Stimming

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I think I stim less too, but I do pace and I have noticed I run my hand through my hair on top of my head a lot, done that for years and I stroke my arms or legs, never even realized until I took the stimming test.

I tend to scratch my head while thinking through a thought, sometimes both hands. No, I don't have lice... Could this be Stimming?

This is strange. When I first started reading about AS, I thought, "Well I don't flap my hands or rock back and forth. Maybe I'm not AS after all." But everything else I read indicated that I *did* have AS. But in the last week or so every once in a while I'll suddenly realize that I'm rocking back and forth or flapping my hands. It feels quite natural and familiar. I think I've been rocking and flapping my hands all along and I just never noticed!! I mentioned it to my husband, and he said that in fact I do that all the time and he thinks it's cute and girly. It's just so bizarre that I never noticed I was doing it...

Many of my stims are oral such as jaw gnashing and pencil biting. I used suck my finger a lot as a kid.
Other stims are muscle tensioning in my limbs and shoulders. I also had a lot of spontanious tics in the same places I get my stims. Like aound my mouth and on my limbs and shoulders again. As well as my fingers which effects my fine motor skills.

One of my earliest memories (if not the very first one), is of after I had been put to bed and was on my own, lying down and waving my hands in front of me and making noises.
I did this every night that I can remember. Until one day my mum happened to be walking past my room and said something along the lines of,
"What are you doing wide-awake making silly sounds!?
I put you to bed two hours ago!
Come on, mucky pup, into bed, hully hup!" (she's dutch)

Since about that age I have only made my 'nonsense' words and gestures when I'm in complete privacy (with a few exceptions i'll describe in a moment...). The strangest thing about this is that I have NEVER needed to consciously decide (that I can recall) when I'm allowed to be stimming. When I'm with other people I have other subtler things I do , like hold an object and spin it around in my hand, or flick it from one hand to the other, squeeze it, or feel it. I don't really notice I'm doing these things most of the time.

If I've entered a particularly intense thought process (when i'm alone) I get up and walk around, pace back and forth or walk in circles. If the intense thought process is a daydream then I only remember getting up and moving about in the same degree of lucidity in which I recall the daydream. (You know how fleeting memory can be when it comes to daydreams). So I usually end up in a different part of the house. I don't think I have to do these things compulsively, but that I've done them so often for so long that they've become an automatic part of my behaviour.

There are times where I've been in such a powerfully focused attention tunnel that I've managed to forget that there is another person in the room (if I'm very comfortable with that person). For example, my brother was in our lounge with me whilst we were watching TV, I was lost somewhere in my head analysing something, and I got up and walked around the room and then sat back down where I was seated before. A few seconds passed, and my brother says "Why did you do that?" and I say "Do what?", and he replies, "you just got up and walked around the room", and I say "oh yeah, I guess I don't know why." (since there is no explanation he would find adequate).

I recall another time in which I was lying on my bed moving my arms through the air whilst my girlfriend of the time was on the computer nearby listening to music, and turned to look at me and said "What are you doing", so I replied "Listening to music", and she did not respond but continued to browse the internet. I stopped doing my movement though.

This might sound weird but I have only really realised that I do this recently. Think of it this way, when I'm alone I act by myself so there is no need to regulate my behaviour for the imaginary rules of the social world, and when in the social world I have learnt to automatically mask my behaviours well enough that NTs don't usually ask me why I'm fiddling with X object or tapping my fingers, for example. So these two systems of behaviour have never been questioned by me or anyone else, so I don't really notice them happening.

Does anyone else experience the more obvious forms of stimming only when alone?

I jiggle one of my legs or wiggle my toes quite a lot.
When I'm on the computer, I often get up, walk to the loungeroom and turn the light on/off. I also drum my fingers and grind my teeth. Sometimes I rock back and forth or side to side for a couple seconds, when I do I can't control it. Every so often my whole body will twitch for a moment, which I also can't control.

oh man. i stimm all the time. i feel embarresed when i do it but sometimes i just cant help it. i try not to do it when ppl are around specifically my parents. but i do stim all the time especially when im excited or going down the stairs ( i dont know why) i also hit myself sometimes when im excited and shake my head really fast. i hate admiting that but its true.

I have a very silly question.

Do muscle relaxers help control stimming? I've been having trouble sleeping and I notice that I stim alot while in bed. Mostly, I trace in geometric forms over and over with my hand. I'd just like to get some rest.

I stim quite a lot, by different ways. Today at café, my friend said: "You're rocking." I didn't notice I was doing that, and I was embarrassed. Usually I just swing my legs, pace, tap my fingers on the table, scratch my head and bite my lip, but I also swing from side to side quite often, or flap my arms.