Head-Investigator984 t1_j9opijf wrote on February 23, 2023 at 2:19 PM

I guess self defense mechanism rather means it was kind of his last option he saw to stand up for himself. And not self defense by it’s definition.

Physical outbursts can happen if you‘re being harassed. Actually they‘re rather common as far as i remember.

Anyhow: whilst I understand your reaction, violence is never the right choice. Try to avoid those situations or seek for other methods to stop those outbursts. Especially because you kinda maneuvered yourself into that situation with being loud. So it should be avoidable kinda easily.

Seek help from your parents, teachers,… and try to stop the harassment to protect yourself and your classmates.

Seeking an anger therapy is a nice solution as well. Trying to learn new methods to avoid it and probably being able to clean up other stuff (like being loud for no reason) too.

Thriillsy t1_j9oulf8 wrote on February 23, 2023 at 2:57 PM

I want to add onto this that OP could also maybe try and find other outlets aside from verbal stimming that they can try to turn to when in an environment that expects people to be quiet/silent. I know it could be hard, and I doubt it'd stop the verbal stimming entirely (honestly, I wouldn't expect it to) but it would still be useful to have other outlets rather than noise making.

Speaking from experience, noise making - especially repetitive noise - can drive people absolutely mad if they have to hear it for an extended period of time. I tend to whistle when bored and I have like 2-3 tunes that I do on repeat: Twisted nerve, lost woods and imperial march. Unfortunately for my coworkers, I am able to whistle very loudly.

It doesn't bother regardless of how much I whistle those tunes, but my coworkers who - if I'm placed at self checkout - can hear it for around ~8 hours in a day? It gets annoying quick and they didn't start out coming up to me and letting me know that the whistle was getting irritating. They'd just try to ignore it, but that isn't fair to them; it may have been keeping me from going insane from boredom, but it was driving them to insanity.

In the end I think they ended up joking with me about it, and that caused me to realize I was whistling perhaps more than I realized and I told them why I was doing it - not to be annoying, but because it was basically my idle mode - and that I would do my best to have something else - something quite - to do but that if I did whistle, it wasn't intentional and they could tell me to stop and I wouldn't be mad.

I've since started carrying baoding balls or a deck of cards with me, that way instead of occupying my mind with a whistle, I can do something with my hands to keep my mind from driving me crazy due to boredom. Sometimes I still whistle out of habit, but I have my other outlets to turn to instead or when I catch myself whistling (or when I don't but my coworkers do and decide they need me to stop).

Vizcera t1_j9pmc6v wrote on February 23, 2023 at 5:53 PM

First reasonable comment. Obviously made a mistake, and the use of the term self-defense mechanism here makes sense to me. It’s not like they’re trying to justify it by actually calling it self-defense.

edit: it makes "sense" to me in the sense that that was the best term OP could think of at the time. I'm not saying it was actual self-defense in any way.

seasamgo t1_j9q26d5 wrote on February 23, 2023 at 7:31 PM

Escalating verbal conflict to physical conflict is not a self defense mechanism. Crossing the room to kick his table and scratch him out of anger was not a mistake, it was a choice.

It does sound like OP gets this was a fuck up, and both were in the wrong, but the title is still incorrect and downplaying what happened in the comments is dumb.

Vizcera t1_ja4bx6m wrote on February 26, 2023 at 7:17 PM

I made that comment after seeing comment after comment of people stating the obvious: OP fucked up and it wasn't self-defense.

Of course I agree with that, but I just don't see the use in repetitively reminding them they fucked up, because they seem to be well aware of that fact. I hoped people would see my comment and realize OP isn't trying to *justify* what they did. **They just tried to give the most fitting term to their actions.**

Edit: I definitely misused "mistake" in my first comment. However, I'm giving a little extra leniency to a differently-abled 15 year old who clearly is admitting fault for their actions. They develop at different rates, and perhaps this was a lesson that needed to be learned. Does it seem a bit old for you and me to be learning this lesson? Of course, but we're not OP.