Picking up others' stims

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Ok, this might be a bit odd, but I tend to pick up people's mannerisms easily. I've noticed after working at a group home that sometimes I pick up my clients' stims. Some of them such as rocking and hand-wringing I've just become more aware of when I do them because I see some of my clients doing them. However, I notice I've picked up a few from them. Weird. So far I've been trying to think of an explanation for that, but alas I can't think of why. Has this happened to anyone else?

I picked up a couple of stims from looking at videos, so yeah.

I think I picked up cheek biting from my mom.

I do this!! !

I can understand this. I believe that it works on the principle that if you see someone else using a stim that seems to be working for them in whatever way, you may want to see if it brings relief to you also. I don't see any harm in exploring what will help you feel better.

There is mention of this phenomenon at this link http://www.autistics.org/library/more-autistic.html