Thinking of Slef Harming

I've been pretty depressed lately, and very very lonely. I started therapy about a month ago now, and I just feel worse and worse. He hasn't said anything in regards to what he thinks of me having Asperger's. I brought it up the second week, and he didn't say one way or the other. We are still going over the intake packet full of questions I got on the first day.

Anyway, I've been feeling really bad the last couple of weeks, and it scares me because I can't stop thinking about wanting to hurt myself. When I am really upset, I bite my knee, and hit my leg really hard to leave a bruise, but lately I've been wanting to do worse. I think of cutting myself, but the thought of blood and cutting across my skin scares me.

I feel like I can't get rid of the sadness and I don't know what to do.

i have a dodgy hip. i used to hit my leg out of frutration whenever it was causing me pain. i don't know if it's adrenalin but in a way i found that oddly soothing. but candidly, there are better things to hit that yourself. and any kind of physical exercise will give the same sort of adrenalin release. you can't think your way out of these thoughts. you need to stop them by doing something that means you don't have them. self-harm is always a bad things. and the other thing that crosses my mind is why aren't you addressing this issue with your therapist? or is he just pretty useless like most of them are? candidly, i'm not remotely surprised you're unhappy about his non-committal nature. they do this because they've nothing worth saying and don't want any liability for saying anything either. if i were you i'd dump him sharpish if he doesn't improve rapidly. and i'd make it claer to him that i wasn't happy that he's bringing nothing to these therapy sessions either. as such, you're just waisting your time with him. i just hope you're not paying for this as well.

I've been there...but speaking from experience - you're probably not going to gain much out of hurting yourself. You may feel a bit better for a bit, but in the longer run, it's not going to solve anything.

Have you tried seeing someone about the depression? I have, and it helps. I'm taking some medication as well as doing talk therapy..and things are okay, for the most part. Someone may be able to help you better understand why you're feeling the way you're feeling. I have a very hard time understanding my own emotions as times, and the talk therapy is giving me things to try..some of which are helping.

shock_the_monkey wrote:i have a dodgy hip. i used to hit my leg out of frutration whenever it was causing me pain. i don't know if it's adrenalin but in a way i found that oddly soothing. but candidly, there are better things to hit that yourself. and any kind of physical exercise will give the same sort of adrenalin release. you can't think your way out of these thoughts. you need to stop them by doing something that means you don't have them. self-harm is always a bad things. and the other thing that crosses my mind is why aren't you addressing this issue with your therapist? or is he just pretty useless like most of them are? candidly, i'm not remotely surprised you're unhappy about his non-comittal nature. they do this because they've nothing worth saying and don't want any liability for saying anything either. if i were you i'd dump him sharpish if he doesn't improve rapidly. and i'd make it claer to him that i wasn't happy that he's bringing nothing to these therapy sessions either. as such, you're just waisting your time with him. i just hope you're not paying for this as well.

I have only been with this therapist for maybe four weeks. Today will be either four or five. I have brought up the depression. He has been asking me a lot about what I wrote down in the intro packet, which honestly is fine with me, because I can't lead a conversation. I have quit seeing many therapists before, but I don't have a lot of options. So I have to tough it out, if we don't get anywhere in another month or so, that's when I will consider sometime different, but then I have to go through all the same intro BS.

TDT wrote:I've been there...but speaking from experience - you're probably not going to gain much out of hurting yourself. You may feel a bit better for a bit, but in the longer run, it's not going to solve anything.

Have you tried seeing someone about the depression? I have, and it helps. I'm taking some medication as well as doing talk therapy..and things are okay, for the most part. Someone may be able to help you better understand why you're feeling the way you're feeling. I have a very hard time understanding my own emotions as times, and the talk therapy is giving me things to try..some of which are helping.

I am seeing one now, but am still fairly new to him. I don't like the thought of medication though, I have tried natural medicines in the past, and they did help, but I can never remember to take them anymore.

AspieMe wrote:I am seeing one now, but am still fairly new to him. I don't like the thought of medication though, I have tried natural medicines in the past, and they did help, but I can never remember to take them anymore.

I used to be really really against medication of any kinds until about a year ago when I started some after my hip surgery to help with pain (the surgery was done poorly..so I wasn't really better off). When I found I could start moving again without pain, I started being more open to medication. Since then, I have been on other medications that say 2-3 years ago I wouldn't have considered going on. I found a benefit to some of these.

Medication for depression, though, is kinda like a band-aid. It helps for a bit, but if you don't take care of the actual problem then the medication will only have limited success. Natural remedies really help too, but the problem there is it's much self medicated as well as it being harder to track progress.

I dunno, if you're feeling like you want to do self harm, then you're pretty deep in the depression area and you may benefit from medication...maybe, maybe not. You may want to talk with your therapist and ask his opinion. I'd also make sure you give talk therapy a chance....it can take awhile for progress to be seen. I haven't seen huge benefits from my therapy yet, but it's been helping in minor ways.

I would agree, if you are thinking of self-harming, the medication would a preferable alternative. I have a family member who used to self-harm, and she started taking Buspar as well as seeing a psychologist and she's been doing really well for a couple of years now. My neurologist also recommended Buspar for me, as it is not habit-forming like most of the other meds are.

Jumping in really quick to drop this off.

cutting-self-injury/topic85378.html

Also want to advise you against cutting. It can be VERY addictive. Also risk of going too deep, going the wrong way, going to the wrong place, infection, etc. etc.

Best of luck!

I'm not sure if this applies to anyone else other than myself but whenever i get pangs to cut/self-harm i try my best to divert that intent into other outlets. Exercise, manual labor (basically exerting myself to near exhaustion) seemed to work for a time. Though it helps curb the destructive nature of the habit, it doesn't really get to the root of the problem. I still pinch and bite myself at times but i've managed to keep myself from cutting after i eventually got scars on my palms.

Have you mentioned such tendencies to your therapist? My mind is debating with itself on this but perhaps discussing these concerns with him give him a sense of urgency to address depression.

Well, I got a call today saying that my insurance isn't covering what it originally said, and that my sessions will now cost double what I have been paying. So I don't know if I am going to be able to go anymore at all.

AspieMe wrote:Well, I got a call today saying that my insurance isn't covering what it originally said, and that my sessions will now cost double what I have been paying. So I don't know if I am going to be able to go anymore at all.

Maybe you can work out going just half as often and try to supplement the meetings with reading certain books that they recommend. I know, ideally, you want to go every week...but once every two weeks is probably better than nothing. Do you have anything like we have in the U.S. in terms of "flex credits"? Essentially, those credits are paid by a company and are untaxed. Their use is for medical-related expenses - and if you don't use them, you lose them. My therapy sessions aren't covered under my insurance (well, they may be...but not with where I'm going). I pay out of pocket for the sessions, then every so often my goal is to submit giant claims to have it paid by the flex credits, instead. If you have anything like that where you live, it may be a useful alternative.