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Sleep deprivation as self-harm

spork said:
I do the same thing sometimes. I'll also deprive myself of water and food because I convince myself that I don't deserve it. :\
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Me too. And unfortunately, my drug of choice, methamphetamine, seems to be the perfect aid for sleep and food deprivation. :\
 
I used to deprive myself of food when I was younger and I lost a lot of weight that I never put back on, I'm underweight I think haven't checked my BMI in a while... but now I don't consciously do that I just have no appetite most of the time I guess I do kind of avoid eating a lot though.
 
Well, I know I'm now at the lowest weight I've been... 44kg's (97 lbs). And at my height of 5' 8", that gives me a BMI of under 15. Not good at all. I'm gonna get seriously sick if this continues. My hair's already falling out in clumps and I'm constantly cold. I need to wear a hoodie even when it's sunny outside.
 
^^^^ I'm amazed at how men can weigh so little, with their bone structures and all.... 8o.... all of my exes have been slim but I went out of my way to get them eating, lol... the fact that they could eat whatever they wanted & stay skinny kind of enabled me to eat vicariously through them, lol! for their benefit of course ;)
 
^ Ha ha, binging by proxy?

My bone structure seems to suit my being slim, but I wouldn't be surprised if I have been malnourished and suffering from opioid suppressed testosterone levels for a few years. :\
 
Reply to Mr. Blonde (who appears still to be up at 4am, if I'm reading email annotations correctly [new user]):

Yes, most definitely there is for me a strong motive/force of self harm. I've been staying up (on computer) till 2, 3, 4, 5am for, not a night or two, but for many nights, almost regularly, for 2-3 years or more. It has a quality of giving me some relaxation/private time to myself - free of other stresses - but I am also most definitely abusing myself, literally wanting to hurt myself, and in effect try to kill myself/wipe myself out/do suicide by other means (than more normal violent or direct self destructive means: gun, knife, pills, car crash, etc.)

This sounds really sick, and it is, but as I get more tired through the night, I do it more. Actually, I get more and more awake. I could never have pulled all-nighters like this in college: I stayed up one night all night to study for a French exam and it almost killed me. But I do it all the time now - night after night - slipping into doing it again the next night when I've been just sick with exhaustion during the day following the previous night and dying for work to be over so I could go to bed...and then I don't...and it becomes 11pm, 12pm, 1am,3am, 4:30am and I'm beating myself up again. (Maybe this is almost what bulemia or other self-abusive cycles are like - but I can feel myself hating myself and wanting to hurt myself and torturing myself by keeping myself up when I'm just exhausted [really, like some military or spy inquistion would do, with a single lightbulb overhead and officers/people standing around and questioning, prodding, slapping, etc. some poor prisoner awake and not letting him sleep).

Some of this goes with computer addiction - which I think is fairly rampant these days, along with a general devaluing of sleep as a waste of time - but it picks up on and is driven by a self-destructive, self hateful, angry, low self esteem thing in me that I can "feel" is a kind of sick pleasure in hurting myself - like anger I have at other people (parents were alcoholics - polished, upper class alcoholics, but alcoholicsnevertheless and just plain rejecting and frequently nasty. And of course, yes I know that one just has to do better for oneself and not take it in, and be responsible for oneself, and other people care and can help, blah, blah, but this is just a perverse pleasure/drive to take it out on myself.

Apologies for this long, pretty sick note; but I went looking for articles/research on the idea of this thread (Sleep deprivation as self-harm), and finding something by this exact title really locked into what I was thinking.
I'm just writing to show you that there is, or can be, something to you idea of possible self-harm as a motive or factor in sleep deprivation.

What's further sick about this is I know how wonderful it feels when I really get some sleep (much rarer than the exausted state I keep myself in), and how the positive chemicals boost my mood.
 
I didn't read all the posts, I've never been one to self harm in the traditional sense but I am often sleep deprived and it's almost like a subconcious way of self sabotaging myself. I too have always enjoyed the privacy and solitude that comes with the early morning hours, I'm often most content at these hours but I definitely take it too far and stay up longer than I should and at times it really affects my performance the next day. I've never liked mornings, even when I was a kid, I've always been a night person. I should be sleeping right now, I have a good paying job in less than eight hours and I haven't slept more than five hours a night for the past week.
 
Yeh, I've done it on occasion...... and usually in conjunction with any number of substances; most notably bud, and most memorably with a 2nd plateau DXM dose, stickyicky kind-bud, and many 4-packs of red bull. That was with approx. 48hrs no sleep, before I dosed with DXM.
NOTE: Do *not* try this, and then watch Pink Flamingoes(!!!)...

Now I just don't like sleeping, and will go 48hrs no problem....... I don't like the dreams. And besides, sleep deprivation is the poor-man's acid. xD

I got used to staying up 2-3 days with just those little MRE instant-coffee packets and cigarettes, and it became normal for me even years later. nowadays they don't give us "pep" pills with our rations. >_<
 
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I wouldn't be sleep deprived that much anymore if I'd just let myself sleep till 3pm, but I did that long enough. I'm lucky that most of my work is in the evening and at night but I got really tired of waking up at 3pm so these days I'll take less sleep, I'm fine with waking up at noon, but not 3pm when it's everyday. Maybe if I lived in Vegas or something, some of us are just night people, what can you do?

I think I'm the opposite of most people, i feel like if I'm asleep all night I missed my favorite part of the day (the night), I have no trouble falling asleep around 7am, I've been this way as long as i can remember, before drugs ever entered the picture so I'm not too concerned about it. It kinda sucks for relationships though.
 
unsettled said:
think I'm the opposite of most people, i feel like if I'm asleep all night I missed my favorite part of the day (the night), I have no trouble falling asleep around 7am, I've been this way as long as i can remember, before drugs ever entered the picture so I'm not too concerned about it. It kinda sucks for relationships though.
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Roger that, ghostrider..... roger fuckinthat. xD
 
Sleep deprivation as "self harm"... I don't know why this seems like such a new idea to me.

So wait... you harm yourself by not going to bed? Does the bed get mad and attack you or something? I don't know why it seems like such a far out idea, considering theres about a million and 1 easier/more effective ways to harm yourself. I've always viewed sleep deprivation as a SYMPTOM of other problems rather than a problem itself.

I also think this is the same way the APA views it. Even things like insomnia aren't classified as disorders but symptoms of disorders. Depriving yourself of sleep IS too close to insomnia for me to really view it as an actual disorder.
I think the disorder would be the reason you don't wanna go to bed ( a lot of times drugs/addiction or bipolar ) and disorder itself would be the main harm initiator, not a symptom of it.

Unless I'm going about this the wrong way its the first time I've ever thought about it.
 
Bojangles: You do have a point, and ive been thinking about it too.
The way I figure it, insomnia-related sleep deprivation itself, as a result of an underlying disorder or drug-use, isn't self-harm per se...... drug-use is the main self harm, and manic episodes without mediating psych-drugs inducing insomnia isn't something that is controllable.
But willfully forcing oneself to stay awake, in the knowledge that it'll cause pain and an altered state of consciousness, is self harm. There always is an underlying cause (i.e. depression) to any self-harm, be it cutting, branding, or sleep-deprivation.
 
I'm reading this as I'm doing the exact thing; irony eh?
I'm trying to substitute this for cutting; which I suppose makes this self harm?
Whatever it is I'm gonna continue to do it.
 
I guess it depends on what symptoms you're getting from it, and how invasive/detrimental they are to your functioning, as to whether it's self-harm, or self-sabotage.

SoS, what are the reasons behind you wanting to deprive yourself of sleep?
 
unsettled said:
I think I'm the opposite of most people, i feel like if I'm asleep all night I missed my favorite part of the day (the night), I have no trouble falling asleep around 7am, I've been this way as long as i can remember, before drugs ever entered the picture so I'm not too concerned about it. It kinda sucks for relationships though.
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I find myself in a similar situation.

At night, especially late night and sometimes it helps if im a bit tired.. i become extremely creative with writing (lyrics,poetry,quotes) something that i enjoy alot. I can't do this during the day.. there's far to much energy happening all around me.

Whereas at night it feels im the only one, and i can draw upon everything in order to develop my creativity. I believe in the past i may have used it as a sort of self-harm.. but it seems these days i stay up at night to do, what i cannot during the day.
 
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