Phosphor

It's allegedly Autistic Pride Day, and I'm fucking pissed

Recommended prior reading: Nyalra's Self-Harm So I Don't Kill Myself

Hi, I'm someone who just spent a few weeks learning that what I thought was 5 years of forward progress away from an unhealthy coping mechanism was, in actuality, me bottling up my emotions for half a fucking decade and wondering why I felt like worthless garbage. I'm pissed at a world that's so thoroughly ABA and CBT coded that I stalled on what ended up being a core part of my mental health recovery for 20% of my lifespan thus far. This is not going to be “good” writing. This is a vent post.

The societal relationship and understanding of self-harm is genuinely one of the singular most destructive things I have had to interact with on a regular basis. Few things are as conducive to helping people seek “remission” (a term I bear a significant grudge with), as the way we react to seeing people who self-harm. We treat self-harming as the problem, not a symptom of some greater issue. We treat the idea of self-harm as something appalling; a sign that someone is truly so far gone that there is literally nothing worse they could do to themselves than commit suicide. This attitude is utterly counterproductive. Everyone I know who has or does self-harm cites a very similar experience. When you're in a truly dire situation, when it feels like the worst it's ever been, the answer is simple: grab that razor blade, spark that lighter, pick up a sewing needle, bare your teeth, or just find a fucking wall. Pain is a visceral thing, it bypasses everything else in our body and mind to sound every alarm. It is the lightning rod to suicidality's thunderstorm, a quick blast to the system that brings you down from the ledge. It's the relief valve on a pressure cooker; a high no drug could ever hope to match. Self-harm can directly provide the brain with endorphins, so why the fuck would I go for a 30-minute walk when a 5-second cut gets me just as well taken care of. When I'm deep in the mix, the last thing I want to “fix” is something that feels good for even a fleeting fucking moment. Between when I last stopped cutting and when I started up again, I regularly dealt with delusions that the universe was telling me to cut again (that twitter post a friend sent you? that person's alt is a shtwit account. that person who got hacked and sent you a mr. beast crypto scam? the last thing you talked about 7 years ago was your attempts to stop cutting. c'mon, don't you wanna remember what it's like?); hallucinations in my arm of blood building up and getting stuck, begging to be let free; a cloud over my mind, such a persistent feeling of brainfog that I forgot what clarity was like. I'm still mad at those around me that forced me to stop well before I was ready.

So, what does the subtitle have to do with all of this? Simply put, autistic people have a significantly higher rate of self-harm, with some studies putting it as high as three times more prominent than the neurotypical population. Autistic people are often significantly more sensory seeking than neurotypical peers, and pain is a fucking excellent sensation. Autistic people often experience heightened emotional reactions to things, and pain is second to none at bringing those emotions back to something digestible. A significant majority of autistic people I have interacted with in emotional situations have done something that could be classified as self-harm. Often, it's simply slapping or punching part of themselves. Thighs are common, they're soft and fleshy and can take a good beating. Some people slam their head lightly, and while it's not for me, I get why they do it. My go to, and the default to many people I've known, is cutting. It's a sensation we don't get often in daily life, it's easy to do, easy to hide, easy to find the equipment for. Societal perceptions of self-harm, especially on the “less severe” end, are often deeply interwoven with societal ableism. It's an axis by which autistic folks are separated from neurotypical folks, “high functioning” from “low functioning”, acceptable from unacceptable. Treating people this this discourages from talking about their experiences with self-harm and potentially finding either community or “remission” as a result.

Ultimately though, none of this includes me. I come at this from a slightly different position than most people I know. I cut because I just fucking love cutting. It's a grounding mechanism, yes, but it's also a form of enjoyable automasochism. There's a ritual, a process, a philosophy. It is an axis for bodily autonomy at a time where I'm dealing with a family who does not fuck with the idea of me doing HRT (especially not DIY, which I'm doing right now). I could make up some higher-level concept of liberation and bullshit, but at the end of the day I just think it's siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. I get to watch the wounds as they heal day to day, I get to make my own bandages, I get to feel as they brush against my sleeves, it's just fucking hype. I don't want to stop cutting, at least right now.

So, like, what's the whole point of this nonsense? What actionable beliefs can be taken away from this? In my opinion, I think the societal perspective on self-harm should shift from the outright shock and horror that it is right now, to something closer to modern liberatory perspectives on drug usage and kink. What's so fuckin' different between knifeplay and cutting? The presence of a second person? For my 2¢, I don't think that makes it any better. Is it the idea that kink happens in “healthier headspaces?” I tend to find perspectives like that are inherently unfair towards people with certain mental illnesses. I just want people to chill the fuck out. I get if people don't want the (at times literally) gory details, but I'd like to feel like others don't see me as a lesser human. I'd like to be able to talk about it in at least the same cadence as I talk about my weed usage, something I do that I believe benefits me even if others disagree, and something that (and this is where woke is gonna kill me) I believe others can and should do if they believe it will benefit them. Discussion of processes, risks, and benefits should be heavily destigmatized, both to make those who do self-harm do so safer and so that people who want to quit can feel fuckin' safe to talk about it. Right now, the best resource a lot of people like that have is shtwit, (allegedly) a complete fuckin toxic cesspool even beyond its “enabling of toxic behavior”. My external, unexperienced perception is that it's a place for a very specific type of person, and that people like me, who may be fat, or trans, or a person of color, or just not conventionally attractive, are unlikely to be welcomed. For me, I would love a space where I could talk about this, destigmatized, with other people who self-harm. For what I think others should do? Just be that space for someone. Be mindful of your own boundaries, of course, but try and listen with an open mind as much as you can. Self-harm can feel like the loneliest shit in the universe with how people treat SHers, be the one to break that cycle for folks, you feel me?