Adults: stimming in general

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I think the General Autism section was a good place for it. Lots of traffic in there and stimming isn't particularly age-related.

Yes, this is true .

S.I -I am sorry what is that?

I think SI= self injury

I didn't realize a lot of these behaviors were stimming either- because I do some of them LOL. I would probably think they were stimming if I saw other people do them. I wonder how many NT people do these things too, but just hide them maybe?

Wow...I didn't realise these things were so current - my ex used to go mad with me for ...
face picking, spot scratching, skin scratching, nail picking, hand-wringing, head scratching, hair pulling. I've done all of those things all my life.

Others I've stopped - rocking, flapping, tapping feet ( apart from when listening to music - everyone does that so it goes unnoticed).

Others are stress related - picking at fluff, sniffing cloth and rubbing my face with the sheets, rubbing fingers together, spinning my glasses or pens or scissors...

This is very reassuring for me. My kids notice these things and use them to tell when I'm very anxious or stressed. My son who is Aspergers too, has a range of things too - toe curling, rocking ( he knows others find this weird so he only does it when he is at home and there is just me and him). He is also a pen clicker. My older daughter does some of these too but she is NT and I wonder if she just picked them up from me - learned behaviour or whether as another post asked, how much of this do NT people do too?

My new partner doesn't seem phased by my "ticks" - but then his hands are always on the move - chair rubbing, finger rubbing.

Fascinating - I'd love to know more about this. THanks for listening!

(I didn't realize this post became so long. It's not easy for me to read long posts sometimes. But I'm curious about these things)

I do some of the things mentioned here. I don't do typing in the air.

But what I'm curious about right now is hand and finger posturing since I looked at myself in a reflection doing it. I do a few things but they can be sort of just posturing and not too much rhythmic movement.

I'll try to describe.

While walking with both my hands to my side I can sometimes hold my thumbs over my index fingers and my other fingers are a kind of spread out. I think I'll also do the same sort of thing with my index finger sort of wrapped over thumb with the rest of my fingers spread out a little bit. I think I might have a 3rd variation of this. Not really movement but posturing, I guess. My question, is hand posturing stimming? I guess I may do it because it's calming to some degree.

For some odd reason I recently found myself doing one of the above postures with my left hand held to about shoulder level in the air, maybe moving my index finger a little bit, while brushing my teeth. I don't do that all the time and I don't remember even doing it before but when I was doing that it felt good. It hasn't really been on purpose and I don't know why that would just start but I know it feels calming (it reminds me of humming while eating good food when I was younger or thirsty or something). Maybe some things come and go (I had a head twitch that came and went but that wasn't exactly comforting to do...)

Another non-movement thing I notice I do, which feels right, is sometimes almost do a thumbs up posture but at my side with thumbs pointing forward. I don't know how much I do that but I noticed it.

I will also use my fingers to grab onto my pinky fingers. That has a little more movement.

Now that I'm messing with my fingers to try and think of how to describe these things, I think I might also use my thumb to push on the middle knuckle of each finger starting from the index to the pinky and then backwards, and over again. I might do this once or twice in a row. This feels familiar.

I also feel comforted by holding my left thumb with my right hand at my chest. I find myself doing this while walking sometimes as well. This would be similar to hand wringing, I guess. Which has been mentioned before.

Also, my each fingernail underneath my thing thumb fingernail.

I think I do various things with my fingers and hands, some posturing and others more movement.

So are these things a form of "stimming" or what they call "Stereotyped..........motor movements" and "simple motor stereotypies".

I can't even remember what their definition of "stereotyped" means. Does that what they're saying for "stimming"?

I don't know if any of these are stimming as such (I'm newly diagnosed and trying to make sense of things); but these are some of the things I do that those close to me have openely commented upon; or, I get a 'vibe' from people generally that it unnerves them.
Is stimming always something completely unconcious?

Stare into space very often, (and I really like it!)
I fidget with my hands a lot
I make (apparently), odd facial expressions
Bounce my leg
If I get agitated, I pace; but I tend to use the urge to pace as an excuse to do something, (which means I'm quite a productive worker!), or perhaps that's more OCD related?
I used to 'chew' the inside of my cheek
Clench my teeth
I talk to myself (whispering), but not in public (or at least I don't think I do!)
Scratch my arms
'Tensing' my whole upper body
Fidgeting generally (usually with my face or hair), but that's also to do with confidence.
I've been accused of 'posing' a lot in the past, which I can only attribute to the fact that I sit and stand in ways which makes me, (my body), feel comfortable; for example, I can't sit straight legged, feet on the floor on a sofa, I tend to 'contort' my body so I'm slouching but with my legs crossed bouncing one leg in the air!..........maybe I'm just down right lazy!

I also use my peripheral vision a lot, (don't know if this would be considered stimming?) Could anyone shed any light or comment on this? It's obviously something that really unnerves people. Even my 3 year old nephew has commented on it when we were sat watching an animated film; although he did laugh at me because of it!
I don't know if it's more to do with confidence, (not being able to look people in the eye and say "Hi, how are you"), but when I'm aware I'm doing it, it's in situations where I need to make myself feel comfortable knowing what's around me without interacting with what or who is around me. But when my nephew mentioned it; (he's 3 years old!) I was stunned! As far as I was aware I was watching the film, not looking sideways (specifically with my eyes!) towards him. I don't have nystagmus. Does anyone else do this? Or am I just a complete weirdo?

I have earbuds and a pocket digital voice recorder for work. But I started carrying them around just as a prop. If I can't resist an urge to rock in a chair, or rock standing with my feet rocking back and forth, I just put in earbuds and pretend I'm listening to music. Nobody really stares at someone enjoying music. I tap my teeth together a lot, not clenching, just tapping.
And I type in the air. Always in mul tip les of three (3). Any words I see I'll type in the air, in multiples of three, but if I get a 1 or 2, I'll add an S or an apostrophe or both to get that last 3.
At home, I do all that, and I bark things. Never a "woof," but often bad words and many times words that have nothing to do with anything that's going on. I call them outbursts: "Keys!" or "Tell me for shiny." What the heck. With two different textures of hair on my head, I will feel around for the curly ones with twists and kinks, and feel on them. I get a full-body rock going in my computer chair where my toes tap a rolled-up blanket under my desk. I drag my fingers really lightly along my arms to get a tickly thing. I stretch my hands full out, then make fists, then stretch out, then make fists. I pull paper clips out of their shape into absolutely straight little metal sticks.

I do the leg jitter thing only when I'm really nervous, on edge or majorly psyched. I can keep myself from doing it if I absolutely must, but it takes the edge off if I can.

I do various finger exercises at times. Not typing or moving my hands or wrists any certain way but just touching fingers on one hand to one another as fast as I can a few times, then in opposite order a few times. Or I do rotations on a surface. Like if the finger have numbers I'd do something like: 4, 3, 2, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 2 and then do the sequence three times.

People don't seem to mind it when they notice me do it, mostly they ask me if I play the piano. I don't but I can see how it looks similar since they tend to be fixed patterns with pauses between 'notes' repeated over as though I were practicing some tricky piano piece. Most people seem cool with it. Because it's so different from the impatient finger drumming people sometimes do when they're annoyed with others I think it's more accepted, I also keep my fingernails short so I don't 'clack' since that does annoy people.

No idea, but I've had people look at me when I've been at my desk and say it it was like watching a Chinese contortionist try to wrestle an invisible snake in slow motion. At my desk I will just randomly do some stretches if I feel uncomfortable or shift to an unusual position. I find it really hard to sit with both legs straight on the ground for extended time, I keep wanting to sit cross-legged or have at least one leg resting on another somehow.

I type on the air too. In another life, I might have made a fine pianist.

Today I had to work in front of the computer for 8 hours and I ended up with a swollen and very painful lower lip. Apparently I've chewed it through without noticing.

My teeth pick at those small dry spots that appear on my bottom lip during the wintertime; I try to always have lip balm or carmex, because blood doesn't taste good to me, and the lips take so long to heal.

Most of mine involve spinning small objects in my hands, usually a cigarette lighter or a ink pen, sometimes a coin. Or if I'm holding a cigarette, I'll continually spin it .

I also repeatedly trace the circular outline of an object next to my hand. There is one button on the TV remote control which is round and is positioned right where the thumb would naturally be, and while holding the remote and watching TV, I will run my thumb around and around the edge of that button for hours. (My wife asked me why this particular button on the remote was so worn-looking? ) When in the car and I have my arm on the high console, the lid release button is positioned right next to my thumb, so I'll trace the outline of the button round and round, for miles.

There is another thing I haven't seen mentioned here (probably because it's pretty weird) that I've found myself doing (usually when I'm alone) and really wish I could break myself of. I've found that when I position my tongue just right, a tiny bubble will appear on the tip of my tongue, so I pop it by blowing on it. I will intentionally create a bubble just to blow it out, and then repeat, at the rate of about one bubble per second. If I blow on the bubble slowly, with just enough force to make it vibrate instead of popping, the bubble will give out a slight whistling noise, which is extremely annoying to my wife if she's present. I've actually gotten light-headed at times from the rapid breaths necessary to rapidly create and pop the bubbles...since I'm essentially hyperventilating.

(What can I say...I dare to be different with my stimming!)

I usually pace back and forth if I feel that my mind needs to wake up or think at a faster pace. I also do it if I have some exciting ideas in my mind and I try to think how to implement those ideas in the future. I tend to bounce my legs up and down if I am in an impatient mood.

Chewing on pens
Cracking my knuckles
Twirling pens when holding them
Rubbing feet together
Shuffling feet when sitting (when I moved desks recently at work, the carpet under my desk was black from the soles of my shoes)
Bouncing legs
Biting bottom lip/cheeks
Pinching bottom lip
Stroking Goatee
Chewing Goatee(back when I kept it long enough to do that)
Trying to stop biting fingernails

Had no idea these were considered "stims" before I heard of AS. I just assumed that everyone did them to some extent.

is it just me or do we all try like heck to relegate these to the subconscious?

Now I'm gonna be all self-aware when i shift my weight from one foot to the other. Thanks a lot, guys.