Hand flapping, bouncing, clapping, and other teenage stims

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I am in need of some help and advice! About three months ago I was diagnosed with Asperger's. As a female homeschooler, I flew under the radar for years. Because I was teased badly for my quirks when I was young, my mother was very proactive in helping me become better socially. This including reprimanding me for odd behaviors like bounding, hand flapping, and talking to myself.

I am now 19 and after my diagnosis most of my stims are coming back full force. My counselor said this is because I have been repressing the urge to stim for years and that I should let myself. I flap my hands when I am excited, impatient, or thinking. I bounce in my chair and clap like an airhead when I am happy about one of my fandoms or books. I rock when I am distressed or very bored. One thing I have never stopped was laughing to myself when I think of something funny, while everyone else around me has no clue why I am laughing. As a teenager a lot of these actions are considered socially unacceptable and it's somewhat hard to let an action back in that I have been told for so long was wrong. However, when I do stim I feel much better and a lot of the anxiety surrounding me is lessened. I am beginning to think that my General Anxiety Disorder is caused by me repressing certain aspects of my autism. But after so many years trying to act normal and being trained as a neurotypical child, I feel like a snake trying to crawl back into old skin. While parts of it feels very natural, I am suddenly hyper aware of the stares I am getting in public when I start stimming in the store, or how some of my friends think that I am making myself act autistic to fit the "label" they say I have been given by my psychologist.

Right now, I am scared, lost, and trying to figure out who I am. I am the first person in my family to be diagnosed as autistic and since I am an adult and off at college, I am traveling this road without a lot of the family support I would normally have. What do you guys think, is letting stimming and other aspects of autism back in a good thing? Or should I continue to try and act normal to fit into the life that I have been carving out for myself? Or is this a road I will have to walk by myself as I try to figure out what this means for me?

Hello, I like your name, welcome to WP.
I'm not an overt stimmer myself, I'm sure some useful advice will be along shortly.

Stimming is part of the solution and a good thing. And is one source of my of life.

Now, that said, I still like the public and private distinction, and experimenting with low-key methods for public. But it's not a 100% deal and your friends should cut you some slack if you sometimes stim in more visible ways.

And let your friends know that a lot of famous people probably were on the autism spectrum. And the next step in the conversation, a person shouldn't have to be famous in order to be valued.

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When alone, I will sometimes squeeze or twist a favorite soft T-shirt as I envision sports or movies, and sometimes I make sounds of fighting. Yes, this is embarrassing. And I have a college degree and have worked as a retail manager.

I like my sense of humor a lot, but I also sometimes laughs when no one else does.

Sometimes taking a walk through a familiar neighborhood, not really private but no one really watching me, I sometimes find myself talking a little to myself quietly.

I also tried to suppress the stims for many years as a teenager and now that I;m more accepting of them I do them all the time. I also have General Anxiety Disorder. I was diagnosed as a kid but I was severely reprimanded for stimming and encouraged to stop and then I really wanted to stop and I did but now I stim all the time I just do it in private (for the most part). When I'm really exited about something I bounce and I think I flap or wring or do something weird with my hands when upset. This I do in public.....without realizing I;m doing it. I don't think I ever stopped that.

I'm 28 and I hand-flap. I am not able to control it sometimes but I can usually "hold" it until I can get to a bathroom stall.

I don't try to suppress it because I find it's a release that nothing can compare to and without it my mood goes downhill quickly.

It can be upsetting because we know it's not "normal" but then again what IS normal? Don't sweat it.

I actually came on here today to look for forum discussions on stimming. My husband and I have been married a year. He was trying to tell me yesterday that I should really stop my stims because sometimes they aren't appropriate. (The stim he was referring to was my leg bouncing.) I got upset that he was asking that I change this because it showed that despite the fact that I have tried to provide him with lots of information about my asperger's that he still isn't getting that this is part of it and that it makes me feel better. It's a pretty socially acceptable stim. I don't think that there is anything wrong with my leg bouncing while I'm at a restaurant. I try to tame it down if someone eating with us comments that I'm shaking the table. I guess I just needed to vent to someone that understands stimming...

To ChristinaTheHobbit: I don't think that you have to conform ALL of the time to every NT rule and regulation. If stimming feels good, stim. Embrace it. Let out that overstimulation. You are now armed with an explanation of why you do it and that its helpful to you.

I Stim a lot, I do a frowning thing with my eyebrows, I click my fingers and Scratch my scalp. I shouldn't worry about trying to suppress your stims as long as your not harming anything.

I don't think completely suppressing them does any good; people have them for a reason. They can be substituted for other activities sometimes but even that isn't close to erasing them from someone who needs them. There are measures a lot of people take to make sure their more active stims aren't so active in public, like violently rocking back and forth, or humming loudly.
Maybe they sometimes make the stims less active/extreme by rocking slightly or humming under their breath. I know that's what I do anyway. But when I'm at home I stim as much as I want--rocking, head bobbing, humming, chewing on stuff, repeating phrases, etc.--especially if I just came from being out in public where I suppressed them a bit. I try not to do any of these very noticeable stims around anyone but I do milder ones.

As a child I flapped my hands and stimmed in much more obvious ways, but through my teenage years I started pulling and twisting my hair as a more low key stim. People still commented, but I wasn't about to stop doing it. I still have more obvious stims, and since they're helpful to me, I don't see why I need to give that up. I do it for myself.

A lot of people have given the advice of finding a private space to stim and I think that that's generally great advice, especially if doing it in front of people causes you as much anxiety as not doing it. There are also a lot of great, subtle things to do (leg bouncing is a good one!) that won't draw too much attention. Personally, I like flicking a Bic pen (that part is surprisingly specific...) near my right ear so it sounds like a helicopter going by! Most of the time people don't notice, but I do have to be careful about it when I'm in certain situations (particularly meetings or sessions with a client).
Although I think that Aspies should be able to do what they need to to control stress, I also think it fair to acknowledge that not everyone will respond positively to stimming... As an example: I used to work as a writing tutor and a student approached me between classes to set up an appointment. I asked her what she needed help with and she told me that she was having a hard time using commas properly. I got very excited and started flapping and going off about how much I loved commas and how good I was with commas and that I was the perfect person to help her with her comma problem... She didn't come to her appointment. In hindsight, even a modicum of self-control in that interaction would have made it go better.

Thank you to everyone who responded. The advice is helpful and I have already started implementing some of it. The public and private distinction is something I am exploring and finding that, while sometimes inconvenient, this method allowing me to stim without people noticing. I am planning to take a trip to the store soon and buy a squishy toy for the occasions when I can't get away to stim. Hopefully have something to squeeze will alleviate a lot of anxiety I have when I won't be able to stim as obviously. I am also finding that bringing hair ties out with me is helpful as I can fidget with them in my hands and no one really notices. The toy and hair ties aren't nearly as pleasant as hand flapping and bouncing, but they do their job.

I am finding out that as I let some of my guard down I am alright with being autistic and letting it show. It may be inconvenient and sometimes socially unacceptable, but I am not as stressed when I let myself acknowledge a part of me that I have kept under lock and key for too long. Plus, when I am me I don't have to deal with shutdowns as much

I've waved my arms when I get excited pretty much all of my life, originally it was put down as being hyper activity when I was a child and my parents were told not to allow me to eat as much sugary foods, however as I got older it carried on regardless and my mother would often get cross with me and tell me to act normally.

For the last few years if I felt the urge to wave my arms I had to quickly stop myself from doing so.

However as I have recently had my diagnosis, I've been told my waving is perfectly normal for someone with Aspergers/ASD and I've stopped checking myself from doing it, oddly I've noticed a rise in my mood as well which has a lot to do with finally getting a diagnosis, when I feel stressed in a social situation I wave my hand behind my back which I find helps me as well as when I'm alone normally grunting briefly to let out negative emotion. Sort of a bit like the Rainman "Uh-Oh".

Well, when I dance to techno music, it looks like I'm stimming or whatever

But, usually after I drink a high sugar or caffiene drink or eat something like the former, I get a strange buzz in my head, and then my arms just start like spazzing for a second. Then I feel good.

I don't know if that counts...