My guilt for severe communication delay I had.

[Oz67]

I feel guilty for pulling my mother's and brother's hair when I was a little.

When I pulled my brother's hair, he started crying, but I still couldn't understand why he was crying. My mom told me not to pull hair many times, and I couldn't understand that I should not pull hair until I did it to myself, that is when I stopped pulling hair.

I know that hurting others is wrong, but I wonder if my symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder contributed to that behavior, as I couldn't not understand that consequences for pulling someone's hair until I got older. It's embarrassing!

It's not normal, because I should not experiment on myself to learn not to pull other's hair.

My mom explained to me that most babies are soft when touching hair.

 

[Fino]

I believe Autism may have contributed to that issue. It's good that you learned it eventually.

 

[Oz67]

Thank you!

 

[Hypnalis]

@Oren Franz

About six months ago I spent a couple of months in a household with a 15-month-old child (not really verbal - 20 words or so).
I was reminded of various things from my own kids (much further in the past), one of which is how attentive young NT children are to facial expressions and tone of voice. They definitely respond to quite weak negative signals (just quietly saying "ow" with the appropriate expression was enough to stop things like hair pulling).

AFAIK "ASD ND's" don't learn to "read" other people the same way until much later than NT's.

I think I read somewhere (but it would have been long ago, and perhaps the latest information is better) that it's a major step for a very young child to understand that there are others like them (i.e. other people) in the world ... and that this process (whatever it is) is delayed in ND's.

Personally I think those are "two sides of the same coin" ...
... and also perhaps relevant for you. If you hadn't made that step, you had no way to contextualize what you were doing.

IMO what you did then was no worse than throwing a toy (or one of your gloves /lol) out of your pram.
FWIW I doubt there's any harm in your regretting it a little now, but I'm certain you should not feel any guilt for your innocent behavior.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Yes, I can relate.

With an ASD, it is common to have this "mind blindness",..."lacking in theory of mind",..."a lack of perception". How it may present as a small child is lashing out physically,...I hit other children,...and yes, I remember it all (photographic memory),...and I had no sense that this was wrong, or that the other child was going to be hurt, or understood why their parents didn't allow me to play with their child again.

Furthermore, as an older child, it transitioned into more verbal abuse and bullying,...and then, as a young adult, I still had the nasty habit of jokingly putting another person down for the purposes of humor and entertainment.

Frankly, I was a little jerk,...but was totally oblivious to it. I don't know how many people I have hurt,...I suspect a lot. Now that I am much older and understand these things,...a lot of guilt,...but as they say, "I've made my bed, and I must lie in it."