Let's Talk about Stimming

[Chance]

I press my front teeth together and flex my jaw muscles a lot... I notice this once my teeth start hurting or my jaws get sore.

I bounce my legs most the time when sitting and it seems to aggravate a few people that I cant fully sit still very long... If I do I'm out and asleep no matter where I am or what time it is.

My hands are an issue so I always try and hold something because they need to move an my tapping (drumming out music, or piano in my head) also annoys people it seems...

I'm happy when I do this... for some reason until I am reminded I am being a nuisance. : )

I used to have a soft pillow to hug while watching TV, but now just having one beside be to touch or put my hand on works. Rocking chairs, chewing at my lower lip is the worst when nervous. Long sighs, skin picking around nails, and fiddling with anything around I can hold easily in my hands, pens, small objects, twirling my ring.

HA HA!!! People tend to take pens and pencils from me... Those become instant drum stix... : )

 

[Chance]

Counting things
Doing math in my head (like factoring whatever I've cointed up to)
Touching my thumbnail to the underside of each knuckle
Finding anagrams for words, trying to picture them in my head as fast as they are spoken, or spelling them backwards.
Touching the metal joints of the cubicle walls as I walk around at work (I like the cool feeling of the metal)
[Edit] Oh, and the most obvious one: fiddling with anything in my hands: coins, paper, pens, and especially straws.

I love adding up the numbers on license plates, making sentences out of the letters, and I always notice what state... In Texas they change tag styles pretty often so I even know by the style how long that tag has been on a car... Really cheesy but its fun in my little nutty world.

 

[Anthracite]

Main one I do almost constantly: rolling strips of card in my fingers, or fiddling with other things if that's not available/possible
Holding my hands/arms/wrists
Shaking my head
Walking on my tiptoes (not with my pot on of course >.<)
Noises
Clicking my tongue/teeth (internally)
Tapping out tunes (I have long nails, makes it so much easier)
Gritting my teeth (this one is entirely subconscious and I stop it once I realise. I end up with headaches if I've been doing it in my sleep >.<)
Other random movements

 

[Adora]

I pace up and down in which my dad use to refer to it as stomping,I play around with my rings on my fingers or I will fiddle with something near like this tassel key chain I have on my handbag,my husband has also noticed I like rocking motions and I do also play with the back of my hair a lot,also another unusual thing I do is i will walk on my tiptoes and get called a tippy toe walker by my husband.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I love adding up the numbers on license plates, making sentences out of the letters, and I always notice what state... In Texas they change tag styles pretty often so I even know by the style how long that tag has been on a car... Really cheesy but its fun in my little nutty world.

I love trying to guess the age of the car based on a few “anchor” license plates and dates. E.g., a license plate that is close to mine tells me roughly how old that car it.

I play cribbage, and I look at the numbers on dollar bills and on license plates and calculate their cribbage score.

 

[Ameriblush]

Pulling my hair, knee bouncing, chewing my lips and tearing of scabs. It gets to the point where if I don't have any scabs to pick on myself, I'll spot someone else's and have to fight off the desire to scratch THEIRS.

 

[SusanLR]

"It's your stim, do what you want to do..."
I loved this movie and related to it first time I saw it.
Long before I knew about ASD and me.

 

[Mattymatt]

Hey that's pretty cool that you're driving 18 wheelers. I tried doing that but I don't really have the stress tolerance for it. It really requires a cool head for when you get into difficulty.

 

[wadorama]

Another thing I can't live without and have done since being a toddler is twiddling with and stroking and pulling at the corner of my pillow case.

same-ish for me, but satin blanket lining instead (it is not on my resume). pacing pacing pacing too.

 

[Mary Anne]

I started a new part-time job yesterday and there was times where it was not only stressful, but extremely painful.* I was talking to myself aloud, and nearly crying. This does not go well in public with tons of Cus Irs nearby. I only hope I was not heard.

* I have severe spinal stenosis, and back pain. I was having to pick up, wind up a 200 foot super heavy rubber garden hose onto a hose creel. I had to do that multiple times during the day. Each time it was excruciating. I need the income right now!

 

[Dalton]

i used to bite my lips but i manged to stop.

 

[Pondering]

Hair pulling and hair twirling

If I need/want to appear more 'normal' while still needing to stim, I either use the fingertip of my thumb to draw an imaginary diamond on the finger pad of my pointer, use the nail of my pointer to draw an imaginary diamond on the nail of my thumb, or use the tip of my tongue to draw an imaginary diamond on my right canine. It's very subtle and hard to notice by outward appearance.

Lightly bite the right edge of my lip with the tip of my right canine.

Feeling the bone of my spine from the back of my neck (have to make sure I'm actually a real, tangible human being sometimes or something, I don't know)

(while sitting) leg bouncing

(if wearing jeans) run my fingernails under the seam of the leg of the jeans.

 

[SplendidSnail]

(if wearing jeans) run my fingernails under the seam of the leg of the jeans.

That's one that I do that I missed from my huge list of stims...

 

[Coupe]

I actually have all kinds of stims, though not all of them are good ones....my most destructive stim is probably picking at the skin/cuticles around my fingernails. I'm currently attending a program where I'm learning employment skills (which is going really well, since I've managed to adjust) and the facilitators actually encourage me to use what they call "fidgets" (I prefer the term "stim toys," but it's the same thing) that I bring with me, and my favorite one happens to be a Tsum Tsum plush of Dory from the Finding Nemo/Dory movies.

As the weeks have passed (the program is halfway finished), I've become braver and stim openly with "Little Dory," even to the extent that I keep her on my desk on days when I wear pants with no pockets. My anxiety literally falls away from me when I'm stimming with her (squeezing her, flapping her tail back and forth, running my finger over her embroidered freckles), and I often think to myself, "why didn't I do this weeks ago when the program started, and to h*ll with what anyone thinks if they see?" She helps me focus and even helped me get through a mock interview with one of the facilitators today. Besides, if someone is experiencing anxiety to the point that they're actually inflicting pain on themselves, they should by all means be allowed to use something that allows them to feel better, whether others regard it as "childish" or not. One of the other participants comes every day with headphones, her phone, a book, and two necklaces she likes, so I'm not the only one who has favorite objects to help them cope.

 

[Pondering]

"Little Dory,"

Just keep stimming, just keep stimming, just keep stimming, stimming, stimming.

 

[Nervous Rex]

This is such an eye-opening topic. For 20 years, I've been saying, "Oh, I just can't sit still - It's just one of my quirks" and calling these "nervous habits".

 

[SplendidSnail]

This is such an eye-opening topic. For 20 years, I've been saying, "Oh, I just can't sit still - It's just one of my quirks" and calling these "nervous habits".

I think it's largely because of this that people with ASD often get misdiagnosed with ADHD.

I do know that my parents mentioned to me at one point when I was with them discussing the possibility that I might have ASD that, when I was growing up, they'd wondered whether I might have ADHD.

 

[Puppywings49]

I chew my fingers or the inside of my lips. I grind my teeth together to the beat of a song. I rock, slam my body against the back of a chair and bounce off, twist my hair into knots, and twist my fingers into knots. I spin, flap my hands, and touch that soft part at the bridge of my nose. I bounce my knees constantly when I'm sitting down. When I'm sitting on the edge of something, I'll kick my legs in midair so that I bounce, and when I'm sitting on the ground, I curl into a ball and rock backwards until I can barely balance, and then try to hold that. When I'm standing, I'll roll one foot to the side in a rhythm. Funnily enough, no one really looks at me weird for most of these things.

 

[tducey]

Curling my hair when it gets to long.

 

[George Newman]

Hello guys, for those of you who don't know I'm a 46 year old Aspies HGV Driver. Only recently diagnosed..
For years I've done this thing where when driving on the motorway I have to bang my teeth together when passing a lamp post, road signs or between marker posts. I try and do it when half way between lamp posts.
I also do it when in an unfamiliar situation, I'll start to bang my teeth /jaw together. Many people look at me like I'm a weirdo and some ask me to stop because it annoys them.

I used to do it when I was at school but seemed to stop for a while but started doing it again a few years ago.

Another thing I can't live without and have done since being a toddler is twiddling with and stroking and pulling at the corner of my pillow case. I've literally gone through dozens of pillow cases as I've worn holes in them. If I'm sat on the sofa watching TV I have to have my pillow with me so I can stroke the soft corners of my pillow case. This does drive my family mad and visitors look at me very oddly.

What about you guys, does this sound familiar to anyone?
People thought I was weird and so did I until hearing about lots of other people with Aspies who do similar things and now I feel like I belong.

I rub the top of my legs as I rock back and forth. It normally doesn’t take much and I either calm down or I catch my self doing it and stop to catch my breath.