I have a stim I need to get rid of, how do I do it?

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The only reason why I think I need to get rid of this one is because it causes me pain and it makes a mess. It doesn't seem to matter if I'm stressed out or not, but I am always twirling my hair with my fingers and it gets all tangled up and I end up pulling hair out sometimes. I keep trying to force myself to stop doing it and then, a couple of minutes later, I'm doing it again!

It starts to give me scalp aches when I do it because it pulls on my hair and it hurts. Any ideas on how to stop doing this? So far, the only idea I have thought of is to get my hair cut short so I can't do it anymore and then I end up doing a different stim, but that only works for so long until my hair gets long again and then I start doing it again. I really do not want to get my hair cut every 2 weeks just to stop this, but I almost think that is what I will have to do if I can't figure out a way to quit doing it.

Other than getting a butch cut so it takes longer to reach pulling length I'm stumped. I've started keeping mine shorter - I'm a chewer - and even then I rake loose strands with my fingers. Redirecting hands away from head is going to be the objective. Lots of success for you on that

I've given myself bald spots from this stim which was once a daily habit for me. My hair would also get quite messy and weak from all the twirling, but I just loved feeling the knotted hair and the sensation of twirling it with my fingers was so addicting. It was pretty embarrassing. I can't say it's ever caused me a ton of pain though, except when I do it to my beard (hurts pretty bad but it's definitely worth the pleasure and comfort). My solution was to twirl hair on other regions of my body, where no one would be able to see the negative effects (I am a fairly hairy guy.)

I once kept a ball of knotted hair I had lost through twirling and someone must have found it because it's no longer where I hid it. It was pretty sad how big it got.

Well, I certainly didn't expect anyone to know how to quit doing it. The only other idea I can think of is to find a new alternative to do instead, but this one has been my main one for so long, I honestly don't know how to quit other than to shave my head.



Surprisingly I don't have any bald spots! Mostly it's individual strands that come out for me and I have to clean them up so I don't end up with pieces of hair everywhere. I do know that sometimes when it's all twirled up, I for some reason find it entertaining to try and untangle it, but usually I can't and I just get frustrated, I've even used scissors to cut out the tangled up mess a few times too. I don't know if you also enjoy this Iloveshoujoai, but I do love the feeling of my hair between my fingers, whether its knotted or not.

The trick to when you're redirecting is that you need to use your hands for the other thing that you're trying to replace it with.

If a dog was being trained to stop you from doing that, the standard thing it would do would be whenever you started doing that it would pick up its brush, bring you its brush, put its brush in your hands, and then once its brush was in your hands you'd automatically start brushing the dog. (When that tends to be trained its not so much stimming as OCD activities that end up in self injury)

You can use the same idea with yourself. Find an alternative that uses your hands that is still a stim that works well for you.

rope.
find a rope with really silky texture.
make sure the texture pleases you almost more than the actual fact of the rope.

Thanks for the advice, I might try and find a good one to replace it with. Hopefully it works so I can stop pulling out strands of hair and I won't get scalp ache anymore.

Your lucky to not have bald spots, mine were mostly because I twirled in the same area of my head and I like to pull on the knots (so I can feel them tighten up, which usually ends up breaking a few strands.)

I've had to use scissors a few times to loosen up a tangled up bit of hair. I like it when there is a ball of hair connected to my scalp by only a few strands of hair, and so I will create that with the scissors and then I'll allow myself the pleasure of twirling the knot until the very last strand breaks.

I do, I use to feel my brothers hair too. The sensation of hair is an addiction for me. When I get longer hair I also enjoy pushing some strands into my ear and feeling them against the sensitive skin of the inside of my ear.

I also love the feeling of animal fur between my fingers, especially cat fur. But the hair on the inside of the ear does not sound pleasant, I hate that feeling of having my hair going into my ear.

stressball?

i used to have one that lit up and changed color according to pressure but the battery died...

Replicating or finding something close to the same texture and pleasure level of twisting is SUCH a good idea. Nice one.

I donn´t really do this myself, but my son used to bite his nails and fingers. For many years (before hearing about asperger) I tryed various methods to stop him biting his nails, but nothing worked. Now I have bought a gel ball hand exerciser. They are used for training weak hand muscles and they are really nice to the touch He is still biting but not nearly as much as before

Something like this product
http://hand-exerciseball.blogspot.dk/20 ... ze_19.html

Even though the stress balls are good ideas, I think this idea is the one that might work the best for me, but I really don't know what I could use.

I would seriously love to stop doing this too.... I twirl my hair so much and pull the loose strands out, scratch my scalp repeatedly (I've made sores on it) and re-tighten my pony tail....

Silky rope, huh? It IS that silky feeling that drives me to do it and the whole arm/hand motion of the twirl is great too...

I also pluck out my eyelashes... rub eyebrows, forehead, etc. would LOVE to stop touching my hair and face.

Biofeedback? Has anyone tried that to reduce stimming?

If a silky rope would work, then maybe we should both try it. I'm not sure where to go buy a silky rope for this, but it's the only thing that might work. The other stuff you described, I haven't ever done those before, so I wouldn't know what to do about those. I really don't know anything about biofeedback.

Go to a marine supply store if you are on a coast. If not go online and find a company that could send you rope ends or samples of different kinds for free or for a price. You don't need to explain what it's for but you can if you want - they may just help you out.