What Are Your Impulsive Behaviours?

Chaudemant

I'd say for me it's relief from anxiety, obsessional thinking. Finding imperfections everywhere and turning it in on myself. Chronic boredom and emptiness. With anxiety, it's like pulling on an elastic band, stretching and stretching it until one day you let go (that's the impulsive act). And then the cycle repeats.

Epic cross-posting opportunity! ^-^ Seriously, this same forum popped up in the bipolar threads, and was actually ridiculously cathartic to type out. I'll copy/paste mine, but here's the link: bipolar/topic52489.html?hilit=grandiose


My post:
"Best. Thread. Ever.

Things I thought or planned but never did much about:
-I was going to go to med school and join Doctors Without Borders as a gynecologist. I absolutely loathe the structures of chemistry and mental health classes, AND I refuse in general to dissect non-human animals killed for the purpose of dissection. Med school would be a blast for me...
-I was going to emancipate myself from my parents. I had nowhere to go, no job, and no resources to speak of. (It probably would have been deserved, but totally impossible.)
-I thought I was capable of literally anything within the confines of physics, despite my tiny stature, comparative lack of strength largely because of that, and obvious vulnerability to injury/illnesses
-I was going to make all of the money I needed off of selling 1" button pins to people. I bought the button machine and supplies and made tons of buttons. It's been fun having the thing around, but I think I made around $10 total from the whole thing, and never put any further effort into making it a business of any sort.
-I decided I was going to go to Princeton University, and once that died down, definitely to Berklee. I've no interest in the east coast of the U.S., have little interest in most of the subjects widely covered at Princeton, and don't have the patience at all for music theory. After both of those, I was DEFINITELY going to McNally Smith, the music college in St. Paul, MN, because my then-boyfriend went to IPR and was a recording engineer. I was going to be a live sound tech; I went as far as to be a tech for a school play. It was fun, and I still record an toy with music from time to time, but I don't know why I thought I'd enjoy dealing with musicians all day, every day. (I do that anyway, between my roommates, boyfriend, and myself, and that's quite enough.) Presently, it's going to be Portland State and then the University of Oregon, for philosophy. I'm going to be a professor, and I think this one might stick, but I thought that with absolute conviction about the others as well... I've already got a 2-year degree in nothing at all, so hopefully the four-year narrows it down at least a little.
-I was going to be the lead guitarist and singer of a huge metal band. This is still floating around in my head, but it's fu<king impossible to get most people to take a chick seriously when it comes to metal, and I write mostly dark, alternative punk right now anyway.
-When I was in elementary school, I KNEW that some people could read minds and were specifically trying to break into mine, so I'd yell insults at them from my head in defense.
-I decided that one had to be a complete cretin to misuse a condom, so we should just do a bimonthly massive condom drop over all the major cities and townships of all densely populated areas to stop overpopulation. From there, world hunger would cease, and AIDS would go extinct. O.o
-I was going to be discovered as an esoteric yet relatable musician on MySpace, so I set up a music account and put up a very shoddy demo. I never recorded anything else, despite mild intent to, and deleted it after 2 years.
-I decided I was going to be an actress and actually went in for a commercial audition. No practice, never acted in my life, and I had no idea what I was doing... But I was going to be a total hit. *rolls eyes*
-Someone exceedingly affluent was going to take an unusual interest in me and pursue me without me ever having spoken to them, because I'm just that awesome. I find this one especially ridiculous, given my vehement distaste for exorbitant indulgences.

Things I planned and then followed through on:
-Moving across the country with my boyfriend with no place to crash, minimal knowledge of the city, a few hotspots in mind to look for potential roommates, and no jobs.
-Moved in with drug dealers at 18 years old for 4 months, despite being aware of how many opiates they regularly consumed, so I could live with my boyfriend (who was living with them at the time for lack of a better option). I wasn't done with school yet, commuted from the city to the suburbs for the last month or so of classes, and the arrangement ended with them threatening our lives one morning after a massive opiate and alcohol binge the night before, leaving us essentially homeless. Good times.
-I periodically sell or give away everything I haven't used recently. Usually I find this pretty cathartic and don't regret it, but there are a few things I wish I'd not parted with so hastily (and without the hypomania/mania, I'm fairly certain this wouldn't come up nearly as often).
-Had a blast of nostalgia and bought tons of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards online (with money I totally didn't have) after watching tons of Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged, effectively getting my whole 21+ household hooked on the stupid game; they've since graduated to Magic: The Gathering. It's gotten pretty ridiculous, and I do feel a bit responsible for it.
-Bought a snowsuit just a few weeks before the crazy move across the country to a place it doesn't really snow, just so I could deal with the snow here a bit better for the time being. Again, with money I TOTALLY didn't have. (It's a bit demoralizing that I can be so impulsive with this sort of thing while holding such firm anti-consumerist sentiments. O.o)
-I broke up with an ex of mine, had a flurry of weird and abusive sexual encounters with other men (one of whom was one of his good friends), and then hooked back up with him for a few weeks until I met my current boyfriend. The weird part here is that I was not in any way attracted to my ex or the opportunists in question, and the sex wasn't really very enjoyable, but it didn't seem to matter at the time.
-While in a part of the city high in rape-type crime, I donned a relatively slinky outfit, grabbed my mace, knife, and nightstick, and wandered the streets at 2am on an adrenaline high, looking for a rapist to beat the $#!% out of. My plan was to have them stalk and try to attack me, unaware that they were the targets... think Hard Candy. (This probably would have worked if it weren't so obvious that I had weapons; miniskirts aren't great for concealing things.)
-I wrote 3/4 of a vampire-based novel just before the whole Twilight explosion. The public obsession over vampires that took hold after that (namely all the stupid screaming fangirls popping up all over the place) led me to scrap the entire project and brood about how stupid vampires were for the following years.
-I bought a corset on ebay, thinking it would change my entire life. O.O I don't really understand this one, either.
-I shaved all my head hair off. While I don't regret doing this (it was completely realigning as far as understanding that my appearance had nothing to do with who I was, with my actual identity), it was definitely completely impulsive.

Random common impulsive behaviors:
-Taking too many downers when I have suicidal episodes
-Researching the $#!% out of whatever I'm obsessing over at the moment, and then telling EVERYONE about it
-I'll get completely committed to the idea of becoming something, and then not have any interest in following up on how to actually become whatever it is.
-Learning new words that never get used in ordinary banter and introducing them in conversations in which I KNOW the others involved have no idea what I'm saying (there's a whole rationale behind this, but it wasn't there when the habit kicked off)
-Starting TONS of projects that I intricately plan out but never finish (some that I never even come back to). This is inclusive of songs, stories, essays, journals, crafts, making garments, etc.
-Whenever I'm near a large body of water and have any expensive electronics on me, I want to throw them in.
-I'm a bit terrified of significant precipices, primarily because I have a nearly overwhelming impulse to jump whenever I'm near one. It doesn't even have suicidal motives; I just want the thrill of it.

I think I might urge my boyfriend to write out one of these... His list would completely blow mine away. O.O"

As a juvenile
1. Anger outbursts (sometimes violent)
2. Self mutilation (cutting)
3. Truancy from school
4. Promiscuous and risky sex
5. Creating conflicts in relationships
6. Threatening people
7. Compulsively drinking coffee and caffeine binges

As an adult
1. Alcoholism
2. Polysubstance abuse
3. Stealing and shoplifting
4. Vandalism
5. Abruptly quitting jobs and frequent unemployment/leeching off others
6. Reckless driving
7. Episodic relationships (moving from one person to another)

Well, my impulsive behaviors include but are certainly not limited to: unsafe sex, drinking, smoking cigarettes, smoking weed, cutting, binge-eating, starving, spending money that i may/may not have. I know I have more, but I can't specifically think of them right now. But, I also have impulsive thoughts, like I've always known that I'm capable of stealing and I've even been thinking of it lately. Also, I know I would take drugs if I got the chance. Ever since I was little I kinda knew that I was destined to do all these things, like even hearing about self injury as a child I was like "I can understand that." I guess I'm just easily addicted to things.

Oh, and I think I do impulsive things either because of the constant emptiness I feel or because I feel like someone has abandoned/left me.

Just browsing the site and came across this. BPD has been mentioned before in my case but I've recently been diagnosed with cyclothymia, I am starting to in fact doubt this. When I feel low/hypo impulsive:

I dig my finger nails into my arms, bang my head, drink a lot of alcohol in one go, get tattoos and piercings (even though i do love them still :]), overdose, sex, party a lot more, online shopping spree, playing loud music and just dancing on my own like a loon, smoke weed/smoke a lot more cigarettes and like overwhelming over emotional crying for ages and ages. The worst impulse is overdosing because it's happened quite a lot (cooled down a lot more in the passed year) and damaged my liver.

I also get random tattoos and piercings when i'm feeling impulsive... usually regretting them later
Other than that I guess it's the usual... overdosing, cutting, extreme anger & lashing out, punching walls, being 'promiscuous' (whatever the hell that word really means) & spending stupid amounts of money on crap I don't really need, use or want. Oh, and alcohol!

i never really thought of my piercings and random hair coloring like that, but those are pretty impulsive. I do allot allot allot of shopping, smoking, cutting, starving and binge-eating. I don't know if it counts, but when i really get into a show i'll just drop EVERYTHING and watch that for days straight in total obsession mode. Sucks

MessyMackenzie wrote:I don't know if it counts, but when i really get into a show i'll just drop EVERYTHING and watch that for days straight in total obsession mode. Sucks

Ha I do that too! Right now it's Lost... 36 episodes in 3 days Maybe not an impulsive action but DEFINITELY addictive.

ahah sometimes nothing's better then being alone with the show you love it's just really annoying since if i don't watch it for a day, i get totally bored with it and i just move on to something else. It's like i need it 24/7 or nothing :p

Nice hearing that other people experience similar impulsive behaviors like this. Getting tattoo's is probably the best impulse