Alternate Coping Methods?

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Probably been asked on here before, but I thought I'd ask for my own sake...

So hello again! I'm Lu. I joined a few months ago but dropped off here for a while to kind of find myself. Anyway, I'm back, and I'm looking for some helpful advice.

Like many others, I self-harm. Not severely, but it's pretty frequent. I hit myself in the head a lot, or I will bang it against walls when I'm very upset. It used to only happen when I was having attacks or meltdowns, but now it's starting to happen much more often, and it's extremely difficult to refrain from doing so. I'm afraid it's started to develop into a stim. If anything is even mildly hard for me to process, I will hit myself a few times in the head. My hands visibly shake if I don't, and it only stresses me more. The one time I actually did manage to substitute my head-hitting with hand flapping, I was yelled at by my spouse, which... ended up in my hiding in the bathroom and banging my head again. In her defense though, she's still very unused to autistic behavior and didn't know that I was stimming.

So my question is... are there any alternate stimming techniques that any of you use to avoid hurting yourself on impulse? I'm talking specifically about low-key ones. I flap quite excessively when excited or stressed out, but it tends to annoy the people around me, and it only ends up making the situation worse for me when they notice. I'm usually not one to give in to other people's desires, but in the heat of the moment when I'm having an attack it's hard to deal with someone shouting at me to stop the only method of coping I can manage. I'm afraid if I don't quit this habit of mine, I'm going to end up severely injuring myself one day.

Have you tried using a stress ball in your hand or maybe hugging a stuffed animal or a pillow? I do the same things as you a lot and I find that squeezing things helps me. I always carry a stuffed kitty with me wherever I go and I have a stress ball my mom got me that I use a lot too.

The ultimate calming techniques are Mental rather than Physical. Try making use of The Star Prayer at least thrice daily in the knowledge that it is designed to help you to not cause harm to anything or anyone whether to others or your environment. This does not need to be done aloud, just with a direct mental-link/mental-connection with the Creator, perhaps as you take in deep, full breaths, like would be done during a meditation.

I think it's important that you talk to your spouse so that she understands about ASD/stimming etc. If you cannot replace your stims with other satisfying stims, it will be hard to prevent head-banging.

I think that hand-flapping would be a good stim for you to redirect to as it is quite physical and vigorous. It would be harder to transition straight from head-banging to a small stim like finger-tapping. I find that rubbing my arm firmly is also relaxing and comforting. If the pain of banging your head attracts you to the stim, you could try something gentler like pressing your fingernails to the skin of your hands (I use this stim). It is painful, but does not cause serious damage (unlike banging one's head). You could transitions this to an even gentler stim over time, also.