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WhatHazard
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22 Jan 2014, 3:49 am

bumble wrote:
WhatHazard wrote:
This thread makes me feel better knowing I'm not the only one, I have been head hitting since I was a young child and sometimes I worry that I may have had a head injury once or twice many years ago before I woke up and it began to concern me, I will still hit but I try very hard not to and I don't hit my head anymore if I can avoid it, I have better management over my interactions now and I try to avoid any over stimulating situations that I can not escape from.

I really wish I knew why I feel the need to hit myself or destroy things when I melt down, I feel like the Hulk and I don't like doing it, I much prefer being in control of my actions.


Ditto to that. Except I am stuck in therapy which seems to be inducing the damned episodes as they like you to challenge these things. And I had a lovely system of avoidance set up too in terms of staying away from things that caused me that much upset/over stimulation.


I don't think I could handle that kind of therapy, I understand that the more I'm exposed to situations that are overwhelming I can deal with them slightly better each time but there's always some point that I need to back out or it gets ugly.



skibum
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22 Jan 2014, 7:50 am

MjrMajorMajor wrote:
Wags wrote:
Yep I do. I don't punch with my fists, but with the palms of my hand.


This
I use my palms rather than fists too.


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JakeDay
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22 Jan 2014, 9:45 am

Only when in meltdown territory, i.e. stressed, hungry and / or tired...
If I can minimise the triggers, I don't have meltdowns too often. They usually only happen when things are pretty bad, which never helps.



IceKitten
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23 Jan 2014, 1:03 pm

I do. And I can't really control it so I do it in public too. :? It seems like people find it scary.



EmeraldGreen
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23 Jan 2014, 10:39 pm

I never understood this, but since you describe it this way, I think I relate. Does this feel like an irresistible self-deprecating outburst? Thankfully, for me, I do not have an urge to physically self-injure or hit my head but internally I have outbursts of emotion that cause me to scold the hell out of myself all day long. Is that part of it? When I'm really, really stressed I will verbally blurt out the dialogues that I'm hearing in my head, but usually I only allow myself to do this when I'm alone. I have a lot of NT skills at my command AND I'm good at hiding traits like this! I have other self-destructive behaviors, though that are harder to control - so I can still relate to this.


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Last edited by EmeraldGreen on 23 Jan 2014, 10:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Misslizard
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23 Jan 2014, 10:43 pm

Yes.I have hot my head with my fists,banged it on the floor,against the wall,and on one extreme time I picked up a piece of wood and hit myself in the head.Its is a trapped feeling,lots of pressure and it has to go somewhere.It rarely happens now,but it could if I was extremely over stressed.


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sewingmama
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23 Jan 2014, 11:30 pm

Both of my kids do this. Mostly the younger, but occasionally the elder will as well.

I don't recall doing this, personally.



LtlPinkCoupe
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24 Jan 2014, 10:07 am

skibum wrote:
MjrMajorMajor wrote:
Wags wrote:
Yep I do. I don't punch with my fists, but with the palms of my hand.


This
I use my palms rather than fists too.


That's how I used to do it, too.


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GivePeaceAChance
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24 Jan 2014, 10:15 am

LtlPinkCoupe wrote:
skibum wrote:
MjrMajorMajor wrote:
Wags wrote:
Yep I do. I don't punch with my fists, but with the palms of my hand.


This
I use my palms rather than fists too.


That's how I used to do it, too.


I have tried to start learning this habit, I have actually broken my right hand and am now having trouble with it


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RikkiK
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24 Jan 2014, 11:32 am

ah hell, is this another common thing?
yes, when I'm very upset I have an irresistible urge to slam my head on the wall, but immediately regret it after as I'm very paranoid about concussions.

I always assumed this was more related to my SI problems though? then again, the head slamming is instant impulse, whereas my other habits are things that I can see coming for moments or hours before. thoughts from anyone?

also, generally speaking, hitting myself on the body has always been the most effective way for me to sedate myself when i'm losing it. that's actually how my SI started.
seriously, I need to be evaluated, because if I do have ASD it explains so much of my life.



Misslizard
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24 Jan 2014, 12:26 pm

I felt relief to see that others did this.I never met anyone in person that did.I felt a lot of shame about it.Wondered why I felt the overwhelming urge to do this.


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Tawaki
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24 Jan 2014, 12:53 pm

bumble wrote:
Who here hits their head when distressed/overloaded/overwhelmed?


My husband did with his hands, and on things like a table/wall, full force.

He stop doing it when I am in the home, because I just can't see someone with a bloody and bruised head. I can't stomach the sounds of punches, slaps, sound of head hitting a hard object and the screams.

He stopped when I said I was leaving with our daughter.

I don't know how he stopped or what stim took it's place.

My husband's family was perfectly fine with him doing it. They'd find him unconscious with a bloody head on the flood. They thought he was being a drama queen, and figured he'd stop if it hurt enough. So for 20 odd years, they let him pound his head on the wall to his heart's content.

He actually thought it was a good coping skill and release. (????)

I know people on the spectrum do it.



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24 Jan 2014, 5:53 pm

Not been aggressive with all my physical strength.


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24 Jan 2014, 6:39 pm

I don't hit my head repeatedly, but I'll hit my head once, and if it doesn't feel powerful enough, I might hit another couple of times until I felt it was hard enough.

Sometimes I do it on a wall, sometimes I get heavy hardback books, for example my complete collection of Sherlock Holmes, and I whack my forehead on that. I don't knock myself out, I just get annoyed and need to hit my head for some reason.

I try not to do that now. I think I damaged enough brain cells.



Gizalba
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24 Jan 2014, 6:54 pm

RikkiK wrote:
ah hell, is this another common thing?
yes, when I'm very upset I have an irresistible urge to slam my head on the wall, but immediately regret it after as I'm very paranoid about concussions.

I always assumed this was more related to my SI problems though? then again, the head slamming is instant impulse, whereas my other habits are things that I can see coming for moments or hours before. thoughts from anyone?

also, generally speaking, hitting myself on the body has always been the most effective way for me to sedate myself when i'm losing it. that's actually how my SI started.
seriously, I need to be evaluated, because if I do have ASD it explains so much of my life.


Yes, I have read that this is a common part of what they call an 'autistic meltdown', if you want to google it.

I too have/had self injury problems - cutting. I have only recently discovered what ASD is, therefore for years the only explanation for my head banging I had was that it was merely another form of self injury behaviour. The professionals have always said they have no idea what the head banging is due to. But like you, I have always seen a difference between the two. '
Quote:
the head slamming is instant impulse, whereas my other habits are things that I can see coming for moments or hours before
' < that describes my experience exactly.

Curiously, this also exactly applies to me:
Quote:
generally speaking, hitting myself on the body has always been the most effective way for me to sedate myself when i'm losing it. that's actually how my SI started.
Indeed that is how my cutting started too. I think over the years I have learnt to reduce the amount of times I lose control and hit my head, via cutting. My head banging often seems to be a result of mounting anxiety/mental pain/distress over a time period - something really small can trigger it off finally, but only because I was already reaching boiling point. So, when I am cutting, my impulsive head hitting seems to decrease in regularity, I think because in a way I take control and cut the unbearable emotion out and gain calm BEFORE it gets to the point where I lose control over my body. The head banging is what scares me the most because of the loss of control, whereas the cutting is probably just as dangerous as me smashing my head against a brick wall, yet the cutting doesn't scare me as much because I don't experience a loss of control when doing it. Although, if I didn't cut when I needed to, or I tried to resist it for hours or days, that could then lead to me losing control with the cutting becoming scarily impulsive too.

However, because the cutting was getting pretty horrific, I am glad to say that I have finally managed to stop doing that (I still struggle not to): the result of me stopping was an increase in my head banging/hitting once again, but I am slowly learning to control it better via spotting warning signs that I am about to lose control, and running to lock myself away from people to hit my face hard and cry and scream until I feel safe, in order to prevent me going into a full blown state of banging my head uncontrollably on the wall. Or if I'm out and about with my boyfriend and he senses it building in me, he calmly takes me away from the crowds to somewhere quiet so that I can let it out with less humiliation and less public chaos.