with any sort of anything, just pure curiosity, I also did it in an area not likely to bleed, where a scar wouldn't be noticable, and barely deep enough to bleed. I chose between my thumb and index finger, specificly to see how intense pain from that really was... I later regretted it. I have also pierced myself once to see what that would feel like, was contemplating leaving the peircing there and getting a nice ring for it, but it felt way too awkward, and so I took it out after 5 minutes. I would not get a piercing in the future, although it didn't hurt at all surprisingly enough, cutting the area between my thumb and fingers hurt significantly more.

This thread is hard for me to read. I still have a problem with cutting even though I haven't done it in 2 and a half years. I still have the urge to do it. I went into a suicidal depression once and the cutting was the final straw in going inpatient (I agreed to go voluntarily). I learned enough coping skills to stop cutting there, and so far I've been able to restist the urges. Somehow I managed to get away with only having one big scar on the underside of my left forearm. All the rest are relatively small and concealed.

Excuse me X, but some of us did not do it because we had nothing better to do.

Yes I had many other activities I did as well. It is not easy to articulate for myself, the stress and overwhelming feeling to off myself was and always has been.

Yes there are kids out there that probably do it for attention but even so...it's not something that should just be looked at as a fad that everyone "enjoys" doing. I certainly did not enjoy doing it. In fact I have vague memories of the few that got me in a hospital.

I use to hear this a lot from people like yourself and my dad. So it wasn't easy to explain and still isn't on this thread. In fact, I wasn't going to post here for fear that someone would look at it as some kind of emo "fad". I have also overdosed and stabbed myself.

I'm glad I'm alive and on the right meds. As to why I did some of the things I did, I don't know. I still have overwhelming problems with depression or feeling out of it.

You might want to educate yourself before responding with a blatant and seemingly rude assumption as boredom or something "anyone" can solve themselves for being the excuse.

Emotions can sometimes overwhelm some of us to the point that we can't see between reality and what is percieved.

Well said, MissConstrue.
i am in complete agreement.

Ditto.

To some extent I could understand telling someone to get over it but when one has trouble controlling it, I don't think that's always going to be the best answere.

I had people telling me that all the time and this was even before getting diagnosed. Still hard to explain to people whenever I get overwhelmed or slightly agitated by the simple things that a lot of people take for granted.

I've never cut but i have defiantly inflicted pain. In the past I have pulled my hair beat my head with my fists. dug my nails into different parts of my body.

When one is trapped in a mental cage of darkness some times physical pain is the only release.

yes, i was probably too judgemental, but i think that, rather than self harm, one can get the same buzz/release from a creative/productive activity, it just involves a little bit of mind over matter...mind you, my fingers bled like a b**** when i started learning the guitar.x

My left inner forearm is covered with scars years old. I used to cut during the aftermath of any traumatic event in my life and I guess at the time I thought it was what I should do.

I think in retrospect I was doing it to punish myself, because the traumas I would endure were almost all due to my dysfunction and abandonment due to my AS.

It got to a point however that I ran out of room. but also that I realised that I shouldn't punish myself in this way, because at that point I wished to remain unassociated with the mainstream stereotypical behaviour of "emo kids" and that helped me stop altogether. Besides, I found different ways of self-depreciation.

i use to when i was 14-17.
im 18 now i dont do that stuff anymore...
and i know this sounds a little too stereotypical but i did it during my gothic days
and now im not sooo...

No you can't. I tried to find something that matched the release of cutting; nothing worked.

I used to cut a lot from age 15-20, because of anxiety and a bit of sensory overload. I've currently went one year and three months without cutting or attempting suicide. To think, most of that could have been avoided if the a**hole who tested me four years ago had done it correctly .

I started cutting myself when I was probably in middle school and did daily for 10-12 years. It was the only way I could deal with my emotions.