Hitting self a sign of autism?

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A few times I have hit my head with my fists...occasional hitting head on a wall.

Yes, I have punched, slapped, bit, cut myself and banged my head into a wall before even as an adult in times of extreme emotional stress where I felt like once again, I had failed at something or that I would never be acceptable.

I do it if I get really frustrated, I will yell and hit myself on the head. I've been doing it for a while, especially if I am getting frustrated with computer issues or something similar (and usually I don't do it around others), and for some reason I never realized that I do it until recently.

I was wondering the same thing.
I appear "normal" most of the time.
But this thing happens in my brain, I feel it coming ... Sometimes I can muffle it,
I scream something (no, I hate myself, and I want to go home) are the most frequent ...completely unconsciously. If I'm in public the embarrassment alone snaps me out of it. But if I'm alone, I'll slap myself or hit my head hard. It feels like the fabric of reality is unraveling.
I have no idea what it is but it scares me every time.

I also have hit myself during a meltdown. Or I pinch myself, or hit my elbow against a table, or kick my feet against my legs. I went through a period of scratching the backs of my hands, sometimes hard enough to draw blood.

You know it could be. As a child during meltdowns I would bang my head against walls with a good amount of force. It used help release tension. I don't do that anymore however during the rare meltdowns I get nowadays I do bite the insides of my cheeks til they bleed. I have also broken a knuckle or two punching my walls during these episodes. Good times.

I do this when upset. I do it regardless of whether people around - not for attention.

I worked in a developmental center in '78. We had two severe autistic children that were both non-communicative and hit themselves and rocked violently. One young girl had points on her cheek bones from calcification. At that time, that was the definition of autism in general. And until recently, my only experience and understanding as well.

My son does this and other behaviors that are somewhat self damaging, But then again I used to bite the back of my hand when under severe stress in my younger years.

When I was a teenager I used to bite myself when in a situation with a lot of sounds/sights. I have stopped doing that a long time ago, and I do not do that anymore. But, I just remembered it when reading this thread. I think at the time I was doing it to keep from fainting but also distracting myself from the sounds/sights (since I get a lot of sensory overload). Anyway, have not done that for many, many years and when I did it it was just a few times. I know this is not the same as what was asked in the thread, but just wanted to add it because it came back to my memory. Anyway, I do not do self harm otherwise for any other reason, and I also did not do it for attention at the time, even if one of my friends caught me biting my finger and asked what I was doing. So, I told them I was just feeling a bit faint and wanted to make sure not to faint. Dunno if they believed me or not, but they never asked me again after that, and I also made sure to not be around too many sounds and sights in that place again (was a school library with lots of students at certain times of the day, I would go when there were students but less so that you could be in there with people without being overwhelmed).

As someone who's always been in school for autistic kids, I have observed that a lot of us hit and bite ourselves.

Both of my kids sometimes hit themselves and sometimes bang their heads against the wall.

I did not think that I did until a few weeks ago when I was very stressed about something and hit my head with both hands very hard. Not premeditated at all, just a spontaneous reaction to an overwhelming feeling.

Is anyone else having problems with this thread? Page 2 ends with a post from 2014, and then Page 3 starts with QuirkyCookie's post from today. But there were several posts in between, including my post. The only way I can view the missing posts is to change it so it only displays the posts from the past year.

I have Asperger's and I used to smash my head on the floor as an infant whenever I didn't get my way. A bit later on into my childhood I used to hit myself over the head with heavy books and later on into my teens I used to ram my head into brick walls and cut myself.
Thank god I've grown out of it now.

I've never done that, but I know it can be one of the many signs of autism.