Lyn, your post reminds me that i used to suck on my arm, in 5th grade... purposely to bruise it (like a hicky)- but I did it all day long. After a while it did cause pain and i did it more for that reason. Those "bruises" lasted a long time.
I did have another form of re-acting out what was happening to me.. I won't be detailed here.. but i did that fairly often - starting when i was 6. it was a form of punishment. I also used to hold my breath under water in the bath tub trying to see if i would dround or pass out. Eventually that worked as a way to punish myself as well. that was in the 6-7 age and continued for several years.
These days, in therapy, when we're on topics that make me uneasy or i know i have switched, i dig my fingernails into my arm.
oh (heh - this is reminding me of all kinds of things)... i used to pick scabs - we lived out in no man's land with thousands of mosquitos and i would pick the bites on my head and bleed them - then pick the scabs. I was always bleeding - or blowing my nose on purpose until it would bleed - and keep the nose bleed going for as long as i could before i got in trouble. I was a weird kid. I was always accident prone and kept a running tally of my bruises. I counted 47 one day. The dr pulled my mom away from me to ask me if i was being hurt. he didn't believe me but was looking in the wrong place.
During the worst of it (a three yr period), i got severe leg cramps and charley horses right at bed time. If i didn't have to go to bed, they went away and returned the instant it was bed time. mom thought i was faking - i but i wasn't. it was my body trying to rescue me from what was happening at night.
and i took on dangerous behavior; being a tom boy and jumping out of trees and of really high swings, playing wtih snakes. cactus, and fire, being a dare devil... ahhhhhhhh i haven't thought of those things in ages.