Help with getting my tics/stims under control?

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SpaceyGrey
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17 Dec 2015, 2:31 am

I've been searching the Internet and struggling to find answers for this.

I'm 21, and I've had tics/stims/habits all my life. Usually they involve working specific muscles, such as clenching my arm or leg muscles, moving my eyes to one side as far as they go until the muscles strain, and squeezing my throat muscles. They come and go and change in severity, as they do for everyone. They appear seemingly at random, I'm not sure if there's a trigger, but stress definitely makes them worse. And when I get on a habit, I cannot make myself stop.

Currently I am squeezing my throat muscles and making a high-pitched squeak sound deep in my throat. I can satisfy the urge well enough without the sound most of the time, so I don't think I'm bothering any coworkers.

But my problem is: my throat is REALLY sore. I do it so much that my voice has become hoarse from this overworking of my throat muscles. It's also really frustrating when I want to stop but I can't, which adds to the stress and probably makes it worse.

Does anyone have advice for me on stopping these habits? Any way to suppress the urge or gain self control?

I'd really appreciate any help, tips, and tricks, thank you!



izzeme
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17 Dec 2015, 3:18 am

You can curve away stims, retrain one into the other, but don't expect to get rid of them completely, stimming is something the ND mind simply needs to do, in one way or another.

To 'retrain' a stim, whenever you feel the urge to perform the unwanted one, conciously do something else instead (like, thighten the elbow of the arm you use least). At some point, you'll notice that this "instead" action has become the new stim for that situation.



SpaceyGrey
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17 Dec 2015, 10:14 am

I'll certainly try that! Thank you very much for the advice :D



Varelse
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17 Dec 2015, 2:25 pm

I can't say that this always works, but it does seem to help: I "play" electronic music (i.e. Deadmau5 or the like) in my mind, or repeat/sing phrases silently, and sometimes if things are really bad, I'll mentally image banging my head on something really hard.



smenon3
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17 Dec 2015, 2:43 pm

Try CBIT treatment. It's very new, but it teaches your brain to gain greater control of urges. It worked miracles for me. :)



SpaceyGrey
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18 Dec 2015, 9:14 pm

Thanks for the suggestions!
I assume this CBIT treatment requires a specialist? I'm not sure what options I have for therapy in my area, but that does look very intriguing and I'm certainly going to research it!



Torstin
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19 Dec 2015, 12:44 am

I used to tighten my leg muscles and clear my throat repeatedly. But, I somehow stopped doing those things.

Nowadays, I will twirl the heck out of a pen or any other object, and move my eyes around focusing intently from one object/person to another. People often think I am staring at them.

I always get the urge to be loud as well, and occasionally, I will use a phrase that people are familiar with, such as "Let's get ready to rumble.", or "Yeah buddy". They are sort of just exclamations that no one really questions. Mimicking voices are a thing I like to do as well, but a lot of people don't recognize the anime/shows I watch, so I keep those to a minimum.