I don't stim. Does stimming help?

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I don't tend to stim very often. I dunno why, but I just don't. I'm an extremely stressed out aspie, and I have been all my life. I used to stim when I was younger but I stopped due to bullying and disapproving looks from teachers at school. Since I stopped, I've been stressed out constantly. What should I do?

Just do something like tapping your feet or tapping your legs up and down or something. Find something that works for you. I still stim in social situations, I really can't help it. I do try to stop, but once I stop, I feel like I need to really release energy off and have to do it again.

Restless leg syndrome got me through life as an odd NT. No one really bothers after a while (its medical)

Yes it does help. If someone is around I hum, but if no one is around that cares I sing, sometimes repetitively. If Im laying in bed shaking one of my feet or legs helps alot and if I wake up and want to go back to sleep it also helps. Stress is really unhealthy for you, I hope you can do some thing to feel better.

Stimming is very comforting to me which I do in the privacy of my own home with my diecast toy. But, when I'm out and around people I tend to rock back and forth. But rocking is nothing like stimming with my toy at home because I can let it all hang out. I stim like crazy when I'm stressed.

a lot of my stims are vestibular (movement) and they are helpful if i'm feeling restless. settles my mind.

My ASD therapist would say that I don't really stim (or not at all) either. I came to disagree with that idea. My parent's former boyfriend really hated what I was like in my teens and abused me for my "nervous" movements and noises (stims and tics).

Let's say that I feel inclined to or simply spontaneously start finger flicking (only learnt recently it's called that) when I'm somewhere important/somewhere people pay attention to me - it got stuck somewhere in my mind not to do it when I at a moment I have the option to suppress it, so I'll quickly and intuitively change to biting my lip or the insides of my cheek. Unlike finger flicking, nobody notices that albeit it's a much more unhealthy "habit" that leads to self-inflicted injuries. Sure, it's all about tiny damage that's hardly visible but even tiny damage is damage and that makes it bad. Now, when I happen to talk to someone who looks at me, chewing on my lip so I intuitively end up picking on my nails and the skin around them. Not so good either, it hurts and it's so awkward and annoying to bleed from a finger!

My therapist and some of the ASD-savvy specialists I met totally think I don't need to stim and how that enables me to pass off as fairly normal.

I kind of think that chewing on your lips or the insides of your cheeks, biting your finger (totally makes for a thinking pose depending on how its done), picking at your nails and skin or scratching yourself are totally stimming. Besides that these habits are painful, awkward and annoying, surely my body won't regenerate as quickly in another 5 or 10 years as it does now.

And this form of stimming doesn't function nearly as well as finger flicking (or flapping or humming or repeating words or spinning in a circle...) functions for me to stimulate/focus/ward off overload and stress! Considering I do a lot of things that people consider difficult or ASD-unfriendly (all which I try to do "my way" but it's hard to figure out "my way" sometimes), I need all the calm and energy that I can get and need to deal with stress as well as I can.

So, I've been thinking to myself recently: I need to stop this. To hell with those oh-so-smart folks who claim this is much better and more favourable than, for example, flapping hands or flicking fingers.

I never stim either, not really. I never do in public (never have done) so I sort of don't do it at home either. The only thing I do is bite my nails, which is good enough for me.

I am a very, very stressed out Aspie though.

I, too, eliminated most of my stimming due to a sense of it making me stand out to much in society (long story, it's not as bad as it may sound).
Naturally, at first, this caused me to bottle up a lot of stress and frustration. I have learned to divert most of that stress through my preoccupations/hobbies/special interests. Beside those, I also take long, long walks (at least an hour a day, but I realise that doesn't work for everybody), and I listen to music.

What I'm trying to get at here, is that I have found that a better alternative to stimming when you want to relieve stress, is to pursue those things that interest you or otherwise soothe you. If you can find those, embrace them when you're feeling down. I sometimes say to myself: "Okay, right now I'm feeling quite gloomy". Then, I consciously look for something I genuinely enjoy, and just go for it, lose myself in it. Just to put a little smile on my face, that's the first step, and it already relieves some stress. The second step in relieving stress lies in the satisfaction I get from my activities. For example drawing, the process of drawing something, and the end result. Very satisfying, confidence-building and stress-relieving. Or learning something new about my favourite subjects, like dinosaurs or Indonesian culture. It feels like conquering new ground, and it soothes me.
Music is perhaps my favourite art at the moment (while I myself am a painter rather than a musician, I enjoy listening to music more than looking at paintings), and it has an effect of me of emotional relief. My second favourite art for this purpose would be film, followed by literature.

So yes, I have experienced that good alternatives to stimming can be found- but they differ according to our personal preferences and whims.
Also, please remember that they may not relieve ALL your stress completely. I occasionally still suffer meltdowns, or I can walk around with uncurable frustration some days. Don't think that there is a magical cure that will work at all times, you are only human, and there is no shame in being afflicted with this particular human inconvenience.

Depending on the activity/occurrence and the type of stim involved, it can either help calming myself, providing input or help retain information or aid in communication. I'm sure this is not necessarily true of all persons on the spectrum...

I don't recall doing anything repetitive as a kid.

But when I turned 21, I started stimming. It's taken more than 10 years to admit that this is the best term to describe my "habits", though. Before I thought they were tics--something totally out of my control. I DO have tics, but I also think I stim quite a lot. I wouldn't say I like them, but I'm certainly not as bothered by them as I probably *should* be. My repetitive thoughts can have a soothing quality to them--like they wrap me up in nice impenetrable self-contained blanket. But sometimes they are too distracting and make me feel lost and crazy.

I wish someone could explain to me why my life seemed to change once I entered adulthood. Does a certain hormone cascade kick in when you turn 21 and take you to Crazytown? The late onset of my movement issues are what have me convinced that I'm actually on the schiz spectrum. Schiz's frequently develop movement weirdness spontaneously later in life, and this hypothesis works with my family history.

Yes, it helps.

Surely the obvious answer is to start again.

I think I do, but I can controll it and not really do it when Im around people.

If you're an Aspie and don't stim, there's two possibilities. One, you've trained yourself out of it for some reason--being told repeatedly to sit still and stop fidgeting, maybe. Or, two, your neurology simply doesn't benefit from repetitive movements, so you stopped stimming for the most part at the same time NT children do--around the age of three or four.

(Yes, NT toddlers stim. Not as extremely as autistic toddlers, but they do. Toe-walking, rocking, bouncing, mouthing things... etc. Why d'you think baby toys usually have such interesting sensory qualities? It's all about teaching your sensory system how to interpret your surroundings. Once they've learned what's important and what's not, they stop doing it. Autistics apparently find it useful life-long.)

Sure, you could try it, but it wouldn't be too odd if you found that you really and truly don't need to stim and don't benefit from doing it. Autistic people are all so different from each other. Stands to reason that there'd be a few here and there who don't need or like to stim.

Masturbating involves repetitive movements. Does that count?

I always thought I have severe OCD but maybe it's only stimming...I don't know.