Stimming

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What kind of stims do you have?

My stims are a bit too personal to post, but I don't rocking or flapping sticks.

I have a lot of stims

-Pacing around in a circle
-Flicking my fingers
-Rocking


And a lot of weird motor movements that I do (generally while pacing in a circle).

I stim a lot, usually hand flapping, spinning, pacing, jumping, the leg bouncing thingy and the worst part is I have to do it twice as much thanks to my OCD. If I spin one way, I've got to spin the other way to just so I'm even on both sides.

Hand "squeezing" (each hand balled up and repetitively clenching fists)
Hand rubbing (palms touching, circular motion)
Shuffling from foot to foot and foot-tapping
Whole-body shuddering/twisting with accompanying verbal "quack"

The first two are more likely to happen when I'm very anxious or upset. The latter two help with sensory and mental processing. The foot-tapping can mean anxiety or intense interest. It's the most common.

The hand-squeezing is an adaptation of "unacceptable" hand-flapping.

I also draw my arms up near my chest or hold them tightly against my body to cope with both anxiety and apraxia.

You didn't have all of the above.

Mostly, my leg bounces around when I sit. And I pace or rock when I stand, but I have caught myself doing just about all the other ones mentioned in this forum. I'm a real twitchy guy.

I have like a weird thing with one of my shoulders kind of circling around....

Leg wiggling....

Toung clicking...

I do a lot of weird "dododo, lalala," and humming type of sounds...

I never even knew any of this stuff was "weird" before... and allways wondered why people would comment about this stuff...lol.

I have quite a few stims. I am in fact nonplussed at my assumption that I didn't have any when I first thought I might have AS.

I have a lot of stims, including, but not limited to, rocking, hand flapping, pacing, and playing with the seams of my jeans.

I flap my hands when I'm excited. When I'm anxious I wring my hands, rock back and forth, sway side to side, march in place, and do a bunch of nervous tics like nodding my head quickly. People say this is stimming, especially the hand-flapping, but I've never thought of these things as self-stimulation so much as releasing energy...it's more like I'm trying to un-stim.

Usually the stereotypical (pun not intended) stims. Rocking (usually try not to in public), hand flapping (when happy, and also try not to do in public); I also hum, bounce my legs when sitting, perseverate on a certain word or phrase... to name a few.

Rocking
Tapping my fingers on things or touching them to each other
Tapping my feet
Bouncing my leg
Humming, singing
Rhythmically tensing certain muscles
Tearing apart paper, taking apart pens, taking off and putting on my watch, basically fidgeting with whatever's in front of me

The only thing I do is tapping my foot [very rarely, I always accepted this as being fairly normal

most other people do this only to music, I do this sometimes if I am stressed.


The other thing I do is pull up my socks because I feel better- the pressure of them- when they are pulled up. - the only thing I do long term

I don't understand stimming fully - could someone please explain, does it dissipate any stress you experience?

I have a diagnosis of Asperger's but it only met the criteria for diagnosis on 1 out of [think 3] scoring systems. It tends to be very mild and have 'grown out' of it with respect to a lot of features which I used to show as a child . Is it unusual though for an aspie not to stim?

I also used to use a paper lightshade-which was spherical and folded toghether with concentric wires in them-to make the sound I felt an old steam train would make, And I used the handle to move this in and out with rhythm increasing in rate to mirror the increase in speed- this sounded good, realistic.

"My name is Legion, for we are many."

current stims include:
leg jiggling/foot tapping
rocking
pacing
spinning my desk chair back and forth in a partial circle
tapping walls/guardrails as I walk
resting my wrists on my thighs and slapping my knees with my hands (would this be considered a variety of flapping?)
picking loose skin/scabs etc.
playing with clothing seams

stims I used to have include:
hair twirling ( would probably start again if I grew it out)
nailbiting
chewing things - pencils, straws, knuckles, hair (when it was long enough. yes, I am a guy - it was the 70's/80's. )
numerous visual things - staring at lights, rapid blinking, squinting
headbanging (never an everyday thing, but yeah.)

Those are the ones I can think of right now, anyway. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting - or don't even realize I'm doing.

I have a lot of stims myself. My most common are rocking, grinding my teeth (very bad for me, I was told at the age of 23 that I had the tooth wear of a forty year old), popping my joints (also very bad for me, I have joint problems), and chewing on my shirt collars (bad for my shirts). I also did quite a lot of stimming on the Christmas lights this year as I have every year as far back as I can remember.