DH has violent outbursts at himself

[Anonymous1011]

Name changing for this…
I think my DH of 5 years is pretty bad at emotional regulation.
Once in a while he will get so worked up he starts hitting himself in the head and sometimes will scream at himself too. He often does this when I am close by it seems and it makes me feel very unsafe. My heart starts racing and I feel very anxious.
I have previously been in a relationship with a physically abusive partner and whilst this isn’t the same, it kind of feels too similar.

DH has never physically harmed me and I don’t believe he would, but he seems so out of control in these moments it frightens me all the same.
I suggested he could tell me he is feeling this way and move himself to another room but he says this is unacceptable as what he is doing is self harm. He thinks I should be present and want to support him? But how can I support him if I am feeling scared by his behaviour?

I have suggested he seeks help or counselling but he just won’t. It is pointless me even suggesting it anymore at this stage.
we have no children so it is just me who witnesses these outbursts at least.

What is the right way to handle this, am I being unsupportive? I really don’t mean to be, but the feeling of fear is so palpable. And why is he doing this in the first place?

I think this relationship isn't great for you because he's being manipulative and has no desire to help himself.

Does anything appear to trigger these outbursts? It’s not unheard of for people on the spectrum to display this type of behaviour when completely overwhelmed. I smack my ears and the side of my head when it’s too loud or I’m totally overwhelmed. I don’t think it’s good for you to witness though and, I think he needs some help understanding why he exhibits these behaviours. It’s also possible that he’s using it as a way to frighten you without actually being physical to you.

Do you believe he's in real distress, or do you have the sense he does this to intimidate you? Him insisting you witness it to support him is a bad sign.

Self harm like this can be a sign of autism, but of course it might not be. What do you think? Does he have behavioural problems or sensory issues other than the self harm? I'm saying this as a neurodivergent person who sometimes hits myself when very overwhelmed.

If you can't cope with it and it makes you feel unsafe and he's unwilling to go to therapy or work on it in any way, you're well within your rights to leave.

Nope
Self harm he needs to do alone
This is manipulative
Speak to his GP in confidence so they have it on record
Ask for some counselling for you on your own and tell the therapist

You can’t rationalise away fear. It’s an appropriate response to the situation he is putting you through.
Your current partner doesn’t need to physically abuse you because your already afraid of him.

This sounds manipulative to me too. I would be very interested to understand what situations spark these episodes.

often times it could happen during a bad arguement he will get really frustrated, but most recently we both received some bad news whilst we were on holiday. I did my best to support him and try and reassure him as he felt he was to blame (which he wasn’t at all) he went into a pretty un talkative state and I decided I would leave him to it as I didn’t feel like I was helping. I had then gone to bed and he joined me and then he did this in bed, so very close to me. It made me jump and I felt very scared.

He says it is self harm and I shouldn’t ask him to do it privately, but I just feel it is a
bit different to some forms of self harm? I wish he would seek proper help as it doesn’t seem healthy for anyone. I said to him I don’t think he would be okay if I repeatedly displayed behaviour to him which made him feel unsafe.

You shouldn’t need to be around this. But if in those moments he is out of control I think you can’t expect him to remove himself from the situation. You need to remove yourself. Tell him when he’s calm you will be doing so and then do it every time. Just calmly leave him to it.

The right way the handle it is to get the hell out of there.

So this is pretty much exactly what happens with me, and I'm autistic. I prefer my partner just leave me to it during these episodes. It's hard to explain to people who don't have this issue but it helps us regulate when we are feeling intense distress. However if you feel unsafe due to your past experiences with abuse, maybe this relationship isn't right for either of you? Does he do it when he's alone, or does he only hit himself when he's with you (ie with an audience)?

"He thinks I should be present and want to support him?"

NO. What selfish nonsense.

His self abusive behavior is not sonething you can help him with, OP. He should get himself in order by seeking professional help. If he doesn't, you need to protect yourself.

It is very ... creepy ... that he comes into bed and then does this self abusive behavior. That means he can control it, but he's choosing not to with you. That's not a compliment to you, Op. It is violating your space and sense of safety, and it is unacceptable.

I would make him leave and not come back until he has therapy to learn how to regulate his emotions on his own.

You deserve to feel safe in a relationship. You need to leave

You are in another abusive relationship. Please talk to Women's Aid.

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/

I would set some boundaries. Tell him that if he doesn't work on his ways of dealing with stress you're going to leave. If he starts again, get out of bed or the room and move somewhere else. I would buy a door wedge and put it under the door.

Yes exactly this.

It’s all about him isn’t it. You said you both received bad news, but yet he didn’t seem to consider how that impacted you or that you might need support. He doesn’t consider your needs when he is making you scared. He can control this because he made the decision to get into bed before doing it. It’s because you had given up pandering to him and giving him all your attention, so he decided to follow you to bed to continue his attention seeking behaviour. It seems when he is not getting his own way or attention he ups the ante and starts his ‘self harm’. Funny how he never does this in private, can’t be that uncontrollable can it? I would hazard a guess that he doesn’t do this at work or when in public. Most people grow out of such attention seeking behaviours when in toddlerhood but here you have yourself a man who is basically an overgrown toddler.
I bet he is always the victim in life isn’t he? Typical narcissist.
He is using this behaviour to control you when he is not getting his own way or when everything is not all about him. He does not care if he scares you because that’s what he wants. No loving person wants to scare their partner and most would be mortified if they did.
This has nothing to do with autism. It is abuse plain as day. Op you are able to get yourself free from this awful man. Remember you are allowed to protect yourself and your peace. No man is worth this crap. If you ignore this it will escalate. You have been brave enough to leave one abusive person, don’t undo everything you have fought to achieve.

He should take himself off for a walk to calm down or call the police/an ambulance if he’s going to hurt himself badly. It’s not ok to frighten you, you don’t have to endure his violent triggering behaviour. .

Either he gets help for his violent episodes (therapy or meds) or you leave him. His choice.

I recently had someone do this near me. My response, “stop hitting yourself or I’m leaving”. It is often a manipulation. Do what I want or I will hurt myself. And he’s telling you he wants an audience. Yes, people with ASD sometimes do this but do they require an audience? Not IME. Some people with PDs and some manipulative, abusive men do require an audience though.

Be careful. He either seeks help, or you can absent yourself. Permanently or temporarily.

Ugh! This is very, very, seriously, dangerous for you snd wrong of him. “It is self harm” is not an all purpose excuse. In fact its no excuse at all!

Yes—but no! He either gets into therapy and learns to stop using you as his crutch/control/fetish tool or you should leave him. Frankly you should run away from this damaged person. He doesn’t want to be helped. He doesn’t want to change. He wants to keep exploding into violence.

Self harm is literally that, usually done in private, often in secret
He is manipulating you
it does strike a chord with me as there was a young DC next door who would bang his head off the wall. He was autistic.
it’s unacceptable he is scaring you, whatever the reason

I had really started to think it was me who was being horrible lately… When he has done this in the past, I think I knew with greater certainty that it was wrong and would tell it needed to stop. It feels like more recently everything has become my fault and whilst I’m not perfect, it doesn’t always feel like a fair assignment of blame?

I did point out this time that it does appear he has control over when he does it as he chose so come to bed and then do it.
my Ex used to do the ‘if you leave me I’ll kill myself’ manipulation, and actually thinking now this isn’t that different is it?
He is very different from my ex but that feeling of intense fear somehow feels the same when he does this.

i do find it really strange as some of you have said, surely no man would want to keep scaring his partner? He is so unwilling to seemingly get help even though these are the situations we end up in. And it’s not that it’s happening every week or even every month but I feel like it’s still too much. I think he has done this behaviour alone before too and it has happened that we’ve had a bad argument and I’ll hear him doing it in another room too. This was the first time he chose to do it in bed, which I do think crossed a line quite badly. I only slept for maybe 4 hours afterwards and when I woke up I still had all that adrenaline running through me.

I’ll try and have a talk with him, I just feel he has really grabbed onto this narrative of ‘it’s self harm and you must help me’ and won’t accept any other perspective.

If I wanted to help him (and myself) I would point out that it wouldn’t be acceptable for him to hurt anyone else you cared about. It would be scary to watch. Therefore it’s not acceptable for him to hurt himself and scare you. He needs to put your feelings ahead of his own in this situation.

Taking him at face value, maybe as far he knows, he does feel out of control and does it near you for some sense of stability or comfort. However ignoring your feelings about the issue is a big problem. Also having this problem in the first place means he has unstable mental health and I would worry about his reaction in a really bad situation or a significant life change such as having a child.

Time to end the relationship OP.