Stimming is generally positive (time and place)

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Please note: I AM NOT A PARENT. I have lived the life of a person on the spectrum and I try and be a pretty good guy.

This is an ABC News segment on Carly and her family:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNZVV4Ciccg&feature=share[/youtube]:25 “ . . . when you can’t sit still because your legs feel like they are on fire, or it feels like a hundred ants are crawling up your arms”


AAP [American Academy of Pediatrics] . . . Carrie Armstrong, Am Fam Physician, 2008 Dec.
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2008/1201/p1301.html

So, that's the dilemma straight up. If the child is seemingly losing language when he or she is picking up stimming, I can see for all the world how stimming looks like it's part of the problem, and not part of the solution.

For me, stimming is functional. I think I am happier and more effective as a human being and more productive on measurable stuff because I do stim. If I'm at the library or my local university for five straight hours where I need to appear 'normal,' I can be productive. But I often think I'm even more productive at home where I can do intellectual work, stim, do intellectual work, stim, etc. I like to squeeze and twist a soft T-shirt as I imagine football, basketball, tennis, and action scenes in movies. I occasionally also make sounds like explosions and fighting. I also like to talk to myself. And sometimes I like to bounce between my bedroom and the bathroom, and sometimes just look at myself in the mirror and/or talk.

I sometimes will also talk a little to myself during long walks through (safe) neighbors where it seems and feels like I'm alone. I try not to, but sometimes I still do.

And I'm an adult, age forty-nine. I have a bachelor's degree. I don't fit in all that well with the corporate world, but I have successfully worked as a copy center manager and tax preparer (perhaps surprisingly, I excelled at the somewhat formalized communication more than the technical details).


Here's the philosopher Jeremy Bentham:

(Yes, this is a humorous part of this paper, but it's so spot-on, I think Jeremy Bentham did often stim. And for other reasons, I think Jeremy most probably was on the spectrum. Although whether he was or whether he wasn't, he was a creative person who marched to his own drummer and maybe that's what's most important.)


And here's Temple Grandin:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgEAhMEgGOQ[/youtube]14:20 “ . . . I wasn’t allowed to stim at the table. I was allowed to stim, during rest period after lunch. I was given some times I could stim. . . ”


And even among supposed 'normal' people (and no such thing as 'normal' anyway and how boring the world would be if there was! ), recently at my university, I saw a woman rhymically rock her leg back and forth as she proofed her paper on a computer. In my poker league (just points, kind of like a bowling league), a man I've talked with and sure seems like he's neurotypical, made an all-in move late in the tournament and began to subtly rock in his chair. And during the NFL combine as one of the coaches was giving instructions for a passing drill, at least one player and I think two were bouncing up and down on their toes. Probably in part to stay loose, but it also seemed like a way to maintain concentration as each listened to something he was already familiar with.

I am also not a parent but live on the spectrum. I am 32 and an engineer and I must stim to be productive.

Fortunately I have my own cube now so I can stim away while I work. When I give presentations or attend conferences, it is very difficult for me to focus if I must remain still.

Interestingly, when I feel I am in danger or insecure, my outward stimming behaviour stops completely as hypervigilance takes over and I use my entire body and mind to constantly scan my environment for threats.

Any less noticeable methods, like a squeeze ball?

Yeah, I arranged to have a standing workstation so it doesn't look weird for people to see me standing on one leg and then switching to the other. Also, bouncing up and down at my workstation occasionally caused a few people to ask me if I had too much coffee that morning but I just say I have back issues (not a lie at all) and they seem to take that as a reasonable justification for an adult woman bouncing up and down in her cube most of the day.

During long meetings, I do finger exercises where I press the thumb of my right hand to the pinky of my right hand and simultaneously press the thumb of my left hand to the index finger of my left hand. Then, with both hands, I move my thumb from the digit it is currently touching (whether that is the pinky or thumb) to the digit next to it and back.

For some reason, having my hands both active doing something that is somewhat inverse of each other seems to keep my mind free enough to focus on the conversation topic of the meeting.

I went back to college post-bac status and studied C++ in 1998 at age thirty-five. And at times, it was a delicious intellectual experience.

My university was in an urban setting and was primarily one tall building. The computer lab was on the 8th floor and was bright and airy with nice, diffuse sunshine. Usually, there were plenty of computers available so I felt fine leaving a computer as I took walks. So, I would write messily on a yellow legal pad, might also go over a printed copy of the program I was working on, maybe bounce a knee or move a leg back and forth, and sometimes I would sub-articulate. That's a way of getting myself to read something more slowly and carefully almost reading it almost out loud but not quite. Then, I'd leave my stuff just where it was and walk out of the computer lab and walk around the 8th floor. Sometimes I would go down to the 6th floor which connected to the other building and take longer walks. To some extent the walks were breaks, but also, to a considerable extent, I was working while I walked. The whole thing seemed to work very well together and I made excellent progress in learning C++.

(But alas, human resource departments seem to look to hire generalists among programmers, that is, people who know at least several languages, and they seem to overwhelmingly focus on years of corporate experience.)