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I tried stimming: Tangle toys

As I am typing this, I am trying to manage fidgeting with my tangle at the same time. If you have read my first post on this topic I tried stimming: Spinning rings, you probably know that this is not the first time I am trying to find a suitable stim toy for myself. You might also not be very hopeful that a tangle works for me, considering that a spinning ring did not do anything for me. But this seems to be different.

I found out about Tangle creations online while I was researching different types of stim toys that can be used by adults, are relatively quiet, and don’t distract other people in classroom or office situations. One of their products specifically seemed to fulfill all those criteria: the Tangle Jr. Masterpiece in the color ‘maple’, because it’s

1. smaller than the standard tangle
2. the brown color is not flashy and goes perfectly with my other belongings
3. fidgeting with it is pretty quiet
4. I can put it on my wrist if I need both hands free, and it looks like an avantgarde bracelet rather than a toy

This list is also a concise explanation of why I love this thing. Another, and probably the most important point, is that it works for me. Fidgeting with it feels natural to me. It helps me focus, deal with chaotic and loud environments like shopping streets, and keeps my hands busy and my legs still.

As soon as I opened the package and got to fidget with it, my hand seemed to know what it was doing. There was no awkward trying it out, no learning curve, it never fell out of my hands or was difficult to handle. Therefore, I was confident enough to take it to the streets. Busy streets. Shopping streets. Usually, I can navigate busy streets for about half an hour before I start to feel the stress, then go non-verbal and develop a migraine. While fidgeting with it did not prevent the stress, I did not go non-verbal even after hours. Plus, I didn’t get any weird looks because people didn’t even notice it. Not bad.

Having tested the tangle for roughly a week, I realized what my personal problem was with the spinning ring: It was too simple. I could only move it back and forth along the band of the ring, naturally, but that did not do it for my brain at all. The tangle, given its form, gives me way more possibilities to change its shape, which in turn gives my brain more variation to work with. Its different segments are connected in a way that enables them to move smoothly, which is also important for me.

So far, I cannot give an assessment of its durability—but I do hope it will hold up well since it seems to be the perfect match for me. And this is a point I want to stress: The Tangle works perfectly for me for the above-stated reasons. If you are looking for a fidget toy and expect the same things as I do—minimal design but still complex, quiet, smooth, flexible enough to tangle it into a compact format— from it, then the Tangle might be for you as well. If you would prefer the exact opposite, it might not be ideal for your needs. However, I encourage you to research for yourself and decide on the fidget that is best for you.

Do you have any fidget toys that you regularly use? What do you like about them? Let me know!

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simetra
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