BITING
I'm thinking that maybe part of my ridiculously high stress is that I don't really stim anymore
I've found biting things to be one of the most (only) effective things for defusing anxiety, but I haven't used it much due to the lack of suitable items. i just remembered that i successfully pulled myself out of a panic attack by biting a plastic pen and shattering it into pieces. but it's not good to have a mouthful of plastic shards. Cardboard and paper are not good alternatives because the texture on my teeth is torture.
I have a problem with grinding my teeth, and I observe that I feel stress and unsafety in my teeth and jaws. I think this feeling is my body wanting to defend itself, and I think biting might allow my body to fulfill that urge and release the fight/flight response.
I was thinking of getting one of those teething toys they have for babies that have water inside and you can freeze them, however. I can bite a lot harder than a baby and whatever I use has to handle getting bit REALLY Hard.
So maybe what I need is one of those super heavy duty dog toys that are supposedly indestructible.
biting is also one of the things i visualized myself doing to break out of episodes I had where I would just get drenched in the feeling of being powerless
When I was trying to process all the stuff that had affected me, I started to connect really strongly with the idea of a werewolf. For years before I had conceptualized my fear as a "monster" that had intruded into my head, but it started affecting and harming my body more and more to the point where I was so tense I was in pain much of the time
it felt like something was inside me gnawing on my ribs and guts and that's probably where the wolf picture came from
I realized, that the "monster" was ME. She loved me, and she was protecting me. I was struck with this awe and gratitude that my fear had always been so ferocious, unreasonable, and indomitable. Fear was my body wanting to live! And not just survive. My fear insisted that I needed to be respected, that I needed agency over my body, that I needed to be listened to. I visualized my fear as my wolf part. She was curled protectively around me, snarling and biting at anything that came near.
This image helped me feel empowered. It even helped me feel comfortable getting vaccines at the pharmacy (even a simple vaccination used to destroy my energy for DAYS afterward because of the adrenaline crash, and going to a 'non-medical' setting was my strategy for helping). I visualized surrendering to the wolf. I put the wolf-part in control, basically doing the exact opposite of what I had been taught to do, and my fear became like...this powerful thing, standing guard over me. And eventually I got my flu shot, and all the other vaccines I needed to catch up on, and by the end of it, it was very calm and almost stress-free.
this is to say, I think I've fallen back into those old, well-worn grooves of treating myself like my socially unacceptable needs are something to be crushed as flat as possible and ignored.
biting is something that viscerally feels powerful, and it's part of that visualization of my fear as my wolf part. A part of me that exists outside of social convention and the "domesticated" world and only cares about my need to be safe
Obviously, biting is the nuclear option in interpersonal relations, but visualizing a scenario where I WOULD bite someone helped me feel empowered to take boundary-setting actions: saying "no," communicating my needs, setting the terms for interactions with medical professionals
















