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what is your stim?

When my face hair grows, it itches me a lot, and I often pinch my cheeks or chin to try to get the hairs to stop sticking the skin temporarily, and try to feel it with the underside of my lip, just to see how sharp the stubble is. Then, on my last day of work for the week, I shave it off.
 
poey's stim of the day:

Rubbing the knuckle of my thumb against my palm/knuckle of my index finger repeatedly under the sleeves of my jacket where no one can see.
 
Dancing and spinning. I'm wearing a great lightweight courderoy long skirt that spins beautifully. I have this need to extend my joints and muscles to their full stretch. I feel so full of something it's like I'll burst if I don't dance. I wish I had a wide open space all alone with beautiful, ethereal music sometimes rushing, sometimes trickling like a small stream of water along a pebbly path, in which to dance without reservation or tables to crash into or people to walk in on me. Maybe later I'll grab my pepper spray and go for a run. I rarely feel well enough to want to do such things!
 
Shaking my left hand so I can feel my ring jiggle. Also rubbing my forefingers against my thumbnails.
 
gould reminded me of something. I used to turn my ring over and over when I had one. Now that I'm not wearing mine anymore, sometimes I'll catch myself looking for the ring with my thumb...
 
I find myself constantly tensing the muscles in my calves almost to the point where I get a cramp.
 
I like smooth things, I rub my fingertips over anything smooth, and 'file my nails' on ridged, rough surfaces. Also my favourite stim this week seems to be walking on my tiptoes :)
 
I might as well confess; I've always likes smelling my forearms. Especially third hand cigarette smoke; growing up with heavy second hand smoke (never smoked myself though). I don't live with a smoker now, but it does still faintly come through the walls, and I can smell it on my arms. I wonder how something as yucky as nicotine smoke could be so addictive, but apparently, it must be, since I like smelling it on myself so much.
Or anything else I come into contact with; or often just the naturally occurring salt.
 
I had a funny one today, my little girl has had some very specific stims lately and one of them is throwing herself backwards on the bed and pushing her butt and legs high in the air. Today she kept doing it over and over again on our bed whilst we watched horrible histories and I asked her if it was fun and she said yes, I thought it looked like fun so I had a go. It was so great, I used to do it as a kid too but I'd forgotten how relaxing it is,you should have seen the two of us doing it over and over again for about 20 minutes.
 
I should also add, the beginning of the Christmas music on this channel, today (Which is available online, so I listen on the computer): Listen To Music
One of those things my wife has to "endure", but she's grown more patient with it in recent years.
Today, I'm thinking I'll probably cool it a bit more this year, earlier on; because it is a bit too early, but for today, it was just the thrill of having it again after almost a whole year.

Though are some of these things we are mentioning really stims (like also the way one wears a collar)? I got the impression stimming was more about physical movement. I guess music is stimulation, but discussions of it usually focus on hand and other muscle movement.
 
Kelly said:
I had a funny one today, my little girl has had some very specific stims lately and one of them is throwing herself backwards on the bed and pushing her butt and legs high in the air. Today she kept doing it over and over again on our bed whilst we watched horrible histories and I asked her if it was fun and she said yes, I thought it looked like fun so I had a go. It was so great, I used to do it as a kid too but I'd forgotten how relaxing it is,you should have seen the two of us doing it over and over again for about 20 minutes.
Click to expand...

Sounds like fun. I was reading where if we aren't able to do our stims we can develop headaches, nausea and of course have meltdowns. We need a way to release the energy, and so many of us get our natural stims shut down because they are "weird" or "annoying." And because our natural stims get shut down, we develop new ones, and sometimes these are less healthy or self-harming. Imagine if instead of being told that these things were weird or annoying those close to us joined in. Seems like that would be really good for our self esteem. You sound like a great mom.
 
@ Kelly: You'll probably have me committed, but I tried out your daughter's & your stim! Sounded interesting & it was one I'd never tested out. Since nobody was in the room to ask me what the heck I was doing, I had a grand time of it (now I have bed hair, though).

@ Laura: With you on your tippy toes & Holly whirling & twirling, we ought to start a ballet company!

I've got a neat bed-time stim. You get in bed (wearing something non-itchy to minimize the odds of middle-of-the-spine itch!) then you get comfortable (whatever that means for you & close your eyes. Then,you visualize yourself rocking from side to side gently in a hammock. FEEL the rocking sensation. The weirdest thing happens: you begin to feel like you're literally in a hammock rocking. You feel like you're leaving your body.

 
I'm about to try Soup's bed-time stim because I've been up FOREVER. Current stim is lip-picking and turning my head too far to look behind me.
 
Also, I want to cut my hair soon, because it is getting where it takes too long for my hair to dry with the weather being cooler. I like to cut it to my shoulders, but when i do, my stim becomes shaking my head from side to side because i like the feeling of the hair hitting my face at that length.
 
My "stim?" If there's a particular piece of music that I like, I have been known to follow the beat of it (snapping my fingers, drumming on my lap with the open hand, and so on).
 
My stim of the day: Popping my ears, but not unpopping them, then breathing through my nose so i can feel and hear the air rushing in and out past my ears.
 
@ Poey: How does that stim work? How do you do it? I tried your finger one but I'm too uncoordinated for that: it's tricky business!
 
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