I've done the same thing multiple times and always have been worried I broke my hand. The one time I actually went in to the ER because I was sure it had happened and the X-ray showed nothing. It's better to be sure that it's not broken though. My brother unknowingly broke his hand in a fight (during his crack cocaine days) and never got medical attention for it and it turns out it was broken the whole time and had caused a host of other health problems with infection and bad healing.

For me punching walls is sadly a step from cutting like I did when I was young but it is still a form of self-harm because the chance is always there that you're really going to hurt yourself in a way you could regret but that's hard to think about when you have that big burst of emotion that seems to have to be forced out in a way.

People are always in all of my wall repair skills but what they don't realize is there was a whole lot of punching going on to get to that point of skill.

I know they did a study that showed screaming into your pillow is not necessarily even a good idea because it trains your brain to think it needs some sort of grandiose outward explosion to deal with acute painful emotions.

So I think with a lot of us it's a matter of finding out how to retrain our brain into not needing to release that way. I've actually tried doing things like just leaving my house and driving around aimlessly, even imagining I'm never coming back if it helps, and after a while I feel the same release that I do if I punch something. I usually come home after and crash because you know that amount of emotion can be very draining once it leaves your body.

I wish I had a better answer for you now but I know the behavioral approach in therapy can be helpful as it's actually what got me to stop cutting even though I moved on to blaming inanimate objects. Sometimes if I have a few seconds I can remind myself about injuring myself or having someone call the cops on me if they hear it, or even how much it's going to cost to fill the hole. Sometimes the bland everyday consequences can give me enough time to pause.