Why is stimming considered a "bad" thing?

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Hmm. I guess some people are more tolerant than others. Generally stimming is one aspect of what makes people treat me like I'm subhuman. I mean it's their fault not the stimming of course. But they seem to get more than just a little weirded out. I've had a lot of people mock mine back to me and make cruel comments like "ree-tard" or "What drugs are you on?" followed by general laughter. My dad even told me to stop rocking once because it "made him uncomfortable" because I "looked psychotic". That one was easily handled though -- I told him he was rocking too and he has never bugged me about it again (he is autistic too and often unaware of his mannerisms). I've gotten more crap from people over stimming than nearly any other autistic trait I have ever had, although a close second would be things like my response to the "wrong" parts of my environment, lack of response to the "right" parts, and the way my body moves or fails to move in ways that differ from the norm. (I think it's mostly those things all put together that people use to create an image in their mind of who I am that tends towards putting me in the category of a nonperson).

I'm sure your kids will grow out of that. I used to do a bit of echololia and I'd roll around the corridor and bang myself against each wall. Also I repeatingly asked why a lot. I got it from a cartoon. Oh and you know that song from Lampchop, at the end?
This is the song that doesn't end.
Yes it goes on and on my friend.
I would sing that over and over again. Yeah, I was a particularly annoying child. Apparently I was shy.

I think people get annoyed with my stims especially hand flapping because it doesn't look normal.
When I'm on my own I run through the house and make animal noises. I don't do that around people too much.

Although I have this stim where I bite my mum's hand, just softly. Do you think she finds that annoying? Also, I poke her arm, repetitively.

omg! my 11yo does the biting gently on my hand thing. my 4yo does the same thing but he doesn't bite, he licks my arm. i don't really find those annoying. i think of them more as odd little ways of showing me they love me, like kisses sort of. my 4yo does something like the poking thing. he always puts his hand in my face. i do find that annoying because it often sets off my startle reflex. i wish he'd stop it. he does it to other people too though, not just me. he said he did it to his teacher at school and she called him mr.rotten banana...boy did he get upset about that. it's mostly the 5yo that does the rocking and noise things. he doesn't have any 'loving' me stims because he doesn't much like being touched although he has in the last few months started telling me he loves me a zillion times a day and allowing me to pat him which he calls hugs.
the running through the house making animal noises one actually sounds like fun to me. wish i could do something like that but i am not that free in myself and i am never, ever alone.(which is also very irritating)

I also stare at her for ages for no reason, with a really cheeky look on my face for no reason.
This is how I show my love. I also do give her big lying down hugs.
I'm not too fond of touching faces. When I was young I used to move my finger up and down my mum's leg a day or two after a shave. Ooh prickly.

At night I get hyper. My mum does too. But she is rushing around the house cooking, cleaning, worrying. Me, I'm chasing cats.

Note:  This is very long. Since I am not capable of summaries or of controlling the length of my posts, I will bold some of the most relevant parts. Its all I can do. 

Oh and after reading the rest of this thread I feel the need to point out most of my stimming is neither loud nor frenetic. (My tics, on the other hand, can be both, but I can suppress them in public unless so overloaded that failing to do them would make me do something outright destructive rather than merely disruptive.)  And really the same goes for most autistic adults I have met who stim a lot. And by have met I mean either in special ed, programs for developmentally disabled adults, institutions, or at conferences that tend to attract more "visibly autistic" (to most people) people, so I am not talking about situations where the more "disruptive" people are shut away somewhere. 

I'm talking about things on my part like:

* Rocking either the top of my body only, or my whole body but not loudly. 
* Flapping my hands (both sideways and up and down). 
* Putting the tips of my fingers together with my hands splayed, and pulling them apart while drawing the fingers on each hand together, and repeating. 
* Rotating my forearms and hands together as one unit. 
* Tapping my fingers on my chin (whole hand moving on floppy wrist). 
* Making complex rhythmical patterns with my hands and fingers (so complex some people think it is sign language). 
* Holding my hands in front (loosely speaking) of my eyes and wiggling my fingers. 
* Making complicated rippling and twisting movements that involve my whole body. 
* Holding objects near my eyes and moving them back and forth. 
* Making a graceful movement with one hand near an eye that involves each finger fanning down one after another. 
* Twisting my hips and torso. 
* Making comparatively slow, graceful movements with my fingers wherever they happen to be sitting (that one happens most when I am relaxed and comfortable). 
* Opening and closing my hands rhythmically. 
* Making "fluttering" movements with my hands. 

There are doubtless more. I don't always notice what my body is doing. And several can happen all at once (couldn't do it on purpose if I tried).  Mostly they just happen but sometimes I will deliberately start myself off tapping my chin to avoid vomiting or rocking to calm down or help overload. 

I don't doubt that these things look strange but they are neither violent nor loud.  Many times I have zero chance understanding my surroundings or finding my body without them. That means that (when I can control them at all) when push comes to shove my ability to function trumps other people's discomfort. I do everything I can to avoid the loud (including soft but repetitive noises) or violent-looking movements, this goes without saying. But I find it interesting that when autistic people bring up our need to move the way we move and the discrimination we face, it's startlingly common for other people to assume we mean the loud or violent movements and bring them up to explain others' negative responses to much more innocuous movements. 

I also find it interesting that it's much less common for people to try to justify in this same way discomfort with the equally odd and repetitive motions of some people with cerebral palsy and other conditions that cause movements that aren't invasive but are devalued. It seems that autistic people's stimming takes on a much more moral "people SHOULD not do this if they want to be accepted, it's just too distracting and disruptive otherwise") tone than most other conditions that cause harmless but unusual movements.  (Although "blindisms" and Tourette tics may be treated similarly to autistic stims.)  There's a confusing line people draw between conditions like autism, blindness, and Tourette's on one hand, and conditions like CP, dystonia, etc. On the other. Even though people with all these conditions can be devalued and discriminated against pretty much equally (for moving strangely) other than that line being drawn. 

I doubt this discrimination is simply instinctive response to "disruptive behavior". It was once said black children should not go to school with white children because their presence would be "disruptive/distracting". It's still said in some schools that common black hairstyles are "distracting" and "disruptive".  People used to say children in wheelchairs shouldn't go to school with nondisabled children because the wheelchair itself would be a "distraction" to other children. And somehow, if white kids grow up around black kids in situations that model respect, and kids in wheelchairs grow up around walking kids in similar situations... racism and ableism still exist, but the black kids and wheelchair using kids at least aren't seen as distracting by the walking and white kids. The adults may be another story......

I spent from the ages of approximately 14 to 18 in segregated settings with other disabled kids. Mental institutions, day programs, group homes, special ed, etc. I've spent my entire adult life in programs for adults with developmental disabilities (CP, autism, and intellectual disability mostly) and the past five years in elderly/disabled apartments. So half my life in places with other disabled people mostly.  And I've noticed something about this that some people don't want me to notice. 

Think again of how we have almost all (those of us in these programs) at one point or another been kept away from nondisabled people because of our supposedly inevitable effect on them. Then notice that they haven't generally isolated us each individually. They put us in these programs together. Together means that surely if it was just instinctive to react badly to our quiet, nonviolent, but weird appearances, then we would have these reactions to each other right and left, right?  Except, we don't. Sure, some of us may have conditions that work badly with each other. Like my misophonia combined with someone's poor motor coordination when eating. But outside of things like that, and aside from learned self-hatred, we handle each other's odd movements remarkably well. In fact even with clashing conditions and learned self-hatred and conditions like ADD that make distraction so easy... we are still more accepting of each other's odd movements than nondisabled people generally are of even one of us moving oddly. 

That says a lot to me. It's not like disabled people are inherently born more accepting of difference (especially given that many DD people weren't born DD at all but simply acquired things like brain damage or severe epilepsy before they turned 18 ). It seems to me that we accept others harmless but odd movements because we have to. There's not generally a  second level of segregation where first we are separated from nondisabled people and then those with unusual movements are separated from the rest of us. We don't have the privilege of separating out those who move oddly so we don't have to deal with them. So we deal with each other. In fact, when I was finally allowed to go outside by myself again, I was seriously disturbed by the fact that nobody had these odd movements. I would see people on street corners and expect them to start rocking, or twitching, or something, but they just didn't. It made me feel out of place, disoriented, and in an odd way unwelcome. 

I believe that if nondisabled people had no option to put us away out of their sight, and were forced to deal with us as equals, then... they would still have their prejudices, but the idea that our movements just cause instinctive revulsion or nervousness or distraction, that idea would be gone within a few generations. That idea might even start disappearing around those whose movements seem more frenetic and energy-filled, you never know. Those ideas of distractingness are already in the process of disappearing around people of color and people in wheelchairs, although they're not gone yet.

Because the distinction between appearances and movements that people need to at minimum put up with, and appearances and movements that can be called distracting or disturbing, is not fixed. That line moves all the time. Nondisabled people do things all the time without thinking about it, that aren't inherently less distracting than disabled people's unusual but harmless movements. It's just that they're used to them and so is everyone around them.  It's just that they've learned to deal with them instead of making a fuss.  Yet my movements, indistinguishable from sign language to many onlookers, are considered more disruptive than sign language. It's a similar set of movements (to those who don't know sign), so it can't possibly be that sign is by nature less distracting. It's just that there's somewhat more acceptance of deaf people than autistic people (or the intellectually or emotionally/mentally disabled people we are often taken for -- it also disturbs me that being thought "crazy" or "ret*d" is something some people consider a valid reason to be uneasy around someone, but there are people who do). 

So simply put, I don't buy that this is just an instinct at work that can't be changed. Other DD people don't generally find me that disturbing or distracting. Neither do my friends. (Unless I'm ticcing vocally but this post is very explicitly not about movements that are loud or suggest violence). I don't think DD people or the various disabled and nondisabled people who like me have inherently different instincts in that area than most people do. I think we are just more accepting because we have learned to be. And I don't think there's any excuse for the way I or a lot of others have been treated entirely because of our unusual movements.  Bringing out examples of loud noises or repetitive noises doesn't explain this, but especially not in people who aren't doing these things. (Plus the bad reactions I've gotten have been far beyond simple annoyance -- I'm fairly understanding if someone gets mad because I've just spent an hour involuntarily yelping and they just can't take it anymore). 

Another thing is that I find hearing people talk excruciating sometimes.  Whether it's the fact of words themselves, or the harmonics in some people's voices. Hearing people eat is torture.  The smell of wine is terrible. Ordinary visual actions make my whole world fragmented. Far more than distracting, these things seriously impair my ability to function. I'm not the only autistic person who feels that way. And yet it would be wrong for me to suggest that wherever I go, people ought to refrain from talking, eating, drinking wine, or moving. I know it's wrong because I lack the sense of entitlement many nondisabled people have about controlling the actions of others. They can have such control that we may have to attend separate, usually substandard schools, or in extreme cases live in fully segregated environments. Yet despite having more sensory issues and distractibility than nondisabled people, we learn to cope with each other and with the overstimulating actions of nondisabled people alike. And I think the world could do with a bit more learning to cope with difference and a bit less entitlement.  I don't mean to say people shouldn't try to suppress truly loud behavior, just that right now things are so heavily unbalanced that disabled people do most of the behavior suppression and most of the adapting to environments that drive us up the wall. We could use a bit of balance. 

Stimming is vital for me on so many levels when it's happening. It does far more than just calm overload or anxiety. It's how I understand my environment. It translates all the raw sensory information I get into a kind of physicality that allows me to feel like my entire environment is flowing through me and becoming a part of me. When people similar enough to me see me doing it, they can often see exactly what I am aware of and responding to at each moment, and they respond as well, and this gives me a level of communication and resonance  so much deeper and more in line with my brain than words.  I just can't believe that something so vital on a practical level and rich on an experiential level ought to be taken away from me and others like me (not all autistic people but certainly more of us than you'd think) just because some people find it embarrassing, "ret*d", gross, distracting, or whatever else they may think of it. 

Last edited by anbuend on 31 Dec 2010, 7:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Stimming inconviences me. When I am trying to get something done, all of a sudden I get the urge to pace around the house.

My little one is so loud that my husband (who I suspect is part Aspie himself) has started wearing earplugs!! ! LOL! My son also loves to repeat silly phrases and ask the same question over and over even when he knows the answer to it. He will ask very obvious questions that he knows the answer to and tell me things about 15 times until I tell him "I know, you have told me that about 15 times!"

I do adore my son though, and I think God has given me more and more patience to deal with this. He also loves to give me very hard hugs and sometimes I can't get him off of me! He is only 5, I wonder how it will be when he is older? LOL!

Is asking repetitive questions considered stimming?

Amazing piece of writing. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

My stimming made my second grade teacher so nervous that she did whatever she could to make me stop rocking back and forth she used tactics like humilation, fear, and riducle to make the little seven year old version of me to stop rocking. I hope she has a stroke and ends up in a sub-standandard nursing home where she is forgotten by her loves ones. I am sure if she was talking to me right now about it she would be saying it was for your own good so no one would pick on you for it. But guess what? I was still picked on just sitting there with straight posture and minding my own business.

I definitely don't think stimming is a bad thing, I'm doing it right now.
Until very recently I didn't know that I did it, but then my boyfriend (before going to bed) asked me if twitching my leg calmed me down or if I was uncomfortable. I told him I didn't know what he was speaking of until 5 minutes later I started doing it again.
I don't see anything wrong with it, I have mild insomnia and it helps me sleep.

It just mostly hurts because people really stigmatize you for it. Behaviors I think are stims for me:

Rocking, I do this when excited or sometimes upset, but mostly excited.
Pacing, often in a circle
bouncing leg up and down
when standing, twisting back and forth
sometimes get the urge to hand flap randomly
arm flap when I am really upset or excited

In my mind the acceptance factor is more about distraction than anything. It's a bit like that one cricket that keeps me awake at night. If there is just one cricket making noise, I focus in on it and can't ignore it. However, if there are several making noise, the sounds often blend with the environment. I think if there were more people doing the same thing at the same time, like pacing or leg bouncing, it wouldn't draw as much attention as one person doing so.

Last edited by quesonrias on 01 Jan 2011, 6:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

'Non-attending behavior'. Haven't really read through all of the posts above, but maybe someone else already said something along these lines.
But yeah, it's bad because whenever someone is stimming, their teacher/parent/partner in conversation/etc. thinks that they aren't attending to the assignment/lesson/conversation/etc., so they try to stop it.
~
Then in the other cases, it's looked upon as just plain "weird", and I've given up on trying to explain what is "weird" to others, seeing as it's so incredibly subjective.

Having read this whole thread, I am amazed that no-one has mentioned how selfish stimming can be. No regard for others feelings.... boy, I like to play loud rock music to ease anxiety, but I wouldn't dream of invading others space. There's plenty of things I like to do, but would be rude to do in front of other people.

I have tinitus from the continual loud pitched squealing of a 12 year old autistic boy. I have been bitten viciously by a 12 year old autistic boy. I see stimming simply as a lack of regard for others.

There is a BIG difference between simply being different, to having no self-control and no regard for others in your company.

I'm fed up with autism being used as an excuse for all kinds of inappropriate behavior. Just today, I asked my partner why she allows the 12 year old to sit with his legs as wide open as he can, feet on the sofa, an erection in one hand whilst poking her breast with the other. I said it is not right to allow him to masturbate right next to her. She said it is a stim!! !! !! !! !

In my experience, stimming can be bad simply because others in a social situation find it to be distracting, anxiety-inducing, or otherwise disturbing. So it isn't necessarily that it's bad; it's more that it isn't expedient in certain contexts. I used to pace quite a bit, sometimes multitasking and pacing for several hours in one day lol. I have had people in the past say that it made them nervous. I couldn't figure out why, as I was just minding my own business. I guess they couldn't see that though. In one sense, pacing itself can be great, as it contradicts the modern tendency toward a sedentary lifestyle!

It's possible I believe to find more low-key stims that work better in social situations. I've gotten to the point where I only get a couple occasional remarks, no more than anyone else.

I am studying to be a special ed teacher and this is something that is frequently questioned/debated- should students be discouraged from stimming and how do you judge a harmless soothing stim vs. one that should be discouraged. The general consensus seems to be that stimming should be discouraged or modified when:

1. It is destructive to the student or others, like head-banging, slapping, or skin-picking (obviously).

2. It distracts the student and/or others. Hand-flapping in itself may be a harmless behavior but if a student persistently engages in hand-flapping when he or she is supposed to be working then it impacts the students ability to function in the classroom environment so the student should be taught to control it or be taught a replacement behavior that is less distracting. And if a student likes to hum loudly/sing/talk to themselves while other students are trying to work the behavior should be modified either to something more subtle or so that the student is taught to do it during situations where noise is okay like playtime.

3. It is so extreme/noticeable/frequent that it puts the student at risk for social isolation and/or ridicule.

The third is up for debate, but personally I think children should be taught to control their stims, to replace them with more socially acceptable ones or ideally channel them into something constructive if the stim is causing them social isolation. Being taught to modify or replace a behavior isn't the same thing as being forced to stop; that way they at least have the option to not draw attention to themselves, if that is what they desire. It is perfectly possible to do this in a way that is encouraging and that does not make the child feel bad about themselves.

I've always stimmed and it does feel good, but I think saying stimming is always good and we should be allowed to stim whenever we want in whatever way we want and people need to be tolerant of that is a big over-simplification. I have always been a skin-picker and while the picking sensation is very soothing it causes me pain and can be very distracting. I am also very sensitive to noise and if someone near me is humming loudly I do find that distracting and I don't think it's fair to compare that to being distracted by someone in a wheelchair. I genuinely have a difficult time filtering out noise, and a person does not necessarily have to hum in that given situation or at such a loud volume- it is possible to engage in a stimming behavior that is not distracting and/or to save the distracting stuff for home or a situation where it won't be as distracting.

I hope I don't seem negative in this thread; believe me I find the attitude that people should be discouraged from stimming because "it looks weird" infuriating, but I think it's a complicated issue and I can see both sides of it.