So, this is more a “what are you like” discussion.
How do you stim? do you stim? do you not stim? anything like that.
😋
I tap my fingers, usually on my thighs. I also have a bad one for high anxiety situations where I’ll rub my thumbnail into the pads of my other fingers. I have actully cut my fingertips open this way in high stress moments.
My mom has brought it to my attention that I do hand motions when I’m stressing a convo with her. So now I’m aware of it at times. Kind of looks like I’m doing poor imitations of like Naruto hand jitsu stuff. Likely have some other stuff but I’m not aware of them.
Most commonly I put my hands almost together with my fingers spread as though I’m very securely holding a snow globe and then I shake my hands. I don’t know why or what started it.
My stims mostly occur when I’m emotionally aroused, the most I notice stress stims and happy stims. I generally knead my hands, i.e., I open and close them repeatedly. My mood factors into this by how much I use gravity-defying behavior. So when I’m stressed I generally hold my hands down to my sides, but when it’s a happy stim I hold them up. Stressed and Happy also are different as stress causes me to completely tense up, while happy can make me be springy, almost jumping up and down. Apart from that I also do vocal stims, mostly short hums, sometimes melodic. One other sensory stimulation thing I like is blankets, so I always have a fleece blanket on the sofa, and I even have one at work.
I’m not diagnosed, but I stim a lot. When I’m happy I shake my wrists or flail my arms a little and sometimes I bounce up and down. When I’m stressed I rub my hands together in a regular motion and/or scratch myself (arms and neck) and swing from side to side. I also rock a lot, both when happy and stressed. When I eat something I like I kind of wobble the spoon or fork in my hand and as a child I used to hum while eating, but I’ve since stopped doing that. Something I always do no matter my mood is tapping my fingers to the music that’s currently stuck in my head (I always have a song playing in my head or sometimes sentences or funny sounding words, idk why). I used to try and suppress those stims, but I’m much happier now that I mostly embrace them (at least when I’m alone or with people I trust).
I get the sentences/particular words thing in my head. Have mentioned it to individuals on occasion but it’s only ever been received with dismissal so I thought it was just a personal, unexplainable quirk of mine. You’re the first person I’ve seen referencing it. I can inexplicably become struck by a word or short phrase such as “conjugational recombination” and have it rattle around my head for hours. I can get on with my day but say I’m at work and it’s a day with an odd/previously un-ushered phrase stuck in my head, I can get some tasks done as normal then in between tasks my brain is as if it’s enjoying some rhythmic/phonetic quality of the phrase as it cycles it repeatedly through my consciousness. It can get old very quickly but I tend to have no control over when it leaves me. Doesn’t happen very often thankfully.
Music has been a massive part of my life since I was about 10. I’m always tapping out a rhythm, or have a restless foot/leg. My wife has called me Thumper after the Bambi character for as long as I remember. I don’t tend to notice if I have a restless leg at work unless I’m emailing then it’s obvious and pretty constant; but at home it’s pretty much all the time. Even if it’s just a toe doing an occasional stretch or whatever. I try not to “BE Thumper” when I notice it but then I find I’ll end up sort of pushing or pulling a foot/leg against something ie my other foot/leg. There’s less noticeable movement with that but definitely still something going on.
Are these behaviours ever associated with allistic people? I would have thought the phrases thing to have more in common with tourettes given my experience of it is that of it being involuntary.
I don’t get annoyed by the repetition, I actually enjoy it when it’s interesting sounding words or the way a sentence was said was funny wo me when I first heard it. Conjugational recombination is a great word, btw!
The only theory I have is that it might be a form of echolalia, where instead of repeating words out loud you just do it in your head (maybe something like supressed echolalia? I’ve heard some people online say that it can present that way, but idk how generally accepted that idea is.) As far as I know echolalia is also a symptom of tourettes. I don’t know if it can also occurs in allistic people.
I’m self diagnosed thanks to my wife giving birth to our wonderful autistic children and as we watched them grow up realised I’m autistic too.
When I’m excited about something and alone, I’ll either, hard to explain, try to mash my fingers together while moving them, as if to try and tie them up in a knot.
The other one I have is placing my hands over my mouth, like I’m reacting to something with shock, and then excitedly breath out in sharp short breaths.
My youngest on the other hand flaps his hands at the wrist. 😁 He loves PSVR and has broken several move controllers thanks to his stimming.
You have an autistic son?
I have two, both on different levels of the spectrum.
Mainly with my touch through musics by synesthesia.
But the best are with my vestibular system, the more I’m out of breathe the best it is.
sweet
I like to fold paper receipts into pointy ends and use them to poke, stroke and generally pick at my fingers (usually my index), the good thing is that I can do it discretely in my pocket or under a table etc.
Foot tapping/bouncing too, and I also like to stroke my hair to remove dead strands and twirl the ends. Recently I’ve started to enjoy making a popping sound with my lips, but mainly when I’m alone as it’s audible
I also have resurrected my childhood/teenage/early 20’s blanket that I like to smell (I don’t know if that’s a stim exactly, but I enjoy sniffing it, and it feels comforting when I do this)
Ooooh
Singing. I sing constantly, I wish I didn’t. People think I’m happy, but no, just doing my thing.
Oh, and stretching my hands open, as open as I can, like a hand yawn.
must have a great voice.
I like to stim by tapping my feet.
I usually bend my fingers to the inside of my hand or play with my phone case (since I have a cover case, i can open and close it, but before I had this one broke a lot of them, because i was pulling off and reataching the corner) plus making sounds corellated with doing things.
Bend your fingers to the inside?
This:
Amongst other things for different kinds of stimulation, I am occasionally able to get my wife to do tippy taps when I can make her delightfully surprised, and it’s the most adorable thing ever.
It depends as my stimming changes over time. I’ve settled back into the (annoying for others) habit of making a noise as I breathe in, I don’t even know what it is that I do, but it’s like a dull click in my head when I do it. Other things would be foot twitching, blinking a particular way, hair playing, beard scratching, finger rubbing, and so on. I used to do some clicky thing with my eyes but gladly stopped that as I wasn’t sure it was very good for me.
Mine are flapping hands, shaking feet and legs, bouncing, and clapping the most.
solving Rubik’s cubes is how I keep my hands busy, it’s extremely satisfying and tactile. I do it constantly at my desk, basically whenever I’m thinking or watching something.
I also love putting a blanket between my legs and rubbing them together, it feels like it releases all of my stress and anxiety and gets me super cozy.
The Rubik’s cube is more of a hobby, not a stim
I can see how you would think that, but it’s really both. The mechanical sensation of turning the cube is very satisfying and I make a lot of quick flicking motions with my fingers in predefined patterns. I solve pretty much passively, automatically by now, and never time myself.
I think nearly anything can be a stim. It’s really about what the experience is like to the person doing it, not whether it looks like stimming to you from the outside. Please try not to invalidate anybody’s stim. If you’re confused, ask questions about their experience.
I practice card tricks in zoom meetings! keeps my hands from flapping around
I’ve heard the term “stimming” before, and never had a clear answer on what it meant. After taking a look through this thread, I now have yet another thing to add to the list of obvious symptoms I should have seen in myself years ago.
I have a tendency to take things apart, or move whatever moveable pieces are on something. I’ve made little toys/implements to enable this at work so I’m not just taking pens apart.
