tw: self-injury
As an individual who has multiple mental conditions/phenotypes, I can say that my experiences have given me a lot of insights and also that I can't always trust my own thoughts, sometimes because they aren't my own.
Everyday, half of nights too, or rather, 2/3 of my time right now is spent (on what framework of reference?) ruminating on disturbing thoughts, or trauma. Chronic rumination, broodiness, is a byronic trait. You endlessly ruminate on past shameful situations, imaginary scenarios, embarrassing ideas, and your mind becomes an unholy studio, a powerhouse of disturbing imagery and audio.
To quell the rumination, you tend to resort to compensatory and regulatory mechanisms, such as self-injury, and trying to dissociate or repress your memories, which barely even work. They are just short-term solutions to something deeply rooted in your somatic-emotional-mental field. I know that for a neurodivergent person, self-regulatory behaviors such as stimming never really end, and when you think they served their purpose, they end up becoming a constant stream of self-regulatory mannerisms that generalize themselves for nearly all situations possible, as a way to release strong bottled up emotions. The same goes with the usual trauma-related compensation mechanisms such as trying to dissociate, slapping yourself out of a shame-anger trigger and going volatile on your own body for every possible trigger imaginable. I used to bang my head on a shelf because I could not process my triggers, whereas my mother yelling at me for it only further deteriorated self-harm and I was probably about 12 or 13 years old. I did not get in any way, numb. The last thing you want during Self-injurious behavior (SIBs) episodes is to get talked down onto or get scolded.
I even had an episode in about 2021 where I bought a biker helmet and gloves knowing my SIBs got intensive, and all I could do was hit and punch myself in the head privately in my bedroom (on my motorcycle helmet) for like, half an hour. My sister became afraid I'd hurt her, and I feel triggered about that. I was acting like a person with severe autism self-harming, during that episode.
Surprise, I actually "learned" headbanging when I was 12 from watching autism videos. The habit became solidified quickly. I needed an outlet for my anger and traumas.
Its relation with my phenotype
Byronic people have a lot of triggers. It is extremely difficult even for me to rationalize myself out of a trigger when it happens, and when I don't use my self-regulatory compensatory behaviors, the emotion of rage keeps lingering and increasing until I use a temporary band-aid. And then pair that with my disturbing imagination. Right, deal with two things at once that cause responses of fear, shame/guilt, and anger all at varying intervals throughout my day.
Some of my biggest triggers are: getting dumped or blocked over small incidents, misophonia, core traumas, and cringy art or content.
Byronic rumination isn't like your average trauma. It is typically very hard to "overcome", and can only be managed better. You cannot simply "treat" it. The only way I found which helps the most is simplifying your lifestyle, long-term mental detox, and stop overcomplicating every aspect of your life, like the system does to us. To cease exposing yourself to every trigger, because I ended up disabled by overdoing exposure therapy. My somatic nervous system reacted by suppressing my ability to walk outdoors or in stores without a walker.
If a person who has tendencies of Byronism has a bad experience then accumulates an excessive number of triggers rapidly, they break the threshold of sanity and tend to go into a "Byronic episode" which is a sort of "possession" by your shadow, or other forms of extreme stress reactions (splitting, meltdowns, shutdowns, aggression). It can be internalized or external - and I've had some moments, and phases in my life where the mask dropped and I could not keep up with compensatory behaviors to suppress my mind control prompted urges so I unleashed my intrusive thoughts and they manifested. I unleashed them in the wind. I posted very disturbing imagery and material, and sometimes said the most bizarre things. I always regretted it afterwards whether immediately or delayed shame.
