Self Medication

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Melatonin to help with sleep, St Johns Wort (Extra Strength slow release) as a short term pick me up when I get the blues and a few other herbs for stress. Lots of sleep, boogying around the house and stretching on my deck with the cats. Overall that keeps me pretty chilled these days.

Metal and videogames are my medication.
I don't take drugs like an idiot.

Blind luck? That's not as sarcastic as it might initially seem. I am married, so obviously now that makes things easier. I wouldn't count myself as someone who's had a lot of relationships, I wasn't kissed the whole way through High School, so clearly I wasn't very good at it for the longest time. My wife, while I initially met her in person, lived a continent away, and most of our communication for months was done online. I think that was a huge benefit - I'm fairly eloquent and quick-witted on IM, I can type nearly as fast as I think, whereas in person my speech is halting, my eye contact is bad, and I misinterpret body language. Both my wife and I agree that, had our contact mostly been in person, things wouldn't have worked out. But she got to know me online, which is I think a far better way to get to know the "real me," and so when after many many months we finally met in person again, everything was set, as it were.
The other sexual relationships I've had were, in retrospect, kind of dysfunctional, and without going into details, also mostly began with conversations which were not in person.
I'm hardly the only aspie to be married - were that the case, there would't be the books there are on Amazon to help aspies married to NTs and vice versa work through their differences, so while I couldn't tell you how common it is, it must happen, and I assume most of those couples have sex.

Well, I'll be the first to admit that my sensory issues are nowhere near as bad as many here, so I've never found sex to be an overload thing. And afterwards, I just feel more relaxed, usually for a few days. It's like there's a whole lot of tension that's been drained out of my body. I can't really explain it any more than that. I'm sorry you find it overwhelming - that must be very hard.

I have a psychologist friend who has a lot of AS patients who self-medicate. He helps them figure out how to use but not abuse. It's a big problems. The auties aren't addicted. They just need to quiet down all the hyperness so they can get through life.

He wanted me to start a message board for him because he said that self medication and spectrum people was a big problem and needed a good forum. I started the board for him but now he's nervous about how best to moderate it. Any suggestions are very welcome.

I don't know how possible it is to use but not abuse... your tolerance is always going to build up so you need more and more of whatever it is you're using.

I've just thought that in a way my cutting my arms when I was a teenager was self medication, I was aware of its affects on me and did it in quite a calculated way. If it was seen as acceptable to do it I probably still would.

Did you cut your arms to punish yourself for forgetting some social rule (I was tempted to do that too, but it would leave proof), or was it a distraction of sorts?

I concur that our biggest problems in the self medding area are our tendencies to overindulgence once we get something good going. It's strange how that makes us feel "like everyone else" for a few minutes.

I too am married, but still find the intricacies of sexual contact more than a little overwhelming most of the time. I think it's my natural aversion to being able to get close to people kicking in.

I wish someone would write a good book on how to be married to an AS person. It would save me a lot of grief sometimes!

I dig my nails into my arms to distract me from stabs of anxiety. The brain can only do so much at one time so I think it has some merit.

Society approves of prescription drugs that you take everyday and have side effects and future unknown problems, some serious.

Self medication involves substances where the side effects are usually very well known. I think I'd feel safer with the self medication on the whole. It would be better under a doctor's care where the doctor prescribed, for example, one bottle of beer taken after dinner or something. Then you'd be monitored and more aware of how and when you're using. But doctors don't do that. They had out prescriptions for expensive new drugs.

Both of these. I mean, I still bite and hit myself if I'm shutting down, and I guess distraction is the best way of describing its effect. But I do have these very strong feelings of self hatred every time I know I've gotten things wrong, and sometimes I do need to punish myself in some way to make those thoughts go away.

Yeah, I basically stopped because when people see the scars they want to have horrible touchy feely conversations with you.

Exactly. You learned early on that there are certain things NT feel obligated to do that really ought to have nothing to do with them. Another rule is to never admit that you look forward to the end of your life, if you do. Life is an amazing struggle and something to endure. However, if you ever say that to an NT, they are obligated through social rules to address the problem. They would just make things considerably worse since they have absolutely no idea why life is so difficult for a person with AS.

I used to want to punish myself so that I wouldn't forget to stay quiet. Talking too much is my biggest problem and it smacks me hard whenever I forget about it. I wish I could cut out my tongue -- then I'd have an excuse not to speak!

Sorry, didn't mean to whine and make it all about me -- I'm just relating.

The side effects of alcohol may be better known than for prescription drugs, but that doesn't make them any better. Alcohol stops you holding down a job, it stops you having healthy relationships and friendships. It cuts hours out of your day and stops you being productive. It has serious effects on your immune system so you end up with really annoying low level illnesses practically all the time. You feel permanently tired, headachey and sick. It vastly worsens depression and mood swings. Illegal drugs do the same thing but times a hundred.

Sorry to seem a bit patronising but I tried self medicating with alcohol and came to the conclusion it didn't work, due to all of the above.

I didn't mean to praise alcohol as a solution. I just started thinking about the designer drugs that my daughter who is barely verbal has had to take and how hard it is for her to let me know about side effects. It made me wish for wider use of well known self medications but there's no profit in it.

It made me wonder if alcohol would be treated differently if people thought of it having use in some cases in carefully prescribed doses. There's no perfect solution but I just keep pondering, hoping that someday an aha! moment will happen.

I use a variant of substances to control my edginess. There's not one cure-all pill that will do what my body needs to calm, relax and be at ease. I try to steer away from prescription anything - but still will ocassionally dose on anti-depressant and an anti-anxiety. Other than that - I drink red wine, take B complex, vit C, chromium picolonate, magnesium, Rescue Remedy and other herbs. I also found that doing hard physical work outside really helps. OMG. I was really surprised at that. I'm a big advocate for medical marijuana. I just got a shoulder bag with a tiny pot leaf for a label. Very cute.

There are a lot of positive stories in the internet about the benifits of marijuana for some AS people. Yeah, I know already know that you can abuse pot. One can overdo anything.

It depends on how much you use, though. Not everyone who ever drinks any alcohol is unable to hold a job or have healthy relationships or friendships or be productive and is constantly sick and tired. Drinking *some* alcohol *occasionally* can actually *improve* many of those things for most people.

It's just like anything else. If you take two Tylenols for an occasional headache, that was the right thing to do and it makes your headache go away. If you take a dozen Tylenols every day, you're going to cause yourself serious problems.

Just because someone self-medicates with alcohol doesn't necessarily mean they're drinking so much as to cause the things you describe, the same way that just because someone self-medicates with Tylenol doesn't necessarily mean they're taking dozens every day. It just means that under certain circumstances, having some alcohol (or Tylenol) helps them.