I will introduce myself for context first. I was diagnosed with bpd at the age of 14 and am now 23 years old. I recieved stationary and ambulant therapy throughout my life. I found a few selective skills to be interesting and went on to try out and give an opinion on them so you can maybe try them out yourselves to find something that works for you or just doesn't. I am not a native speaker so I will excuse any mistakes in advance. This is my first post on this subreddit.

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I will note beforehand that every individual will or might percieve differently than me.

I describe my personal feelings and thoughts and maybe someone can identify themselves with them.

I hope I do not trigger someone, this threat has an educational purpose.  


For those who don't know what ASMR is:

 **Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response** 

 *ASMR is a physical sensation characterised by a pleasurable tingling that typically begins in the head and scalp.* 

 *It is commonly triggered by* ***Calming Trigger Assortment \[intentional\] \[tapping\] \[scratching\] \[whispering\]*** *.*

 *It has been compared with* [*auditory-tactile synesthesia*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia#Auditory-tactile_synesthesia) *and may overlap with* [*frisson*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson)*.* 

 *ASMR signifies the subjective experience of "low-grade euphoria" characterized by "a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin". It is most commonly triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli, and less commonly by intentional attention control.* 

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I feel very agitated and restless from time to time. Those times usually remind me of a bodily fight or flight response without an imminent physical threat towards me. In my situational panic I usually tend to destructive behaviours to calm myself such as smoking and drinking, craving physical attention as in sexual advances from someone or just plain undisturbed attention by a chosen person. I notice such circumstances arise usually through noticing my behaviour of picking my lips until they bleed. I refer to this practise as my ***trigger warning*** as I tend to subconsciously do it when I am stressed out in any way which I might not notice otherwise.  


A lot of you might now ASMR. A friend suggested to me to give it a try to calm myself as many find it to be very calming and sleep inducing. As it is, ASMR is good for **normal** people (without illness that might differentiate their perception of things from the norm). But to me, a selected few practises in ASMR, as for example chewing infront of the microphone makes me feel ~~rip off someones head~~ at unease. Please note this is my personal experience.  
I also recieve female ASMR content producers as unbearable to watch as the content tends to make me usually either aggressive or more agitated. ^(As in I'm gonna fuck your shit up C\*nt.) Furthermore I noticed that I don't get the same mental response when watching male content creators. For some reason I cannot quite understand, and never truly noticed before, the female whispering voice makes me aggressive as in ready to be physically violent. I have never experienced anything like this before the ASMR trend. I now tend to distance myself from any female content creators eventhough the sheer presence of it in my youtube recommendations or news feed excites me in a negative type of way.   


But now what works for me. I experienced that the spoken word itself calms me more than for example crackle of plastics. I also enjoy intelligent conversation without regards to the topic. I would enjoy an intelligent take on the construction of a cateye make up as much as the detailed construction of a scenario by a RP Game Master. I tend to prefer the calm way of speaking towards whispering because I usually associate it with ''talking behind someones back''.  
I have found a few true ''whisper'' ASMR to my liking but they might not be for everyone.  


What I find difficult with this temporary solution to anxiety or agitation is that you have to concentrate yourself on the video or the noises. As many of you might experience times in which it is basically not possible to concentrate at all or your concentration is fleeting all the time

In my experience, trying ASMR to calm myself in above mentioned state usually worsens the condition.  For times like this I would recommend skills which require physical interaction to let of steam first to then follow up with either ASMR or any preffered calming skill. Here I would recommend (dependant on what you like) either dull repetitive things like fidget cubes or fidget spinners (tactile sensory toys) or mentally and physically ''taxing'' things as rubix cubes or 3D cube puzzles.

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My recommendations:  


*Spoken word*

**John Maclean**

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ27ooEfEfo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ27ooEfEfo)

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*True Whisper*

**Love and attention** **^(Good Night View)**

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KBGQ-1kV8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KBGQ-1kV8c)

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**Foreign Language** **^(Spanish)**

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjs2Q4CoKSQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjs2Q4CoKSQ)

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**For those who enjoy plain sounds**

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN9mHGv-Ye4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN9mHGv-Ye4)

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I hope you enjoyed/found interesting/liked my take on ASMR  
Furthermore I thought about making this into a series about my personal take on skills if anyone might be interested in that. 

Note here that the perception of every skill is up to the individual.  
And sorry for the wall of text, my formatting is bad :(

Have a nice and anxiety free day