Sudden urge to resume hand flapping? What happened??

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Hi everyone, I'm back.
The wierdest thing happened to me in church the other day; I was sitting there and suddenly I felt this intense need to flap my hands, which I haven't done for YEARS. During my late teens I learned to control the urge and redirect it into pen fiddling, or moving my leg up and down, or other, less obvious movements. After a few years of this I lost the urge to 'stim' almost totally. I also started smoking during this time, and took up a lot of fiddly habits like knitting or flipping a coin or pen through my fingers, but since I didn't know what 'stimming' was I thought nothing of it.

But this other morning, it was crazy the NEED I felt, like I was going to pop if I didn't do it. I ended up just twisting my hands in my lap until the sermon was over and then when I finally did move my hands the way I wanted to, I felt this intense sensation of relief and it was like I reconnected somehow to who I was as a kid. I'm not describing this well but it was SUCH a strong...SOMETHING. I don't know what happened. Now I'm sitting here bouncing my leg up and down like crazy and it feels awesome but I know if my family sees it they're going to give me grief.

Can Aspergers get 'worse' after getting 'better'? Could coming here and reading about Aspergers be affecting me? Has anyone else experienced this? What's going on with me?

It could be a sensory thing, or you may have some ADHD chemistry going on at the moment. I spent a lifetime undiagnosed, and all these symptoms eventually started getting extreme when I was in my forties.

I now have a habit of shaking my arm from time to time, and I definitely bounce my leg often; that I have done all my life. I probably always wanted to do the arm thing, but suppressed it. I know stimming is good for self-regulation, so I allow myself to do it when I am not in a situation where it would be considered inappropriate. I make dance movements in public often. People don't mind. Some smile, some say, "Hey, YOU look happy!"

If you found yourself twisting your arm, it could definitely be related to sensory overload or some other kind of overload. Your body wants pressure on the joints. It happens to me in a meltdown, the twisting and writhing (and shaking my arms).

Thanks for replying!
I was pretty stressed out at the time because my kids were acting up, so maybe it was sensory overload. You mentioned ADHD chemistry, could that be affected by diet? My eating habits have changed in the past few weeks (high protein), maybe that has something to do with it.
Thanks again!

I didn't start hand flapping til last year, before that I would sometimes shake my arm up and down in a jerky motion while making a weird noise (iy,iy,iy,iy,iy kind of a noise), or bounce my leg. I always thought it was just a normal nervous tendency, as I didn't find out about AS til last nite. I thought it was a little weird, the flapping, when that started last year. I was working as a truck driver, and when I would become drowsy while driving, it would make me understandably nervous. I found flapping to be soothing, and it also helped keep me awake. But then I started to get the urge to do it at other times, and I remember thinking "Oh great, thats all I need is another weird quirk. Like I don't have enough already."
I can control it, but when I finally get to do it, there is definitely a massive sense of relief.
it's weird, I figured out on my own that I have a disorder, but instead of feeling bad about it, it's kind of nice to at least have a name for all these strange quirks, and to know there's a reason for it all. But I am glad that I didn't figure this out til later in life, because I had to develop strengths to deal with it on my own, or at least compensate for it. Had I found out early in life, maybe I would have let it be more of a disability, and possibly even crippled myself with a 'poor me' attitude.
As for flapping, and possibly other things that come with AS, coming and going or waxing and waning as years pass, I don't surely know. I just hope I don't get any worse, it's bad enough as it is. And I don't mean that in a bad way, I actually like my quirks, they kinda make me unique, colorful in a world full of gray people.

Hi Huggs! Thanks for the reply.

I'm going through this exact thing...someone sent me one of those online tests a few weeks ago and it was like a light just came on. I've been researching, reading, and lurking here since then. It was so amazing to be able to tell myself "You're doing REALLY WELL for someone with a disorder" instead of "You suck at being a human", which is what I've been living with for my whole life.

When I was a little kid, my gay cousin told me to pretend I was playing the drums if I couldn't stop flapping my hands. I've learned to redirect, mostly.

But lately I've been just flapping my hands whenever the urge strikes me. If it makes people uncomfortable, that's their problem, not mine. Of course, women can probably get away with it without getting arrested a lot easier than guys.

Hahaha I told my ex about AS last nite, and described a bunch of the symptoms to her.
As I was telling her all these ways that AS influences behavior and personality, she kept agreeing with them, saying thing like "Yeah, you always were pretty anal, to the point that it drove me nuts alot of the time." And
"I always thought you just talked really loud sometimes and really quiet at other times because you just wanted to"
Then I told her about flapping, and she was like "Ok, now that one's weird"
She kept making fun of me about the different things, not in a mean way, in a friendly, loving way.
Then when she said about flapping being weird, I just explained it like this
"Remember back when we were together, how at nite when we laid down for bed, how when I would stretch and yawn, and my legs would shake like they were having some kind of little mini-seizure, independant of the rest of my body? Kinda the same thing with flapping. (In fact, I'm pretty sure the leg shaking is pretty much the same thing, brought on the same way as flapping) It's a release of physical and emotional energy.
She seemed to grasp it better then, but still teased me lol.

I remember seeing an episode of the Simpsons when I was a kid and the Simpsons were new, and pretty cutting edge for their time. Lisa was being pretty philosophical with Bart, asking him things like "If a tree fell in the forest..."and one of the things she asked Bart was "What is the sound of one hand clapping"
Bart flapped one of his hands, as to make his fingers swing down and make a clapping noise against his palm, as a smart aleck response to her question.
At the time, and for many years after, I didn't know why something so small and insignificant stuck with me.
But that is just the way that I flap now, it even makes the clapping sound, which for whatever reason I find soothing too. The little clap at the end of each swing of the hand seems to 'complete' each swing, I don't know exactly how all you guys flap, but that's my way.
I also twist my hand sometimes, it sorta looks like I'm throwing up gang signs, but the flapping is the most common hand thing for me.
Maybe you guys could describe some of your flapping gestures, or even other physical manifestations of AS? Or is there a different thread for that? I don't wanna clog up the works lol

I turn my arm rapidly from the elbow, relaxing my wrist and my fingers go flying; I guess it's the same motion you would use to shake a can of hairspray. It drives my dogs nuts because they've never seen me do it before now...They get all excited and think it's play time. The leg bouncing seems to make them uneasy, as they will generally leave the room when I do it.

Cuterebra, why do you think hand flapping is considered less unusual in women?

I don't think it's considered less unusual in women. But weirdness is generally considered more threatening in men than in women, and so we can get away with behavior that might be enough to get a guy arrested.

I stim more when I am stressed. I didn't know what I was doing was stimming either until recently (like most people it seems like), but I demand to stim when I am stressed.

I like doing that too. Since I found out I'm autistic, I sort of 'let myself go' and started doing things like that more often, not only during a meltdown. It feels good, and from all that I've learned, it's good for me.

I incorporate stimming/flapping like that in my dancing now. In fact, dancing has always been my 'socially-more-acceptable' way of stimming before I even knew what stimming was, but I am allowing myself weirder movements now. Dancing to heavy rock music accommodates those kinds of things. I've sometimes wondered how many head-banging rockers are actually autistic.

Here's a helpful article I found shortly after being diagnosed. I noticed I was "getting worse" and wondered why. There's a term for it....post-diagnostic regression.


http://www.autistics.org/library/more-autistic.html

I think I'm having that now that I'm going to a therapist to aid me in getting on Social Security Disability. I just felt like I was getting odder and freakier.

This is something I totally agree with, and that Ive posted before that I think telling kids they have a disorder is not such a good thing, I too only found out late in life and I too worked hard using intelect and sheer force of will to live a moderatly successfull life, Ive allways been employed for instance.
Well done.

Haha, I've done that drumming thing all my life and I still do it daily. (patting myself on the legs, usually.) Haven't thought about it before, but it must be another one of my redirected stims.