self injurious behaviour during meltdowns?

Post Reply New Topic

Hi!

I am new to this website. I am a female Aspie in my late 20's. Was diagnosed about 4 years ago.

I am very capable in some senses but in others find life a big challenge.

I particularly struggle with managing frustration. I go from 0 to 90 very quickly and sometimes with no warning. Which causes me to have meltdowns. When this happens I usually become self injurious. I don't want to hurt myself but I get so frustrated I can't control it.

Does anyone else suffer with this and if so,what strategies have you put in place?
Thank you very much!

I feel for you. i actually got a whole new mood diagnosis recently. severe mood dysregulation disorder.

This is something I've been struggling with, but with some success over the past eighteen months.

When I become stressed or overwhelmed I resorted to choking myself with a belt or anything else available, stopping just before passing out. I didn't think this was dangerous, but my doctor convinced me otherwise.

For a time I tried a method of substitution, whereby I hit myself in the head instead of choking myself. Over time, I tried using willpower to hold off doing this for as long as possible before giving in. My resilience is increasing. It's been a few months since I've had to give in and hit myself.

Believe me, the temptation is always there when the demon strikes. Practicing resistance to temptation makes it easier to resist the temptation next time.

Sometimes I bang my head or kick a wall repeatedly. I often struggle not to throw things around and smash things up, especially at the moment, as I can't afford to pay for the damage I cause.

I relate to this, I tend to hurt myself during meltdowns too out of anxiety, confusion and frustration. At the moment I have no idea how to stop doing it; I find self-injurious behaviour to relieve me of the pent up emotions and each episode doesn’t last long, aaand I’m never too seriously harmed so meh

I struggled with this for years but have mostly gotten over it. The most I do these days is punch my arms if I'm really pushed to my breaking point.

I expect this wouldn't work for most people and I imagine most therapists would tell me this is a completely horrible coping mechanism, but what helped me stop self harming was switching to visualization instead. Now when I get overwhelmed, I visualize doing really horrible things to myself instead of actually doing them. Not sure why that works so well for me but I haven't done anything more serious than punch my arms in 4-5 years and I'm quite proud of that.

I was only diagnosed 4 months ago and to be honest, I'm not even certain I've ever had a meltdown. I have injured myself when I was very angry though so maybe I have? I think the key to controlling it is to take things one step at a time and ask yourself calming questions.

I think being a grown male (no sexism intended) has some impact. I don't want to become dangerous to others especially family or scare them so I can resist becoming too angry etc. Hopefully this helps but as I said I find it hard to discern from a meldown and temper issues personally.

I'm not saying there isn't a difference, it's just I can't tell the difference.

Yeah i can relate to this but I have thought about it since and my parents said I used to hit them etc when i was a teenager. They took the internet off me, I can see why they had problems. My anxiety goes mad when people take things away from me. I don't really know any calming strategies. I've not had a full blown meltdown for some years. Last one was when I kicked a wall repeatedly was in 2013.

^ Is compression calming for you?

When I was a kid I would scratch myself when I felt angry and powerless.

I used to bite at my arms and hands during meltdowns. I still do if they get really bad. Sometimes, I also will punch at my arm with the opposite hand and leave bruises on myself. I also have been known to scratch at myself with my fingernails, because of this, I keep them really, really short to prevent myself from doing a lot of damage when that happens.

I've only had a proper meltdown once (from extreme over-stimulation when I was forced to attend a really loud and crowded inter-school sport event). At some point I realised that I was scratching my hands, but my nails are quite short so it did no damage.

In the past (I was ~12) I scratched a place on my arm so much that the skin gradually wore away and it started bleeding. This process took about an hour, during which I knew what I was doing, but kept doing it. It wasn't really a meltdown, but I was very anxious and unhappy at that point in my life (because of my parents' treatment of me). Even though it wasn't deep, I still have a scar.

Once repeatedly punched myself in the cheek.