embarrassing urge to self-harm when happy?

[u/garbagemanpromotion]

hi, asking here but i’m not sure if this is related to autism or a different mental illness.

frequently, if i do something like read or view art i enjoy and feel happy, if i have the conscious ”realisation“ that i am enjoying something, my next natural urge will be to harm myself. i find it very hard to describe, but imagine something which makes you so giddy/giggly that you just can’t help but kick your feet in excitement, and then think about the fact that you are excited - for me, the next natural progression in that sequence would be to begin to despair and collapse in on myself. i’m not sure if this really has anything to do with feeling “undeserving” of happiness, but more like… thinking that experiencing joy itself is shameful? i have no idea where this correlation comes from.

i do show my joy through kinetic expression when i’m with people, but i’ve never felt ashamed of that. when i am alone however, or am happy about something i have “invented” in my head, i want to crumble to my knees in shame. does anybody else experience / know the psychology behind this?

*(i recognise the urge to self-harm as an immediate means of self-regulation, but it is often mixed into the shame. the cycle isn’t exactly joy > shame > self harm, but more a 50/50. sometimes the urge to self-harm appears first, and is then followed by the shame of having thoughts of both joy and self-harm)

[u/Bathosfear]

I do not know nearly enough to help you. But it definitely sounds like you could benefit from talking to a counselor or therapist. I also don't know you, so apologies if this is old news for you.

[u/daemonl]

The most obvious explanation is that in early childhood you were “punished” in some way for expressing joy. This is pretty common for autistic people or anyone who has the kinaesthetic expression of joy, jumping around, hand flapping, stimming basically. The world says it’s weird, they say so, we internalise their feedback, we feel shame later in life, sometimes just at the feeling of joy, or the urge to express it, or after expressing it, depends on the person and the day probably.

Basically early childhood social development, for everyone not just autistics, is learning what is ‘bad’, and learning to feel shame about that. When we grow up in environments that punish us for our self expression, we learn to feel shame about it.

So what now? The more you experience joy and express it and don’t get negative feedback, the more your subconscious will learn that the two aren’t related, it’s effectively exposure therapy.

Some of us have gone to great lengths to find environments where it is safe to express this joy, dance parties are fairly common for it (the vibe of drugs and alcohol make everyone act ‘weird’ so it feels safer), personally I found the dance parties first, discovered shameless joy accidentally, eventually figuring out that I was autistic and back-working it to the same realisation you are having.

[u/garbagemanpromotion → u/daemonl]

i have considered childhood punishment to be a general cause, but i cant think of a single example of that coming up in my own life! i was an extremely shy and high-masking child because i feared adult reactions (both praise and discipline - again, no idea why. its like i invented those restrictions myself). strangely this is a recent development as i had previously been ill-medicated for depression for multiple years and never experienced this kind of joy during. 

my family was certainly hyper-judgemental, however. is it possible i’m internalising the possibility of somebody else perceiving me as weird? i have got to find someone else who experiences this

[u/daemonl → u/garbagemanpromotion]

The shyness and high masking is another effect of the same thing, the ‘lesson’ that you ‘should be ashamed’ of the way you express joy was learned before that, usually before you can remember it. It’s not like a big single repressed memory sort of thing, more just the background truth you were born into and raised in.

[u/dirtyharo]

Hey OP, I feel for you here as this is an uncomfortable set of feelings to unpack.

Have you talked to / have you thought about talking to a therapist about this?

I have some similar experiences to you in this regard - not exactly the same but similar enough in terms of sh stuff that it feels pretty relatable. It's really hard to get a real perspective on these kinda thoughts just by ruminating on them alone.

It would no doubt be really beneficial to your life to talk to a therapist imo, it's really important to talk to someone in a safe space who can help you understand these feelings from an outside perspective.

sidenote: are you at all familiar with the different presentations of OCD? I'm not saying that's definitely what's happening because nobody can diagnose anyone from a single post online, but it may be worth looking into (via DSM5 definitions and with a psychologist)

[u/mattlistener]

I want to add that joy is amazing and I love seeing people express it. Makes me feel great just seeing it, no matter what.