bitting and chewing

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i have a bad habit of getting the urge to bite and chew on things, all my pencils are chewed, my DVD cases, toys, sleeves, wires, blankets, my hands, other people, and random objects. I dont know exacly what you would call this but ive done it all my life, i used to chew at my cousins ankles and arms. what would you call this?

I've been thinking about something very similar to this myself. I bite my cuticles and the sides of my fingernails until they bleed. I'm wondering if this is considered self-harming. When I think of that term, I think of some goth chick cutting herself with a Exacto knife. But I'm sure there are other variations of it.

In your case, ZombieBride, I would look into the possibility of an iron deficiency. There is a condition called Pica that's connected to that. Its main symptom is eating non-food items -- things like dirt, starch, ice or chalk. Pregnant women get it a lot -- ever see a woman with child eating ice? Women with heavy periods get it too, because their iron gets low due to the blood loss. Trust me -- I've been there. I was anemic for a couple of years, to the point that when I had my hysterectomy in November, I needed two pints of blood!

I say take a trip to the doctor and have a blood test done to check for anemia. If that's the case, iron supplements and/or a diet heavy on red meat, dried fruits like raisins and dates, and green leafy veggies will help.

I bite my knuckles or the back of my hand, but not hard enough to break skin. I'll nip my husband on the shoulder sometimes, but playfully, not aggressively.

I do this too.

I chew on pretty much everything, too. I chew on my fingernails, my fingers, pencils, pens, pretty much anything that I might have to hold in my hand for any reason. I've always done this. My parents say that when I was a toddler I chewed the varnish off the coffee table.

I'll chew anything I can fit in my mouth, including my nails. I think the point about iron deficiency is interesting because I have a family history of anaemia and insanely heavy periods.
But I don't just chew, I eat. I'm kind of a self-cannibal.

My guess is it's a stim.

If it bothers you, maybe try getting one thing you allow yourself to chew on, and chew on that whenever you get the urge.

I'm sure somebody else has mentioned this already (I haven't the time to read all the comments prior to posting), but there is something called "chewelry" made specifically for those on the spectrum.

I used to chew the collar of my shirt when I was little I still sometimes do it

I bite on things all the time...fingernails, hard plastic objects, pens, you name it. I catch myself biting down on my fingertips sometimes too. I've always done this sort of thing; my mom used to get after me about putting objects in my mouth.

Chew nails, cuticles etc. I squeeze pimples and other infected sections of skin quite mercilessly. I love the sensation of bursting pimples. In-grown hairs have given me immense satisfaction over the years. Full blown boils are a rare treat.

Otherwise, I went through a phase (about two years or so) of chewing the hair off my arms. If you pull your arm up to your mouth you will see that the furthest up your arm that you can chew hair is somewhere above your elbow. I am a hairy person but for about three years I had absolutely no hair from fingertips up to this maximum chewable point above my elbow. I resorted to chewing the hair off my knees at times. It stopped during a time when I landscaped my garden. The landscaping happened over a seven month period and involved intense labour (I dropped from 95kg to 83kg). I dug everything myself, did not use any form of mechanisation and did not employ labour. My obsession with the landscaping and refusal to deploy humans or machinery was probably an extension of the aspie in me. Nevertheless, I realised some time after the landscaping that my hair chewing had ended.

Another related obsession was shaving the hair off my legs. I shaved it piece-meal because it gave me pleasure. My appearance (no hair on legs and arms) did not appeal to me, so appearance was definitely not the motivation. In fact I was very self conscious of it.