Please help: adult head-banging

Hello, This is my first post in reddit. Actually, this post is the reason why I made an account here. I don't know if this is the right place or subreddit, but I gotta give it a try. Here it goes:

I'm a 22yo med student from Brazil. Since age 1, I used to do a "funny thing": I banged my head against a sofa cushion, to the sound of music. In medical practice I see that a lot of kids do that in this age, but they usually stop after a few months. The thing is... I never actually stopped.

I know this sounds weird. This is why it took me so long to seek help. Until age 16, I lived with my father, and as long as I was growing up this behaviour started getting embarrassing and around age 12 I started doing this only at night, after he went to bed. So that was pretty much my routine: I went to school, studied a lot, and around 10pm I would go downstairs and bang my head to a sofa for half an hour (always in the dark, listening to music). That never really bugged me.

At age 16 I moved to study med school. I lived in a dorm room without a sofa, so it stopped for two years. At age 18, I broke up with my ex, and I was already living in a place with a sofa. I remember feeling very lonely and abandoned - a feeling that really hurts me, probably because I was abandoned by my mother at age 3? - and it was automatic: I started banging again. This was 2012, and during that year, "headbanging" was what I did the most. I live by myself, so I didn't need to do it only at night; actually, I spent most of the time doing it. By the end of the year I had an illness in my cervical spine, but never mentioned any of this to my doctor. This made me reduce the banging and actually acknowledging I had to stop this.

Since 2012, I've been trying to stop. I seeked help: shrinks, family, a couple friends, medication, even transcranial magnetic stimulation (I did the full treatment). This has somewhat helped, but never actually solved the problem. When I'm alone at home, I feel this incredible urge to bang my head against the damn sofa (and if there isn't a sofa, a pillow in the wall is just fine). It's not only when I feel anxious or sad; it's also when I feel euphoric, tired or energetic. I've tried to identify a thought or emotional pattern that would lead to this urge, but in all these years I failed to do so. It's almost like an addiction.

Bottom line is... I'm 23 years old, I'm almost a doctor, and I keep repeating a behaviour I have since age 1. It takes a lot of time and it also hurts my neck. I'm also afraid that I develop some neurological illness due to this repetitive behaviour.

I'm not sure whether I should call this an obsession, an addiction or a form of self-harm. I've been trying to figure it out for years, specially while taking my psychiatry classes, but I haven't yet reached a conclusion.

Any help is welcome. Really. Talking to strangers in an online forum is probably the only thing I haven't tried yet.

Hello, I have read your post cause I was myself in search for more information about this. I'm 38 (and from Belgium) and I banged my head from age 0 till age 24 every day. When I was a kid, I banged my head in bed against a pillow, in de backseat of the car against the seat, in the sofa or even in a chair. When I was a teenager, I often listened to music while banging my head when I was sitting in the chair in my room.
Now since I got married and have 2 children, I don't do it very often any more, because I know people find it weird. My husband and kids have never seen me do it. I have told them about it, but find it myself to weird to do it in front of them.
Sometimes when I'm alone I bang my head very quietly, almost like you can't see it, but I can feel it.
I often wondered why my parents did't seek for an explanation for this. They have always know I did it and so did my brother who is 1 year older.
In my search I found that the head-banging is linked to autism or reduced intelligence.
I have a master degree in music so I think that the reduced intelligence is not about me.
I have never been tested for autism but there is never been any reason for.
If you have found any answers in your search I would like to hear them ...

hutsa wrote:In my search I found that the head-banging is linked to autism or reduced intelligence.
I have a master degree in music so I think that the reduced intelligence is not about me.
I have never been tested for autism but there is never been any reason for.
If you have found any answers in your search I would like to hear them ...

I have no answers to how to stop the problem, but I want to jump in and say that if it's something like Asperger's that WOULD be on the autism spectrum, however you could easily have the same intelligence as others not in the spectrum. Repetitive behavior is something people with Asperger's tend to have, and they'll often have certain interests which become a sort of focus. I thought the head-banging to music followed by a master degree in music sounded like a good sign it could be that.

Head-banging seems to be a self-soothing response to anxiety or tension for some youngsters. It's not a form of autism as long as it's not accompanied by other autistic symptoms, lack of direct gaze, etc. and even normal, intelligent ppl can develop this habit from childhood into adulthood. Some psychologists describe this kinesthetic response similar to what an infant feels when rocked to sleep. Head-banging can also be one of several symptoms of sensory processing disorder.

I know, because I used to do it well beyond childhood, til my early twenties, and I did it because I had a great deal of anxiety and frustration of not being able to express my feelings/thoughts as a child, so the movement was soothing or pleasurable. As long as the habit is regarded as soothing/pleasurable and not deliberate self-harm, it's not an OCD.

It's just that head-banging got to be your one go-to for stress/anxiety reduction, so perhaps developing other stress-reducing techniques that has a rhythmic movement to them can help abate the habit. I found the rhythmic nature of knitting or crocheting is soothing and also took up bead-weaving recently. At least I'm turning that self-soothing need for rhythmic movement into something productive, turning such projects into gifts for others. It's a matter of finding what will work for you, be it strumming a guitar, playing drums or the piano, dancing, just something else rhythmic and pleasurable that satisfies that need to self-soothe.

Hello,
Have you found it to be related to anxiety? I began head-banging as an infant in the crib; later I both head-banged and leg-banged in bed at the same time...until I was about 10 years old. Now, I'm 56 years old and still leg-bang. If I've exercised my legs a lot (like running a few miles) or bicycled many miles, that's the only exception for me. Otherwise, I bang my leg to relax enough to sleep; if I awake during the night, I bang again until I fall asleep. I've found Tempurpedic mattress to be most helpful----that way the mattress doesn't move so my husband can sleep. It's not exactly what you're referring to but I thought I'd write because of the possible correlation with anxiety.