Self Injury

[Teejay]

I've been trying to understand why a lot of females do self injury like cutting. Well I have been thinking about something I used to do when I was very frustrated or hated myself, I would bang my head with hands, ala rainman.

[Mr Smith]

I've been trying to understand why a lot of females do self injury like cutting. Well I have been thinking about something I used to do when I was very frustrated or hated myself, I would bang my head with hands, ala rainman.

In my understanding, It's a loathing of ones self, and or a cry for help.

I used to punch and slap myself because I thought I was a worthless piece of shit. I used to cause bodily harm because I wanted someone to care.

As i've grown up, i've realised it's not my body's fault for what it is, my body is a temple and it deserves to be treated like one.

[El]

Physical pain causes the body to produce neurotransmitters that sre biochemically functionally the same as herion/morphine.  (herion turns into morhpine in the brain.)  You obviously don't get he unholy flood you'd get from shooting herion, but the pain relief accompanied by euphoria is still there to some extent.  It's extremely reinforcing, and, however it may start, it can turn into an addiction.

[Leto729]

Maybe even like smoking a cigarette causes many things that can satisfy a craving to and reinforce it.

[Peter]

Can't say I've ever self-injured.  I must be a bit lacking in the old self-loathing.

[DirtDawg]

I have always had a sense of separation of what is really me/myself from this wierd ass meat machine that I have to push around. I don't feel excessively self loathing, but I have hurt my body, before. It is usually from not being pleased with its functioning and wanting to punish it or wake it up.

I have an undependable tactile sense. Things don't remain consistent to my meat machine's touch from one time to another. I do understand that everyone has some mood related variations in their physical responses to things that happen, but at times I can't count on my meat machine's touch to give me any information, at all. It is very scary to feel trapped in a body without a way to contact the outside world. Seeing doesn't help, because with my vivid imagination I can see anything I want to, same with hearing ( I see very detailed sound pictures in my mind ) and the main way I get contact from is through touch, but the meat machine has to do it. My problem is that my meat machine doesn't always feel things I try to touch.

It is lack of tactile sense that re-inforces the separation of ME from the meat machine. It is lack of tactile sense that has caused me to hit things, sometimes hard enough to break bones in my meat machine's hands and toes when I was a kid.

I feel better bitching about things, sometimes .....

[El]

Maybe even like smoking a cigarette causes many things that can satisfy a craving to and reinforce it.

There's probably a dopamine/nucleus accumbens thing in common, but nicotiene acts on different neurotransmitters.  Smoking is indeed a chemical addiction, though.

[McGiver]

Maybe even like smoking a cigarette causes many things that can satisfy a craving to and reinforce it.

There's probably a dopamine/nucleus accumbens thing in common, but nicotiene acts on different neurotransmitters.  Smoking is indeed a chemical addiction, though.

i agree that it is a chemical addiction, since, the times i have tried to quit it has completely cocked up my body, and mind.  i get sick.

though, the hand to mouth thingie and the inhilation and exhalation is a sort of stim for me.

[El]

Maybe even like smoking a cigarette causes many things that can satisfy a craving to and reinforce it.

There's probably a dopamine/nucleus accumbens thing in common, but nicotiene acts on different neurotransmitters.  Smoking is indeed a chemical addiction, though.

i agree that it is a chemical addiction, since, the times i have tried to quit it has completely cocked up my body, and mind.  i get sick.

though, the hand to mouth thingie and the inhilation and exhalation is a sort of stim for me.

Have you tried (legal) chemical help to stop?  Ex. gum, the patch, or even Wellbutrin (it's marketed under a different name but it's the same chemical, and it's used for quitting).  I know how reinforcing oral fixation-type stuff can be; I got quite literally addicted to ordinary chewing gum and I swear I went into a sort of withdrawal when I stopped chewing it all the time, and smoking is a million times harder to quit, but I did have to ask.

[McGiver]

carrot sticks and pencils, also chewing on my fingernails, they just don't come close to replacing the oral fixation.

[hiroshima]

I think for people on the spectrum, it is stimming, plain and simple.

For others, I don't know... it could be suicidal ideation manifested physically, sometimes a cry for help, a form of self hatred... not sure.

It's not just females who cut, but they seem to get the most publicity out of it.

(my 1000th post )

[El]

I think for people on the spectrum, it is stimming, plain and simple.

For others, I don't know... it could be suicidal ideation manifested physically, sometimes a cry for help, a form of self hatred... not sure.

It's not just females who cut, but they seem to get the most publicity out of it.

(my 1000th post )

Not for me.  I am on the spectrum and it's a far fucking cry from a stim to me.

[hiroshima]

If stimming is a self-caliming mechanism to waylay sensory and emotional overload, then cutting definitely can be construed as a form of stimming for people on the spectrum.  People cut to calm themselves down and to stop the "noise" of total emotional short-circuiting.  Stimming isn't always bouncing your leg or tapping a pencil... think of low functioning autistics who give themselves skull fractures from banging their head against a wall.  I think it's the same thing (for me, anyway).

[El]

If stimming is a self-caliming mechanism to waylay sensory and emotional overload, then cutting definitely can be construed as a form of stimming for people on the spectrum.  People cut to calm themselves down and to stop the "noise" of total emotional short-circuiting.  Stimming isn't always bouncing your leg or tapping a pencil... think of low functioning autistics who give themselves skull fractures from banging their head against a wall.  I think it's the same thing (for me, anyway).

if it diverts emotional overload, then how is it not the same for people off the spectrum, then, if you're going to give stimming such a wide description anyway?

[DirtDawg]

 Is it much different?

I think the difference could also be in how little conscious control you have over any stimming. I often don't even realize I'm stimming.

When I hurt my hands and toes it was not a stim. It was a search for feeling. It was also extremely impulsive. I can't relate it to cutting, but it seems very similar to a self injury on reflection.