Needing to self soothe

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I found myself needing to self soothe today and well a lot lately. Today my mother said something that set me off in spades. I felt my blood "boil" and I just flipped out and cursed. A few minutes later I apologized for what I had said and left the room. I then sat down at the kitchen table for some "quiet" time. I put one hand on my tummy, the other on my forehead and I began taking slow deep breaths while I gently massaged my tummy in circles for about 5 minutes. The last few months have been really stressful and I find it soothing and relaxing to do this when I feel overwhelmed. I even do this a lot right before I fall asleep. I'll either just gently massage it or I'll lightly scratch it all over with my fingertips for 5-10 minutes before I fall asleep while taking the deep breaths. I think it might even be more soothing if I added some warm gently heat during the massage. A couple of years ago, I had an old friend live with me. At night it was great because he would always give me this tummy massage for a few minutes when I was laying down before bed. Then, I'd roll over and he would gently scratch my back with 2 hands all over for at least 1/2 hour until I fell asleep. It was fantastic because I never had an itchy back at night I couldn't scratch. He did such a thorough job going over every spot at least a few times that my entire back was completely soothed to the point I never woke up itchy looking for a back scratcher or a hair brush even during the day for that matter. It was almost as if he had trained my back to itch only at bedtime after a tiring day when it was time for the luxurious scratch session during which I would direct him to all the itchy spots that needed to be focused on as I layed down with my eyes closed. Now, I'm not saying this because I miss him because he was immature and a piece of work, but this was how I soothed. I just do the tummy massages now and I'll grab a ruler if I acquire a sudden, hard to reach itch. It's not the same but still works a little. Is this abnormal that I do this at home when I'm stressed? Is this a good way to self soothe? Does anyone else have other suggestions or things I could add to this ritual for added comfort?

It's not abnormal, but it's probably unusual, meaning that most people don't do it.

If it works for you and causes no harm, it seems good to me.

I just use a symptom > intervention kind of approach, which I've never felt the need to name, I've always considered it to be common sense and the kind of thing that most people do - you get a symptom, you seek relief by trial-and-error. Of course with sensory issues, on a bad day it can become a full-time job. For itching, a fairly stiff brush moistened with hot water does a lot of good, and if that's not enough then Deep Heat cream (Thera-gesic in the USA) is my nuclear option. The burning sensation can be painful but it's preferable to itching, and it soon goes away and seems to erase the itch for as much as a day or two. It's a terrible shame that opium is so dangerous. I've heard it has a wonderful cushioning effect on just about anything.

For me, it's just that this massage both helps with digestion and helps calm my stress so I've been trying to do it daily. It does seem highly unusual but it's a healthy coping skill.

I’m sorry you had a rough day.

I feel like if you feels this aids your digestion, do it.

But be sort of careful WHERE you do it.

Like probably don’t do it in front of students.

(But I’m sure you know this. I‘m probably stating the obvious).

No, I would never. I only do it in the privacy of my home, usually while laying in bed trying to fall asleep. Yesterday though, I did it while sitting by myself because I needed to self soothe with some deep breaths and a massage for 5 minutes or so just to relax my body and calm down.

Thanks for the advice. I don't want to give the impression that I have a skin disorder or something and am constantly itchy. It's just that it's much harder to scratch your back with a ruler or something like a contortionist when you have the occasional itch. It's much easier and more soothing to just lay down with your eyes closed and say "A little to the left, a little up, right there. Aahh!" Plus have you ever tried to quickly scratch an itch back there? It always comes right back sometimes in a different spot with much more intensity, so he would spend a good few minutes on each spot to make sure that the itches wouldn't come back anytime soon. That's why it took over 1/2 hour because my friend was very thorough. It was very soothing and rejuvenating. A lot of times I'd ask for 5-10 more minutes because it felt so good. I'd use the excuses "What if you leave the room and it itches again right where I can't reach it? Or, please, just 5 more minutes. This spot still itches a little." Plus I was always itch free and more relaxed the next day. I'll use a ruler or a hairbrush if it's bad and sudden. Otherwise, I usually just ignore it because it's hard to reach under my pajamas. Also, objects just don't alleviate itches as well as the love and compassion in human hands. Those back scratches are the only thing I miss about him. Other than that, good riddance.

What's wrong with rubbing the stomach or scratching the back in front of students?

Sorry, I just thought that if you needed your back scratching then it must be itching a lot. Clearly not. In my case the calves of my legs began to itch a lot for no apparent reason - no signs of infection or even dry skin, nothing wrong at all unless I scratched with my fingernails. I began to find that scratching just made it worse. Eventually the calves settled down but the problem started to come up pretty much anywhere. I can usually ignore it for much of the time during the day when I have something to distract me, but at night I sometimes can't sleep for it. Luckily the stiff brush and heat cream work wonders.

I'm able to reach any part of my back with my hands or with the brush, it's not always particularly easy but mostly it's not all that difficult either. Other people have never known quite where to scratch me or how intensely, and like I say, fingers just make it worse. And as you've discovered, there can be times when you've got nobody to do the honours. For some reason I don't get a lot out of massages. They're OK but not that great, in my case. I guess we're all different.

There might be some social taboo about it, one of those irrational "manners" things that might vary from culture to culture. Some of those social rules are pretty strange, like coughing up phlegm and spitting it out in the street which I hate to see but some cultures think nothing of it. Blowing the nose "Cossack style" is another one that different cultures have widely different attitudes to. But I think scratching sometimes also has an unavoidable psychological effect of setting other people off itching, which isn't a kind thing to do to people. When I was in my first job and very young, I got this strange itching attack one day - not the thing I get now, this was just an isolated incident that only lasted a few hours, and in those days I was fairly itch-free normally. They ended up sending me home, because (they said) they just couldn't bear to watch.

I asked the pharmacist for a remedy and she gave me a tube of something called Eurax. I went home and took a bath, then applied the cream, the itch went away and didn't return. Although it could well have been coincidence, I swore by that cream for years, and always had a tube of it in the house just in case the itching ever came back. Sadly this more recent problem doesn't respond to the stuff at all, but I prefer the brush and Deep Heat cream, as there are probably fewer dangerous ingredients - just aspirin and eucalyptus mainly.

It’s in the way you rub your stomach and scratch your back. And how often you do it.

There’s nothing “wrong” with it, per se. But people tend to be funny about what’s considered “weird.”

This makes sense. There are many ways to self soothe which are very abnormal to do in front of people. Self soothing for the most part should be done at home in private. (ex. at bedtime)

You must have been embarrassed. That doesn't sound like a fun experience. What was the job if you don't mind sharing?

At the time I was a junior technician in a university research lab. Strange though it may seem, I don't remember feeling any embarrassment. It's not a feeling that I'm all that prone to for some reason, and at the time the itching itself rather overshadowed anything else I might otherwise have felt.

Well it's at least good that you got a warm soothing bath and it went away. It probably relaxed your muscles a bit too. It's amazing you could make it home with safely with the itch assuming you drove.

In those days I took the bus to work, so there wasn't a safety problem. I don't suppose I'll ever know what caused the itching. Eurax apparently is a mixture of a scabicidal chemical and something to soothe itching, then there was the bath and all the scrubbing that would have entailed, so there's no way of figuring out which of those interventions (if any) did the trick. There are many known causes. That episode does seem to be different from the problem I have now, because it came and went so quickly, and I didn't have any more trouble till I was in my 40s. My best guess at the cause now is autistic hypersensitivity. It's also known that itching often gets worse with age, on account of the skin drying out as we get older. And even as a teenager I noticed that I seemed to itch more than most people, though it was never enough to induce me to get medical help, and wasn't a problem as long as I had the distraction of something interesting to do.