Stimming, hypersensitivity and inanimate objects

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It has only been a couple months or so since I first started educating myself about ASD. I now firmly believe I have Aspergers, but that is not what this thread is about so I will attempt to articulate my main point of this post.

When reading on various websites I often see stimming being associated specifically with hand-flapping however I have yet to see a description of stimming other than this on informational websites (not forums), specifically involving inanimate objects. I cannot remember ever doing anything I could consider hand flapping, but I often find myself doing things which would seem odd when compared to the casual behavior of anyone I have ever met. For example, often times sitting at my computer I will find myself running the bottom edge of the desk between my toes only to realize what I am doing after quite a while. I never really gave it much thought until recently when I have been analyzing my behaviors and comparing things I find myself doing to others. I noticed if I find myself doing this (or other similar things) and when I make an effort to stop I get anxious, sometimes uncomfortable. Would this be stimming, or does the involvement of an inanimate object preclude this from being the case? I have never heard of objects being involved in stimming.

Some other examples of 'similar' behavior I have noticed which arises without conscious thought.
When i get nervous or excited, sometimes I will breathe out my nose in a particular pattern repeatedly,
Often I will rub my toes between each other continually for long periods of time, it is more prone to happening if I am wearing socks.
If something impacts one side of my finger, I often feel compelled to touch the opposite side in the same manner. Usually this can get uncomfortable if I ignore it, unless I am engrossed in doing something at the time.

Most of the time I notice things like this happening it involves an object of some kind, and if people are around I try to stop. I feel like it would get awkward if my friend asked my why I was doing that, because it is abnormal and I would have no clue what to say. So is this stimming or would this be something else entirely?


Another topic I wanted to address with this post was hypersensitivity. I have heard that people with Aspergers have sensitivity issues, such as listening to loud music, or being in a crowded restaurant, but I lack a full understanding of it. Normally I can ignore background sounds, so long as the activity at hand is signifiigantly louder than any distractions. On not-so rare occasions I feel overwhelmed, particularly when there is more than one computer/tv/radio playing at once, or multiple conversations going on at once (even if they are not loud). I seem to have much more trouble coping with excess noise when it happens at home, or somewhere I am normally relaxed. Is this normal for someone with AS or is hypersensitivity a more frequent/constant problem for most?

this all seems perfectly normal to me ( in an "AS normal" way ) stimming is often sensory so a lot of people use objects. you will see a lot of different forms of stimming on this forum, i used to stim on smell, a LOT especially as a child, some people run fabric through their fingers or rub them on their fingers or face, some people use bigger movements like hand flapping ( but as opposed to what you see in professional articles, it seems the ratio of it is not as important as they think) my son uses full body movements, so i don't see why yours would be "unfit"so to speak ! whatever works....
my sensitivity issues are a lot like yours of course and most people are like this also: it's not so much the intensity of the noise, although a really loud noise hurts very much, but what is irritating is not being able to focus on one noise source and make sense of it because of all the other sources running at the same time. When everything starts to mix is when i know i will shut down anytime soon. same with visual sensory overload, or tactile ( mine is very quick to happen, touch my face and i'm ready to snap at you ) it really varies from one person to the other. i thought i didn't stim at all before i discovered this forum. i have found out that i do , really much actually. my main one is biting the inside of my cheecks. taking the bits of skin off, but it's constant,really hard to refrain from doing....never saw it as a stim, though it is. stimming is a bit like smoking, you never know you have a problem until you try to stop

Yes I do the same thing. I mess with the front of my desk constantly, my phone, pens, water, keyboard, mouse, the feel of everything, so far no ability to stop. I stop doing it, relax then straight away there I am again. Also the hypersensitivity: Someone will say something which they think is normal, but to me highly offensive. I've recently bought "EFT for the highly sensitive temperament" and I'm going to follow it and see if it helps.

I run things under my finger nails, clothes edges, bed sheet edges, even the little plastic ridge on the inside of a water bottle cap. It is calming.

I do that too. I first realized that was a stim when I found my baby blanket. I remember doing this at a very young age, but from the condition of my baby blanket it is apparent I was doing it all the way back when i was a toddler. And between then and now I've ruined a crapload of tshirts the same way.

The stimming you describe seems very mild, and I doubt it's exclusive to autism. Neurotypicals stim in the form of foottapping etc, and certainly fidget.

I wonder if the more pronounced stims in autistic people are partially from a different level of social understanding; foot tapping is a normal thing to do but rocking back and forth is much more unusual.

Hypersensitivity is not in the criteria for Asperger's Syndrome (in the current DSM) and therefore you don't have to have it. If you aren't hypersensitive to stimuli it is possible to be hyposensitive. From what you describe you seem at least more hypersensitive than most people.

I remember reading through several different things and found that "picking" is indicative of stimming associated with AS. Like you, I didn't really think of it that way until I read things about it. You don't really notice until something else points it out sometimes. I'm a major picker. I LOVE it if I get a slight sunburn and I will pick off the skin for hours. Any kind of blemishes are a real problem. I will pick them over and over for days. I've been told I'm really weird for that. I just can't leave it alone.

I've abandoned the rocking thing for the most part, but it lasted until high school. Was embarrassing when friends came over to spend the night. Hand flapping still happens when the anxiety gets serious, though.

Back to the original subject of this post, though: I have two NT friends (one who is WAY NT) who both have particular fabrics that they use in stimming behavior on a regular basis. They will rub it in between their fingers for hours. Only particular kinds of fabric, though. But they don't possess any of the other symptoms of AS. It's kind of an isolated thing. They are often the ones that don't understand me.

But this is not to say that you might not AS. You very well could (Because I'm not diagnosed, myself). Be sure to look at past behaviors, too. From when you were a child. I have forced myself out of different things and into doing different things because I called major attention to it and took effort to change it because I didn't know otherwise. I just thought I was the weird kid. But it's obvious to me now that I wasn't just weird. So definitely look at things from long ago.

I almost never feel any pain when I am feeling hypersensitive, its more like a complete inability to think. I will hear the TV, hear my friend, and be trying to read an article but I can't seem to focus on any of it or even form coherent thoughts. Most of the time the only way for me to handle it is to close my eyes and block it all out or go off and spend some time alone quietly. Even then it takes an hour or longer for me to feel better.



Before I came here, I would sometimes notice myself stimming I just never put it all together with a single label. Now that I am trying to be more aware of what I am doing, I have noticed it happens more often than I previously thought.



Most of the time I spend thinking about AS is actually thinking of my past. Unfortunately most of it almost seems like a haze when I try to think about the mundane things. When I was younger I had a habit of chewing on the collar of my shirt, I found it very soothing and still find myself doing it on rare occasions when I get especially nervous. I find several of the things I have noticed I do difficult to describe, which is what makes it hard for me to determine whether or not they would be classified as stimming. In the past when someone has mentioned me doing something odd, I do try to avoid it in the future. Without a detailed timeline of these events, it is difficult for me to know if another stim has arisen as a result of suppressing them or not.

I like to dig my nails in upholstery fabric like office chairs cushions bed headrests ,also jeans seems or anything like that . I don’t have Asperger but my son is autistic ..I wonder if I fall in the spectrum too ?

It is possible. Many adults on here first realized they might fall on the spectrum after having a child diagnosed.

I'm no expert, but much of what you describe sounds familiar for me and I think of as stimming. I sit back in my desk chair and run the edge of my roll top desk between my toes, brush my fingers back and forth on the edge of my laptop. I scrunch the piping of my ottoman between my toes, run my thumb up and down my phone. I also hand wave, and rock, and rub my chest and shoulder, so, no, I don't think it's all hand waving.


As for sounds. I have misophonia, so any repeated sound is almost painful, or too many people talking (generally any conversation going on around me) is over-stimulating, and it's why I spend about 90% of my waking life wearing noise cancelled earbuds. It isn't as bad as in a restaurant or something, but even that, I have a low threshold for. It becomes more of an irksome buzz there though than as sharp as people talking at home.