I attempted suicide rather than self-harm. (ha! what a sentence THAT is). I think to some extent it is because I absolutely had no hope of anyone understanding. Now that I know about self-harm, I can see situations where I would be drawn to it. Helplessness is a definite trigger, and not having my viewpoint acknowledged. Hell, there are times when tir_nan_og is upset beyond consoling and full of self-loathing and that's a kind of trigger too because it's like taking the person(s) I love away from me. I daresay my driven implacable work behaviors can be quite the same thing the other way- I can see the signs of it. The connection I see is invalidation. I'm singlet but autistic and grew up being trained to act like an NT person, with very heavy expectations- that to my folks seemed perfectly natural and reasonable. It wasn't so much the failing of the expectations, it was their complete inability to instinctively understand my viewpoint. I felt non-real, or like an alien, mostly like a complete failure. Failure even at FEELING or being or existing. Something so horribly wrong- and I had to behave in learned ways and act as normal as possible.; If I'd got into self-harming I'd have got HEAVY into it. The need was there, it just went unmet. I had no capacity to 'be anybody else' who might pass muster. I'm not sure if I'm better or worse off for that, because I'm still living with the pressures of failing to comply. I may always have that, I don't know.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-04-02 08:05 pm (UTC)The connection I see is invalidation. I'm singlet but autistic and grew up being trained to act like an NT person, with very heavy expectations- that to my folks seemed perfectly natural and reasonable. It wasn't so much the failing of the expectations, it was their complete inability to instinctively understand my viewpoint. I felt non-real, or like an alien, mostly like a complete failure. Failure even at FEELING or being or existing. Something so horribly wrong- and I had to behave in learned ways and act as normal as possible.;
If I'd got into self-harming I'd have got HEAVY into it. The need was there, it just went unmet.
I had no capacity to 'be anybody else' who might pass muster. I'm not sure if I'm better or worse off for that, because I'm still living with the pressures of failing to comply. I may always have that, I don't know.