Having Autism

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Why do Autism people hurt themshelf?

There can be many reasons for autistic people who harm themselves.

One of the reasons can be emotional dysregulation inherent to many presentations of autism and an inability to properly process or deal with negative emotions and some autistic people turn to self harm for a sense of control and release.

Another reason can be co-morbid mental illness, such as autism that occurs alongside borderline personality disorder.

Or sometimes society treats autistic people so badly via discrimination, that people feel that they want to harm themselves.

Sometimes it is a combination of all these factors (and often other factors, too).

Basically what blitz said.

All the same reasons other people might harm themselves, but with the multiplier of emotional dysregulation.

Don't know what the statistics are for autistic self-harming. Apart from smoking tobacco I wouldn't dream of doing it, and I stopped smoking years ago, and even that wasn't "proper" self-harming, it was an addiction.

I just looked it up. Apparently it does seem to be more prevalent for autistic folks than for the general population, but it's the kind of behaviour that might well be under-reported, so the statistics might not be all that valid except as minimum percentages.

Apparently it's important to approach the topic with sensitivity and understanding, so I won't say much more because thinking about it creeps me out and the reasons for self-harming are manifold and complex. I don't feel any stigma towards people who do it, I just don't want to think about it too much.