Self harm, not just cutting yourself, other ones

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Not at alljust like dots, and one my body refused the ink and now I have a horrible red scare.

Hmm, I sometimes scratch my forearm until it oozes plasma. I've gotten blood a few times, but it's actually kind of hard to get that far with just your nails before calming down, particularly since I keep them short. It actually ends up looking like a burn when it's healing, and fades to a faint skin discolouration - I can see the scars, but most people don't notice or think they're just birthmarks. It gotten less frequent as time has gone on, to the point that it can be half a year between scratchings.

I remember when my mom first caught me doing it - it was one of the corniest days of my life. She started to freak out, then stopped and left me alone for about an hour. Then she came back with a billy goat plushie she'd just bought, and made up a sappy analogy about how she found it difficult to see me hurt myself trying so hard to accomplish something, like a billy goat trying to get a mountain back down, and that she'd like it if she could help me find other ways to get around my difficulties. It was kind of embarrassing, but also wonderful at the same time. I still have the plushie, and stash it in my bag when I'm having a bad day.

I tend to pick on my face sometimes- especially at my acne.

It doesn't happen very often, maybe about five or so times in a year, but I definitely have always loathed myself, and sometimes it becomes so intense that I've punched and scratched at myself, maybe bashed my head against the wall once or twice. Never went further than that, though, as I'm scared of injuring myself or dying.

I picked at my legs pretty badly for about 3 years..I never realized it was self-harm, it was just this weird disassociative compulsion

And in high school I used to cut myself sporadically-- then it escalated to where I did it almost daily over the period of a month. It became a sort of ritual/routine. I have dozens of very noticeable scars now as a result. (so swimming is out of the question)
I stopped when I was caught.. someone was snooping and my "stash" was found.
But I didn't necessarily stop self-harming, I'd just do it in other ways.

yes, mr.mark, it was that clr stuff. I'd only sip a little...that was in middle school, i just wanted to get sick so i didn't have to go to school and face those people. and in elementary school, i was only 9, but ate tissue and crayons..ha ha...pretty stupid!

wow, this one poll has brought up repressed memories, all that other stuff and i just remembered how i used to put little pieces of glass in a piece of bread, ball it up and swallow it with water like a giant pill....what the h***?

I mainly just mess up the skin on my left arm(occasionally my other arm or other parts).
I don't have any major scars because it only takes me a little bit of pain to give me that release and that high I need. I also don't want to mess myself up too much;)
I don't see it as a problem. It helps me a lot and doesn't cause too much harm.

I used to cut my skin, never too deep though. I once cut a star into my skin with a maths compass. My mum freaked out and told me to never do it again.
I used to pick at my skin, and still sometimes do.
I still hit myself and head bang too.
Dangerous chemicals? Alcohomahol?

I cut myself. I was three months free until today actually. Oh well, never mind.

I used to (and I may very occasionally still) scratch myself when I got intensely angry, to feel myself taking out my own frustration. I can vaguely relate to comments of people who regularly self-harm, but I never took it to the compulsive level that they have.

Cutting, hitting myself, and scratching.

Hitting, hair-pulling, biting, head-banging very occasionally... yeah, I've always been prone to that kind of stuff. It's never caused any serious problems... or, didn't cause serious problems that didn't come from people's reactions to it.

Solution for most kinds of self injury: Find out why you're doing it, then find out another way to fill that need, then work on breaking the habit.

Cutting is a lot easier to stop because it requires tools. That means you have to think about it before you do it, however briefly. The other stuff is really easy to do impulsively... like, just because your hand happened to be near your mouth, and you find yourself chewing on it yet again...

I agree with this.
I demonstrate a number of traits of these two behaviors. It's not chronic, it's not full-blown, but I do them enough to cause problems. Especially trich. I used to actually leave bald patches, mostly on my eyebrows and forearms. I still do it, but I'm better at guiding (I won't say controlling, because it really is a compulsive activity) it in ways that do not leave noticeable areas with no hair.

I don't think this is self harm. It's OCD.

Now, back in my late teens and early twenties, I did used to self-harm. Mostly my arms and hands. And mostly involving blades and open flames. Often both. I would heat up a blade over an open flame, then cut my arms up, or leave odd branding marks on them. This was never a terrible or persistent problem for me. But I did it. I can't deny that.

I'm glad I don't do it anymore.

This is interesting because to day I got really frustrated and annoyed with a co-worker who wouldn't shut up and stop interupting, long enough to listen to what I need to tell him. When I walked off I was somewhere I was alone, and banged my head on a metal storage cabinet, til I realized what I was doing. I used to do that when I was a kid. I have been constantly biting my fingernails and skin around my nails since I was a kid. I have also gone through several times where I was biting the inside of my cheek, and even where I was doing it in public and people would notice. The head banging to day really surprised me.

The only time when I truly self harm is when I am in a stressing video game, I tend to punch my legs. I stopped playing the games that make me do that however and I am happy camper, or I squeeze my hand hard as an alternative to punching my leg. This only happens during cheap video games (like MW2--Worst game Ever) Tekken 6 tends to make me attack my controller.