Stim in public?

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I always have, I just didn't know it (hand twirling, flapping, leg bouncing, swaying whilst standing and pulling my nails apart). I had people comment on the leg bouncing thingy, as well as the flapping; I blended in well enough I guess. I still do blend in unless I rock whilst sitting, that seems to be the one "stim" that draws the eyes of others; I can replace that one with pacing or going for a walk if I have space.

You look weirder trying to suppress them. Trust me. Seen it. Been told it. You either lose by killing yourself with anxiety, or you lose by not killing yourself with anxiety. Once you've realized that most normal people don't really think that much less of you if you act a little peculiar, a really funny thing happens: you don't act as peculiar as you would have if you had clung to this stupid anxiety over acting a little peculiar. AS is not a contagious disease, and you can't spread it to people by stimming around them. This subconscious feeling that somehow you're carrying some horribly contagious disease is a delusion brought on as a result of the immuno-defensive cytokines that are usually elevated in people who suffer from Asperger Disorder and other spectrum disorders. It might not be something you're consciously aware of, but it's actually responsible for many of our more blatant symptoms. You're actually more likely to be socially shunned if you try to suppress some of the more harmless symptoms of the disorder.

This isn't just some BS idea I just pulled out of my ass. It's not something purely anecdotal. What I'm saying here is based on material that I've been researching for three years as one of my autistic/OCD obsessions. These immuno-defensive cytokines have seeded in your mind that acting out, expressing your feelings, or opening up to people is going to put the world in peril of being consumed by some monstrous plague, and the more anxious you allow yourself to become over it the more of these symptoms you will show. Interleukin-2 therapy is now being used to save lives in some hospitals. Its cancer-fighting properties are offset by severe psychiatric disturbances in patients receiving this treatment. After reading about the side-effects of this therapy, I'm almost certain that it's a piece of the puzzle.

It's really one of our naturally altruistic behaviors to try to prevent infectious diseases from spreading. It's a beautiful thing. Studies have been done in rats on their reactions to cytokines like interleukin-2 and several other such cytokines, and they go through the same behavior. They try to socially isolate themselves, and they will show signs of anxiety. Individuals have a higher vested interest in the survival of their family, their colony, and their species than in the survival of themselves. It's an ancient part of our behavior. It's a part of how we have survived, these millions of years.

I know the stims are embarrassing. I know that as well as anybody. I truly can't keep myself from stimming around other people from time to time. I can assure you, though, that worrying about how people will react to your stims is several times worse than the stims, themselves. It may even worsen your propensity for having them. Again, normal people might give you a funny look, but they're not going to take it as a basis on which to judge your morals, your personality, your intelligence, or any part of your inner self. People will make negative judgements about your inner self, though, if you try to hide your inner self from them. That's what will happen if you are too tense about hiding your stims. It's better to be judged eccentric than dangerous or weak.

If we don't solve our real problems, people are going to start trying to solve things in us that aren't problems; and it's going to hurt. Stims aren't a real problem. They're an oddity. Furthermore, I would put money on them being reduced if we can improve our ability to cope with our real problems, a major one being social anxiety.

am always stimming,main one is rocking even when standing-am not usually 'there' a lot of the time,so don't notice if people stare,wouldn't care anyway,used to a lot worse than staring off other people [abuse-verbal and physical for wearing ear defenders].

if people are really interested or bothered in seeing someones stims,they should ask them about it,as most people do stim anyway it's not fair that autistics get singled out for this,plenty of NTs do things like constantly flicking their hair.

My primary stim came out at age 5 - I rapidly move my fingers in front of my nose (hard to explain.) It happened when I started reading, which carried over to when I went to a fantasy world in my head. Those were the only times I stimmed, so it wasn't constant - it happened more when I wasn't occupied and went into that world - which was often in class. In elementary school I was teased and my mom, who cares a lot about appearances, made me feel terrible about it, so I eventually learned to hide it by hiding my fists underneath my underarms - one time someone did notice I looked like I was "shivering" a lot...that's the only comment I've gotten, because the stimming under my arms makes me move a little bit. I still do it outright and at times in front of my nose when I'm very excited and alone. Now I also stim when reading or seeing something related to my obsessions (currently the show House - an article about Hugh Laurie can make me very overexcited, so I do the finger thing, or pace around my room and kind of throw myself onto my bed - pacing is another big one, that my mom doesn't allow.) But yeah, I hide it well enough no one knows, except for my immediate family, and the only one who's seen me do it in the last few years was my mom once - she was not happy.

One of my main ones has always been tracing my fingers over edges. I'll almost fiercely try to burn its shape into my mind. I have a very tactile comprehension of shapes, actually. I find my way around places better if I'm not relying too much on my vision. I couldn't find my way around my college campus very well until I'd walked around it backwards a few times. If I look, I get confused. Vision always f***s up my sense of where I am. My parents were shocked, when I got my license finally, when I would ask for directions to places I went every day. When I'd driven to them a couple of times, though, I could almost navigate them with my eyes closed. When I'm walking through hallways, I'll either trace my fingers along the wall or swat them where I have to turn...burns it into my memory a lot better than just relying on sight.

Question: What's the difference between that which is defined as stimming, in AS or HFA, and what a NT would do to release stress. Is it all stimming?

This thread scares me because it means that I've been stimming for a long time: shaking a leg when sitting, tapping little drumbeats here and there, sighing and mumbling things like "what now? what now?". I noticed two people at my workplace beginning to do the same kind of mumbling but I'm not sure if it's some unconscious imitation or if they have begun doing so with a specific purpose (be it hostile or not). I even pace in online games. . . The other day I noticed myself balancing my weight from a foot to the other as I waited for something - but then, I've seen things like hand flapping and swaying in obvious "NT"s.
. . . that's when there's people around. Alone, at home, I just do some random singing. . . sometimes.

apparently they call it restless leg syndrome when peoples legs shake constantly or foot tap constantly.

Is tapping the foot considered a stim? I had never heard of stim until now.

I'm rather jealous, if I've ever knowingly stimmed, it was definitely shamed out of me early on in life because I didn't want to be seen as a disruptive or "attention-seeking" kind of girl.

But I do have little habits like playing with my fingernails, touching my upper lip to my nose, picking my nose (I'm trying to break that one because I hate it and know it's unhygenic), mildly excessive combing/brushing my hair, and shaking my legs. Most of them I tend to do out of an imagined necessity to keep me doing something or to remove a discomfort (such as having a blocked nose or untidy hair), I can't see them as being more than just a habit but it could be social conditioning telling me that.

Ironically, because I don't have any coping mechanisms, I instead get major headaches the moment I start getting stressed out or too bored. Tried listening to "soothing" music, rocking (back-and-forth & side-to-side), those squishy stress thingies, and trying a new hobby; Didn't work. Nowadays I just try to avoid as many stressors as possible because it feels too late to learn how to stim naturally.

Yep. Whenever I bounce my leg, I'm often told to stop. It bugs me because I really wanna do it. XP I also get weird looks when I start to snap my fingers too. The other stuff I do seems to go unnoticed, though, which is cool I guess.

My stim is hitting my head with my hands, and it happens when im excited, hyper or really happy.

I pick at my fingers, just about anywhere. I am more conscious of other picking while people are around, though. I sway whilst standing, also.

Yeah, to answer people who were wondering, NTs 'stim' too if that's what you can call it. Some people here seem really worried about foot tapping, nail biting, etc....unless it's completely out of control and constant, that's fairly normal, I would think. A lot of NTs do the same thing. I think it becomes more AS when people really notice and begin to talk about it - when it's something you'd never see a NT do. My stimming is rapid finger movements - it looks quite odd, I've never seen someone else do it. It is most definitely an AS trait - I could never do it even for a short amount of time in public - it would draw a lot of attention.

Oh! Remember the last Die Hard movie? That bad guy who would perpetually go through a ritualistic motion with his pen while waiting for his computer to do something? I think it involved clicking his pen "open" and then "closed," spinning it in his hand, and repeating it completely verbatim and without variation. A strictly autistic stim is really something a little more complex than the tics most people go through, such as the leg-tapping, and it's completely and totally repetitive. Simpler stims, such as the rote repetition of phrases or rocking or flapping of the hands, actually are more like normal "stims" in every sense except in that they are just, well, a bit different in us sometimes. Repeating rote phrases is not strictly an autistic stim, actually, because a lot of people will say something like, "come on, come on, come on," or something of that nature. Autists may have longer or more dramatic ones, but it's the same in principle.