Why do people on the spectrum cut themselves/self injure?

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thanks for your reply Ann2011 , it was really important to me.

Last edited by lola2136 on 01 Jan 2013, 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You should talk with a doctor. Self-destructive behaviour is very dangerous. Don't fight this battle alone. I know how hard it is to talk to your parents. I started cutting at 12 years old and I tried to hide it, but of course my Mom found out. It was really hard for her . . . still is (even though I'm recovered now.) I'm not a parent, but I can imagine how awful it would be to have a child harm themselves.
However, the important thing is that you stop as soon as possible. If your parents can be of help with this, then you should put your trust in them.

bro I don't cut myself or do any of that crap

Why would you wanna cut urself? Just sayin.

Substitute Dr Who for the Incredible Hulk (or a decent David Attenborough documentary) and make the tea a decaffeinated coffee...

Cutting is too painful. Im sensitive to some types of pain and I am a wimp. I am bad enough when I accidentally get a paper cut!

I am not sure if it is related to being autistic, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is. I used to do a lot of things to seek sensation. I still do some now, but not nearly as much.

This is complicated. Yesterday I gave myself a second degree burn on my arm and wanted to burn deep enough to burn the fat in my thigh the next day.

I have the second degree burn but my mom checked my browsing history after I went to bed. I couldn't stop thinking about my plan to burn myself the next day so I did a related google search on the computer.

My mother came into my room in the morning and searched me for burn marks and she found my burn. That was yesterday and I'm still not sure when I'll feel like it's safe to burn my leg.


Why did I try that? A bit of it was curiosity. I heard about the drug-like effect it can produce and I have felt so sensory-deprived and dull that I needed something. I needed sensation. If I had access to it I would have just taken a stimulant drug of some kind like cocaine or ecstacy since that would sharpen my senses and make me feel less like I'm in a perpetual sensory deprivation chamber.



I was curious as to how self-inflicted pain could satisfy my need for sensory stimulation. I needed to go past the threshold that I don't normally go past when I hit myself out of frustration to reach the rush. When I'm frustrated I beat myself up literally but I still don't go past a certain point and I never get the chemical stimulation that I've heard about because of that. I'll slam a door on my head creating very small red marks but I avoid hitting my ear because that would be too much.


Now I wanted to go past that and get some kind of rush I hoped for just to not feel dull and deadened. Ironically I didn't feel as much pain as I thought I would. I burnt my arm and didn't feel much at all. That made me feel powerful. I felt like I could be burned alive and not care because I felt no pain.


The sense of invincibility from being able to endure a flame like it's nothing as well as the sensory stimulation are both things I found desirable in burning myself. I felt like I was living in a perpetual isolation chamber so I needed something to feel intensely that wasn't dull. That's what attracted me to it. The feeling of power from being able to do it so easily and not even being phased by it is what I enjoyed unexpectedly. I didn't expect that but it was nice.



I guess that's my answer. I was attracted to it for the same reason I would be attracted to a drug. It was sensation seeking behaviour. Why would I do it again? For the same reason as well as the feeling of being able to withstand anything.

Sometimes its out of anxiety stress and depression other times its out of self hatred and the urge to punish ones self to a severe degree at least it is for me anyway.

I still do hurt myself. It's the easiest way for me to explain to people how I'm feeling because emotions make no sense to me at all. I understand that people on the spectrum aren't very good at identifying the emotions they are feeling so maybe self-harm is the easiest way to describe the whole tangle of it...

In enough pain already. Sometimes I bite my hands or arms because I don't know any other way to vent my emotions with out breaking something.

Maybe it's like having a meltdown, instead of a 'classic' meltdown you find the release by cutting instead, sort of channeling your meltdown into the wrong thing.