Stimming,if needed to supress, does it lead to deeper anxiet

Post Reply New Topic

I am curious if the need to suppress stimming has led to greater frustrations or stronger anxieties?

I ask because I have been conditioned since childhood to suppress certain tendencies. But when at home and not worried, it relaxes me. The old, 'stop fidgeting, sit still, stop idling your legs, stop bouncing around'. Now granted, a lot of that is kid behaviour, but I was pretty much all of the above all the time.

I always have my hands in my pocket when in public because I do a lot of finger rubbing or even rub my keys in my pocket. I am always self conscious about what to do with my hands. I talk a lot with my hands though, then right back in the pocket. But, it is nowhere as soothing as when I can stand and sway or rock freely at home.

Does this make sense?

Yeah I hated it when especially teachers would annoying tell me to stop doing various movements like twirling my hair, drumming my fingers, etc. as if it was somehow their business. I felt like any soothing motions were seen as bad which contributed to making me feel bad about myself. I felt like the teacher didn't want me to feel calm but wanted me to feel stressed and upset without any outlet.

The worst though is when you think you are alone or nobody is watching and then you find out someone did see, and judge...

Some of the movements led to a FALSE diagnosis of ADD without hyperactivity, even though I didn't have any trouble focusing on my work. I would instead focus on whatever I was doing so much that I couldn't be distracted if the teacher or whatever said the time was up. This was oddly enough misinterpreted as a lack of attention, which makes no sense.

Because I will never resemble a normal person, no one has ever tried to keep me from stimming just for the sake of appearance.

However I do use a leather lanyard to twist and wrap around my fingers and chew on when in class, to be less of a distraction/annoyance to other students.

I live in an area that isn't very excepting when it comes to "acting out" or looking different, so I've had random strangers approach me and forcefully stop my stimming multiple times. When I don't stim I get twitchy and anxious so it defiantly makes my anxiety worse.

Like any other reparative therapy, ABA & teaching suppression leads to things like internalization, repression and even cPTSD (not yet recognized by the APA, the idea is that ongoing, constant trauma can result in bad things). It is possible to learn to dampen stimming. But the need to stim isn't reduced, just acting on it. Sometimes that's enough to get through some social event but you have to plan for down time afterward to let that anxiety OUT! That's the side of ABA that practitioners are either woefully (willfully?) ignorant of, or simply disagree with because then it wouldn't be a successful "cure" for autism.

yes, stimming is triggered for a reason.
if you supress a stim, the anxiety that triggered it isn't taken care of, and you get the added anxiety of not being able to stim.

I recommend that you find some way to stim in a less visible matter.

I have some slightly less visible stims that I will do. But, that training to suppress is strong. But, I do have some hand things I can do a bit of.

I have to admit that letting go at home though has been the most therapeutic. I can actually feel the stress release a bit.

Let's just say that I am in the progress of discovering things and trying to find the best 'outlet' for these things.What works, what doesn't. I just had to ask because I don't catch myself when I start to rock anymore and it has been helpful.

Thank you everybody...good things to know and I'm not going nutso. Always good to have a reality check

After I went back to bed, a thought occurred to me.

The curtailed stimming definitely happens when around other people. Period. That is so conditioned into me, it's not escapable. That's why the hands are always in the pocket, or some other masked things I do. Crack the hell out of my knuckles all the time though.

What made me start the thread was the realization that the conditioning was so ingrained that it would not happen at home. Until my wife left me last week, I did not realize how ingrained it was around people.

Being alone has let me 'cut loose' a bit. It's been a strange journey through the last few months. From realizing I sway and rocked when alone and in thought. This was noticed when I took my cigarette breaks at home. AT work or while out, no sway or rock. A lot of it has become made aware because I am consciously aware. And, it's just grown from there awarenesswise. These growing awarenesses are unsettling as well as satisfying to know that they are not so aberrant after all.

Just kinda nice to get feedback.

Since I've started visiting this site, I've been feeling a lot more uncaring about my behaviours due to seeing all these people here with ASD... if I want to stim, why stop it? As a result, I've been stimming a lot more and even been experimenting with stims I've stopped doing recently or haven't done too much or even never done at all, and I've felt so much more comfortable and relaxed than I usually feel.

So yeah, I'd say suppressing stims almost definitely can cause anxiety.

Well, I've found stimming when I'm anxious can calm me down. I'm doing Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (a treatment for emotional dysregulation), and right now I'm working on a skill called 'distress tolerance', which is basically to find things that help you feel better and learn to do them when your stress is starting to build. And I've found some of my stims work as distress tolerance skills.

I've never really been big on suppressing stims, but now I'm working on doing them more when I'm anxious, and paying more attention to the sensations when I do them.

I know just what you mean. It took me months of working with my current counsellor before I could let the mask drop a little in front of another person. I have always had a very good relationship with her, and she knows my diagnosis and has worked with other autistic patients. It's been clear from the start that there is absolutely no need for me to suppress my stims or verbal tics at all. Even now, I can't let myself pace around in her presence, she only sees my hand and foot stims, even though she knows that tip-toes and pacing are more satisfying for me.

The relief when I first lived in a place of my own, after years of living in a shared home was amazing. This was years before my diagnosis, and I had kept my pacing and flapping to myself since childhood. Even if I am secure in my own private room, I don't feel able to let myself go until I have the whole house to myself. In my student years, living in shared houses, with everyone keeping to different schedules, I could feel the tension building in me if I had a few days in a row without having the place to myself for a while. If there were a party, or just guests generally, I'd shut myself away in my room - but I still would feel too exposed and be unable to let myself stim. I'd even take a container to pee in into my room sometimes, as even a quick dash across the hallway to the bathroom seemed too much risk of someone seeing me without my mask.

When I was last working, I would be able to feel the tension rising in me as the day went on without an opportunity to stim properly. I feel it as a very physical tension - muscles tense, limbs and fingers become more rigid, movement becomes clumsier, speech slower, and sensory processing is noticeably more impaired than usual. So I definitely do think that suppression of stims can add a big extra chunk of anxiety to each day - which in turn, eats into tolerance for other stressors and increasing the chance of a melt-down.

I'm fortunate that I find a brisk walk in the country makes a very good substitute for pacing in circles, especially if there are a few steep uphill sections where I can get the feeling of being on tiptoes. I'm glad that I live somewhere with easy access to that. If I'm made to sit still when I feel 'stimmy', I get too fidgety to be comfortable for someone sharing a sofa with me - very jiggly legs and feet, which I've been told off for many times (parents and grandparents regularly used to say that I had "ants in my pants".)

Sometimes scrunching up and stretching out my toes can relieve the fidgets in an invisible way, otherwise I'll take to fiddling with whatever random object is to hand - very often my beard. Pulling and scratching at my beard has been commented on a few times - most people seem to assume it's because it gets itchy; it doesn't, but it's easier to let people think that than to try to explain why I really do it!

Two things I would like to address:
1) Most of my conditioning was from childhood. All that getting hands and legs popped when excited. The old, "Stop fidgeting." "Stop being antsy." That sort of thing. It does get conditioned into you. What I am experiencing is the discovery of things like this. Slowly putting things together. Becoming aware of things has been illuminating. But, the conditioning is so strong, I will not do most things unless extremely agitated. But, as the loads get stronger, so does the need to stim.

That brings me to:
2) Just to put a fine point on things:
I've noticed that the need seems to grow with the level of stress I am experiencing. And, the stress has brought out certain things I would not have noticed without the learning of things and made those things more noticeable.

So, I think the stress is there. The subduing or suppression of the stims amplifies those anxieties.

And it's been much more noticeable since the wife left. Stress has grown. But I am also alone and that helps me not retreat into the conditioning. That has actually been helpful. May be one of the reasons I'm not just devolving into goo right now.

I've been rocking my ass off, bouncing my legs like a manic person when sitting. If on the bed, that makes the bed jump a lot and nobody is bothered. It's soothing, but it is also not stopping the overwhelmness of things. Just don't go batcrap crazy with everything shoved deep inside. Make sense?

I have a few family members who do the beard fiddle.

My husband is a knife collector and he will flip a knife blade open and shut repeatedly as he reads. Most adults I've known have just found some kind of stimming that people don't notice.

I hadn't realized that taking walks could replace stimming, but now that I think about it, when I had autistic co-workers they would take a lot of walks outside.

I'm a plodder. No tip toes for me. Dunno why. But, I do pace like you wouldn't believe. Pacing has never been seen as something bad for me for some reason. I even pace when I teach. I can almost teach without looking at the screen. But I do pace then.


I lived in an SRO (Single room occupancy for those not knowing) and had several roommates. I would lock myself into my room when they had company. Did the pee bottle thing.

Me to a tee. And, I forgot about "ants in the pants" specifically. I always got 'antsy' and sometimes 'ants in the pants.' Yeah, do the ankle hang jiggle on sofas and such, or just bounce the crap outta my legs until told to stop. Even to this day.

But I am so jealous you can go out like that. For years I thought I was agoraphobic. Even told my counselors that I hated to go out. Then it dawned on me, I am not afraid of open spaces. I just don't like being around so many people. Get me out in the country and I am very happy and can go and do. Even in small towns where the interactions are limited are ok. It's just the crush of people and stimulus in an urban environment.

I do that constantly. I don't think anybody pays attention. And if they say something, I'll just tell them it makes me look wise. That's why they do it in the movies. But yeah, I'll pluck hairs out my beard or mustache if they have the wrong texture (how weird is that?), stroke it, pull it around to sort the hairs into some averaged direction...no flyaways.....

But, mostly hands in the pocket for the most part. Even while pacing and teaching, my hands go into my pockets. This is odd because at one time, I could not talk and walk at the same time. I could listen and walk. But when time to respond, I would have to stop and talk.

I'm so inconsistent...

When I was younger, I would flip my Buck Knife open and close. Could get thing to open like a switch blade. Some people thought it was cool. Some people thought it was weird and/or dangerous. Never thought of that until you mentioned it.