Do you have this kind of stim?

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I had dinner with a friend I hadn't seen for 3 years and we caught up chatting about College etc. I kept playing with her pony tail I asked if it bothered her she said no and smiled at me. (I tried playing with her sisters it wasn't the same LOL!) I'm SO SO HAPPY this friend didn't mind me playing with her hair!! !! I mention AS to her and she understood. She was nice about it. I also did something odd I came out and said you seem like you've put on some weight about how much do you way she said 140lb. She didn't mind this question but as another poster said since this is a friend I have known FOREVER she was fine with the question. So with stims do you mess with other peoples hair or with another person? Playing with her pony tail was FUN!

Stims aren't things you do for pleasure or amusement, Z - those are just 'things you do for amusement'. A stim is a repetitive (near constant and all the time) motion or movement engaged in to alleviate stress and anxiety from moment-to-moment - something you HAVE to do, that you can't help doing, because if you made yourself stop for more than a few seconds you'd have a panic attack and eventually completely melt down.

I have to sway side-to-side or rock back and forth any time I'm standing up - I can stop only for a few seconds before it resumes in spite of me. If someone followed me around insisting that I stop anytime they saw me doing it, before the end of an hour, I would be forced by my stress to physically beat the crap out of them to get them to leave me alone, after which I would immediately resume stimming.

The only time it stops is if I'm sitting down drawing, writing or using the computer because there's an exterior focus that keeps me preoccupied, and a lot of that time my legs are bouncing like tennis balls. I used to believe I couldn't have any symptoms of ADHD because I'm not generally a chatterbox and have never been in the habit of running about wildly doing one thing then the next, bouncing off the furniture and whooping like a Hollywood Indian. What I have come to realize however, is that in spite of my apparent outwardly calm demeanor, I AM NEVER COMPLETELY STILL. I'm hyperactive even though I'm not visibly 'doing something'. And all the while my mind is racing, flitting from one topic to another, and my body is forced to do something to burn off all that energy - so it rocks and sways, nonstop, beyond my conscious control.

But I don't consider it 'fun'. It's just living. I think the term 'self-stimulating' that stim is short for, like many clinical terms, is misleading. It's doesn't mean 'something you do because it feels good' - it means something you HAVE to do to distract you from the stress of overstimulation.

Actually Willard stims are related to thinking, as well as expressing emotion i.e. hand flapping. In fact most of the theory on stimming is based on being "self-stimulatory behaviours" aka stim (when under stimulated)

So in short you are wrong they are not just for anxiety, but yes that can be involuntary reaction to anxiety or a calming measure, which is non concious.

What exactly is 'understimulation' ? Are you saying there's a minimum amount of stimulation the brain must have in order to remain functional? If that were the case you'd be in a coma, and unable to move, consciously or otherwise.

All I know is, I've lived with this every day for half a century. I think that gives me some qualification to know what I've personally experienced, as opposed to observing the behavior of children without the vocabulary to explain themselves and then pontificating and speculating, which is all clinicians can do.

If by 'related to thinking', you mean things like finger drumming or hair twirling or chewing one's fingernails - those are not Autistic Stims - those are common FIDGETs, done out of boredom. Those behaviors do not qualify as a symptom of Autism.

No, all of my stims involve my own personal space only.

I have stims that I do for just whenever, bouncing on the balls of my feets, swaying, rocking, tapping, swinging my arms,... I have stims that I do while thinking, which can include any of those things, plus wiggling my fingers, and feet in the air, and a few that I do when nervous, fingernail chewing, flapping, bouncing my knee.

The stim seems more like a need for a mental distraction from what else is going on.

It could be anxiety drive (which seems most often). But it could be trigged by anything.
When I'm at work sitting at my desk my leg is constantly going...I'm not anxious, but very often deep in concentration and when I'm in that state, even outside of work, one of my stims will usually manifest itself.

willard:

Are you sure there's a difference between autistic stims and other stims? I thought it was just a matter of degree, i.e how much you do it. I've seen NT girls flap their hands when they're excited and frequently in the movies when someone is in deep mourning and crying at a loved one's grave they'll be rocking back and forth.

For anyone who knows I'm also interested in a definition of the difference between a stim and a tic (as I have Tourette's). I can't really tell what's a stim and what's a tic sometimes. According to Willards definition I have no stims, because although I often start rocking or moving fingers subconsciously I can stop it if I want to. I think I did stim more as a child though, visual stuff like looking from the corner of my eyes at the book-shelves and then running to watch them swoosh by.... But that was for pleasure.

Well I guess that explanes why I shiver though it isn't cold. Just letting my mental stress show on the outside.

I generally don't feel comfortable touching people at all, not even their hair. Because I'm used to people reciprocating the touch, and I'm SCARED of people touching me in any way other than hugs. And again, I only feel comfortable hugging people who do not have any body odour.

I agree that this is not really a stim, although it might be considered as stim like behaviour. I don't know... it's like playing with your own hair, only someone else's hair just happened to be there.

To the OP: I love hair (head hair that is) and I often stare at girls' hair. It's a very nice oppurtunity to sit in the back of a lecture because I can stare all I want without anyone noticing. I don't touch of course, but I remember rare occasions in my teens when somebody would ask me to braid their hair and how lovely that was. I do play a lot with my own hair though, and I love touching my childrens' hair.

There's a girl in my course, she sat next to me today and she has hair that is hard not to look at, it's brown with hues of copper and gold, wavy and shiny and it moves with her head. I can't stare too much though, it's creepy right?