do aspies engage in self injury?

Post Reply New Topic

i had blisters inside my mouth at age thirteen. it bothered me, so i bit on the blister till it exploded. then i had more blisters and bit them, too. and then i got used to it and didnt feel any pain when opening them with my teeth, and i kinda liked the way it felt, so i bit my lips untill sometimes they were swollen, and still didnt feel pain. i did it for decades and now i think i finally stopped.
also, i went on a starvation diet as a teen, maybe sixteen or less, dont remember. ate one yogurt a day and that was it, for several days, and then ate like crazy and got real sick, just to do it all over again, sometimes not eating for up to seven days... went on for a year or two. i dont do that anymore.

Never did. I do things that other people consider self-injury, like pricking my fingertips with pointed pencils, needles and scissors, but that's not real self-injury. Self-injury is when you want to cause pain at yourself. I don't actually feel pain when I prick my fingertips, so it's not self-injury.

I did, but I wished I've never done that, cuz it only brings nothing but pain not only for you but also for your relatives.

Would not even do much for me anyway. Do not really feel all that much pain.

I dont self injure myself because I never had a good reason to. But I have other ways to harm myself when I feel the need to.

I self injured a bit when I was a kid and teenager, my favorite thing was scraping my arms and legs with sheet metal screws. Nowadays the most I do is scratch my scalp till it oozes, or maybe smack my head if I'm REALLY agitated, but I don't consider those to really count as self injuring; or are they?

I haven't really thought about it till now, but now I'm wondering if it wasn't some kind of stress reliever for me.

Interesting.

At two points in my life I engaged in what I classify as "self injury".

When I was around eight I developed an obsession with skin and elbows. I was just pick away at the skin on my elbow just for curiosity. I even uncovered a green thread like thing in the skin in my eldbow and thought "wow...that must be a nerve-cool!"

Utterly grosses me out to think about it now!

I out grew it after some weeks and never went back to that behavior.

But around 12 I decided I didnt like the shape of my nose and started pulling on it to make grow into a different shape( which ofcourse didnt work- but I got stuck with the behavior as a permanent unwanted obsession). And decades latter I still am fighting the obsession today.

But both body part obessions started from kinda objectifying the body part- somehow I stopped 'reading' the sensation as pain-atleast while the injury was being inflicted. Like I would think of my nose as a medium for sculpture instead -omg! that vital organ I need to protect!

Even today if I do the nose pulling thing I dont read it as pain while Im doing the behavior. But then I have to live with several days of pain in my nose and face afterward.

So I think your behavior and my two behaviors and that of people who do cutting etc are really the same thing.

I am afraid so, yes. From punching my legs repeatedly to hitting my head or slapping myself in the face. This escalated to cutting and burning shortly before I finally went to a GP for help and psych referral. I still do it occasionally although I am trying to cut back on the frequency, use healthier coping methods for anxiety.

I suppose I should mention why I do this. It is the most effective way, I have found, to calm myself down when in the grip of acute anxiety. Administration of pain shuts out other conscious thought. Endorphins kick in and I can settle down.

An awesome substitute for my head that I found just a week or two ago is a pant leg. I grab the leg (unworn pants) and try to snap it apart over and over and that really calms me down. It's makes a nice kung fu snapping fabric sound too!

yes

I sometimes pick at my skin till it bleeds and when im melting down I punch myself in the head or bang my head on things