Stimming

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It just happens. I can suppress it, but if I stop concentrating it starts up again.

Before dx, it was unconcious, but now I´m doing it more.
Before, I had a tendency to go into "reptile mode", - stiffening up in some awkward position, until I became aware and loosened up.
The increased stimming and my squirming in the chair seems to be a stress outlet, because I have less static tensions and not much body pain now.
Often it is also a response to positive stress as well....and a fidget toy is good thing.

I think it has to do with bodily impatience. I don´t want to sit still!

I read about stimming and saw the hand flapping. I had a go at doing that and found it was a really great way to express myself. The more I read into it(stimming) and the more attention I payed to what my body was doing I realized that I was doing smaller more subtle stims. I run my fingers over my thumb nail, I press my fingers to my thumb, I rock when standing, I sometime say "wow, yeah, okay" in a monotone to nothing in particular this happens quite alot when I'm stressed or concentraiting. I'm not sure if running my fingers over my face and tugging at my lips are stims though. I've found that after growing my hair out I have started winding my fingers in it and tugging at the roots. I used to pick at my forehead before it started causing problems...

I pace back and forth.

I would tend to agree that it is not really a conscious decision. Ever since reading about stimming, I have started doing it more consciously sometimes, but I also have been noticing things that have always been involuntary and almost out of my control.

Like playing with my hair. Whenever it has been long enough to play with, like it is now, I can't not do it, it is very constant. It isn't as obvious as hand flapping, but the fact that I do it whenever I have a free hand or two probably becomes pretty obvious to people around me after only a little while. One lady who was an employee at a store was helping answer a question I had, but at one point she said, "Do you have lice?" I was really confused for a few seconds, until I realized I was playing with my hair like usual, and wasn't thinking about it. But I just said, "No..." I thought she really thought I might have lice, so I explained that I just play with my hair a lot, my head isn't itchy. Then she told me she was just making a joke about me playing with my hair so much...

I stim when I'm anxious or happy. I have noticed, however, that I have more stims for being anxious and scared than I do for being happy.

My stims for when I'm anxious include:

- Biting/picking at my fingernails

- Pulling out my eyebrows and eyelash hairs, and bringing them to my lips to "feel them"

- Rocking back and forth slowly, then faster (not to be confused with my "happy" rocking stim that I will bring up in a moment)

- Singing to myself to block out auditory input

- Rocking back and forth on my feet

My happy stims are:

- "Happy" rocking, like when I'm watching funny videos on Youtube, or one of my favorite movies, such as Cars, Cars 2, Planes, Finding Nemo or Chicken Run

- Stroking or petting a stuffed animal

- Listening to music and dancing around my room while tossing a small piece of cloth thru the air

- Covering myself up with a blanket and wrapping it around myself like a Snuggie or a cocoon (and when I was a kid, I loved stimming the way the little boy does in the video LupaLuna posted. )

I do try to control/redirect my anxious stims in public, such as by playing with stones or a Tangle toy rather than biting and picking at my fingernails. Sometimes I can't, tho, when I'm really stressed - last week I got really anxious in one of my classes, and I rocked a little bit at my desk. I don't think anyone noticed, tho. I stim without even thinking about it, most of the time...and it wasn't until I joined WP that I realized that some of the stuff I did that I thought no one else did was, indeed, stimming.

I never knew that I stimmed until I watched a video that talked about the many ways that you can stim. I tap my four fingers to my thumb each in turn. I usually have both hands going at the same time.