What are your stims?

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i'm sure this has been asked a lot, but i can't find any recent posts on it, so i decided to start a new one.

my stims are,
-flapping (especially in such a way that my index and middle fingers clap together)
-hopping
-chewing my nails or fingers or picking at my nail polish
-pacing or walking in circles (but not spinning)
-rocking back and forth
-pulling my hair (only when stressed)
-scratching my head
-chewy or squishy toys
-twisting or tightening my bracelets around my wrists (only when stressed)
-hitting things (only when stressed or angry)

my brother (who is also autistic) likes humming or making noises to stim, but for some reason it doesn't help me. that or i'm just too shy to make loud noises in public.

Mine are,

- picking skin around my nails
- biting nails
- rolling my eyes
- twitching my nose
- touching my nose/face
- pulling out facial hair
- finger movements

There's more but can't think of them at the moment. These are the main ones.

I mumble gibberish language when I think about something embarrassing or when i'm agitated I mumble gibberish language and I scratch my fingers against a surface.

I don't know if that counts as stimming but thats what I do.

Petting the back of my hair to the point my hands hurt from doing it for what can be hours sometimes.

Inhaling through nose in such a way that it vibrates the back of my palate , (similar to the sound in the grudge movie)

Rubbing soft things and sniffing them uncontrollably.

Hand flapping.

Odd jerky body movements.

Please explain this one a little more if you'd like.

These kind of vocal or musical stims sometimes help me.

Plus, I have a nasal voice and have taken speech therapy. And this might help in this area, too (like a good acting or voice class helping to develop more control and awareness)

Alone at home, I used to have a favorite soft T-shirt I liked to pull, stretch, twist and squeeze.

Now, I have a favorite pair of winter long underwear pants made of this stretchy material. And I like to pull, squeeze, twist, and stretch.

I stim a lot, recently I have realised that it is stimming in public that causes people to accuse me of being on drugs.
My stims are:

-picking and biting my finger tips and nails.
-smelling and tasting my fingers and putting things (pebbles, lego tires etc) in my mouth.
-I play with objects frequently, (e.g. trying to 360 flip my phone whilst tossing and catching it).
-rubbing my head/face and forearms as well as my hands together.
-I rock when seated and pace in circles when thinking out loud. I also roll my head around a lot.
-I can spends hours just mindlessly staring into flames and feeling the sensation of heat on my face (my favorite stim).

picking and biting my nails and the skin around my nails
pacing/walking in circles
humming; sometimes whistling or singing, but I try to avoid that in public
different hand and finger movements

when i had hair, i would kind of push it against the grain or back and forth on the back of my head. now it's shaved, so... kinda killed that stim for me, which is probably a good thing. also, i don't know if it counts as a stim, but when I'm lying down, i really like to press my face into the bed or the floor. comforting somehow.
also, to a lesser extent pacing, fidgeting with small objects or pressing my nails into my hands.

I have this thing I do where I bring my hands together and tap the sides of my index fingers against my face so that my fingers come together and make a little clacking sound. I also fidget my fingers, sometimes wring my hands, and often pace or run or do a little dance.

- different variations of rocking (sometimes I stand rock back and forth between legs while turning in circles, sometimes gentle rocking in front of my PC)
-pace
- a variety of hand and finger movements, but mainly I wring them
- leg bouncing

Last edited by Logston on 04 Mar 2015, 3:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Mine used to be hand flapping but after being made fun of by my grandfather it evolves into playing with my hands and clapping. My mom actually wishes it was still hand flapping as now whenever i clap she gets scared.

-Talking to myself
-Pacing (I don't have adhd, but I find it like, REALLY hard to stay still. When I'm on the phone, having an internal conversation, or even right now typing this, I have the urge to get up and walk around the house. One of my biggest problems during presentations and speeches for my classes is that I walk around and I fidget too much)
-Playing with random objects when deeply engaged in a conversation with someone (with me, this is how people can tell my interest level, lol)
-Foot tapping

My stims are as follows

Reciting long numbers
Talking in fake languages
Biting my nails
Scratching my head
Tip-toeing
Pacing
Drawing (like mad!)
Destroying objects in my hands
Chewing on destroyed objects

I like to knead tickly blankets/yarn. The yarn has to have a specific texture so that when I draw the loose threads through my fingers, they have to tickle--most yarn is too soft or comes apart too easily or has very little texture or semi-loose threads at all, so I find it disappointing. But every so often I come across just the right kind of yarn, and especially when it's knitted into a blanket or some other article, I find it soothing to run the tickly fibers through my fingers. (Often when in the yarn section in a store I'll feel up the different skeins of yarn as I go by. )

When I was little and would do this to my blanket I would call it my "sewing blanket" because I imagined the motion of my hand toward and away from the blanket was like my mother stitching with a needle.

I also sometimes rub my feet together, or rub a foot against my leg, things like that, especially when feeling ill. Sometimes I'll rub my hands together/wring my fingers or pick at my fingernails. And I pull or chew the dead/flaking skin off my lips, but that seems to be more of a compulsion/boredom issue than a real "stim."

When nervous or bored I'll often repeatedly rub, twist, or pick at something in my possession, like the straps or leather bits on my purse, or a paper towel. I've mangled some things this way.

Other things I find soothing are the smell of rotting leaves (spicy) and damp earth, picking up and handling and flipping through books (oh, the heft and the covers and the smell and the pages), and the shushing sound of wind in leaves...I already have the books and the tickly blanket, now if my room smelled like rotting leaves and sounded like shushing leaves, I'd be set.

My stims are picking at acne, picking at my lips, biting my lips, rubbing my lips with my index finger, fiddling with my earrings and necklaces, running my tongue along my back teeth, bending the clip of pen caps, opening and closing the cap of a pen, jaw clenching, closing my eyes while on a bus/subway, pacing back and forth, pulling grass from the ground, putting my necklace in my mouth, randomly singing a song while washing dishes, and running my fingers through my hair.

I also have a blinking tic.