would you consider the following to be stims?

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i've been noticing that some of my "personal" gestures are actually examples of stimming. (ex--shaking my hands is sometimes known as "hand flapping." stretching, moving my fingers rapidly might be "finger waggling.")

i try not to do these things in public so much, now that i know. but i still have some personal gestures i'm wondering about. do you think the following are examples of stimming:

ruffling the hair rapidly.

pulling my lips in and pushing them back out--sometimes to moisten them when chapped, sometimes because i feel anxious.

humming. sometimes i hum tunelessly, but i try not to do that in public. is humming out loud when not alone generally socially unacceptable, even when there's a tune to it?

just curious about these things. wondering if maybe it would be best to do them less in public overall.

Last edited by exhausted on 05 Jul 2009, 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, those sound like stims. (I saw what you wrote above about NLD, by the way! I will answer you up there!) The thing about stims is that everyone stims. I once read something an autie wrote pointing out that dancing is stimming, LOL. The difference may be that in the case of stimming, sometimes the person can't stop or feels extremely uncomfortable stopping; usually, an NT doesn't feel very uncomfortable being made to stop dancing.

Many people hum to themselves, or love to swing on swings, or twirl their hair, or bite their nails; sometimes they're quite intent on it and can't or don't like to stop, in fact, and these are NTs, so stimming in and of itself is nothing weird. In the non-NT world it's nothing weird either, it may just be more concentrated, last longer, feel more "necessary" and/or look less socially acceptable.

If you have NLD you might have stims and they might or might not be as "showy" as AS or ASD stims but the likelihood is on "less" rather than "more"...I think. I'm way new to the whole NLD thing.

But yeah. I vote: your actions are stims. I don't feel you need to do them less in public. Why should you? I mean if your stim were to beat people over the heads with a baseball bat b/c the vibration was awesome, yeah, you'd wanna tone that one down a hair. (joke...)But these? They seem very non-intrusive to me...plus, sometimes, the more you try to tamp down a stim, the worse you really want to do it and the more anxious you can get.

Those are stims, I do them myself except for the humming one I don't do that.

Yeah, stims. I do the stuff with my hair mostly. I've even caught myself scratching as a stim.

I tend to rock back & forth quite a bit lately, the nose-picking and nail-biting stopped a long time ago...

i sometimes pick my nose untill it bleeds

I'd say those are stims. I have a neighbour who does the hair ruffling thing quite vigorously. I don't know what his condition is -- probably Tourette's -- but his window faces mine so I noticed it and saw that he tries to minimise it when others come in, but it doesn't stop altogether.

When I have an idea in my head or think/fantasize about something in the future (or past) that excites me (or makes me angry) I will find any long object (belt, long strip of paper, tear-off from edge of computer paper) and shake it in my hand while I think. I've done this for as long as I can remember - and as a child quickly learned to keep such behavior to myself. I'm 30 now and I still do this, although less.

So is this "stimming"? And do others think/fantasize/daydream while stimming?

what about constantly pushing your glasses up?

at som e7th grade presentation must have done i every 3-10 sec. granted it's a little loose but still.
I have to bend and/or loosen my glasses after I buy new ones. just doesn't sit right.

i don't know. but i am beginning to think that maybe the repetition of things in general might have a stimming effect. i asked about the hair ruffling--even though i often see others do this (NT's). it's not because it seems "odd" in itself. but it does seem that once i get "on a roll" with it, it's hard to stop.