How do you stim?

[Treelines]

I'm recently diagnosed Autistic, and at age 46 have recently discovered how I stim! Has anyone else discovered a stim only after being diagnosed / in middle age? I love to flick my fingers together and look at them while my fingers are fanned out - especially if I have nail polish on :) I'm slightly amused though, and my husband is confused. I'm wondering whether it's just because I'm feeling freer now?

In my assessment they said I rock, I hadn't realised.

I was diagnosed young but I apparently Stim ALL the time sometimes it is exhausting
yes I rock like a pp
“flap” my hands
do weird movements with my hands and fingers and sometimes move my hand very quickly above my head if I am under brights lights cos I like the way it interacts with the light
Jump up and down if I am happy
Bang my head against the wall if I am upset or unsettled
hit my head with hands as per above
Always moving sometimes even in bed I am moving forward and back on my side
new stim discovered recently I could not work out why I got so many bruises on my legs, found out this morning it is cos I am hitting my legs over and over again like punching myself?
really need to stop that one cos it hurts
verbal autism this is usually if something is wrong or something bothering me but also can let put a scream stim if my heart rate gets high enough doing a gym workout (not sure if that is a stim though or just screaming to get through it 😂)

I wonder whether my late diagnosis and subsequent years of masking have meant that I have surpressed my stims? And now I'm rediscovering? I'm usually very aware of doing it but also can't stop it at the same time? I'm.tge same with certain verbal / vocal stims - I always thought they were tics though?

Maybe they are tics. Tics and stims do seem very similar to me but I am not very clever
I only found out they were called stims when I joined Instagram a few years ago I learned more about myself on there and why things happen than anywhere else!

Since unmasking I definitely stim more than I used to so I must have been suppressing lots of it.

I've been in the process of unmasking for years now and am at the point where the stims just happen subconsciously.
Mainly finger rubbing, rocking and swaying when standing, tapping, ankle spinning and a few others.
I do some movements purposefully because I like the feel or sound though too such as doing a one handed clap next to my ears, moving a fidget spinner from ear to ear and fanning out my fingers so I can watch them.

I had my first damaging stim in a long time the other day though. My son who is also ASD was having a meltdown and was screaming and screaming and I ended up headbutting the door because I couldn't cope any longer. I've not done anything like that since being a teen.

I rub my forfinger and thumb together, I bite the inside of my mouth and I kind of twiddle my bottom lip. I also jog my leg up and down when sitting with my feet on the floor. When Im stressed I have been known to bite my forearm or hit my forehead with my open hand. I have noticed I rock a bit sometimes.

Most of my stims are very small, probably due to repressing them, and I only do the arm biting or head slapping in private. I would go to the loo at work and bite myself for example.

I only realised they were stims recently as I was diagnosed very late. (58) I remember being ridiculed, told off and hit for doing odd things when i was a child, so I suppose thats why my stims are mostly little secret movements I can do with fear.

Is interesting to hear everyone else and you mask
i not know how to suppress them so I guess I not mask like that. I have to mask in some ways I guess at work cos I not jumping around the office like I do when I at gym or at home
I do the biting as well sometimes really need to chew something so I do have a kids teething ring for when that gets bad

Is interesting though cos I would never say I feel autistic at all. It is other people impressions of me even complete strangers assume autism but I not feel like it I am just me and I not realise how “odd” I look compared to everyone else until I am in a video someone has taken and there just something “off” about the way I move etc
I definitely happiest at my gym though everyone so nice there

My stims are quite minimal as an adult, but I am constantly moving - rubbing my finger tips together, flicking my fingernails, wiggling / crossing my toes.

When I'm stressed or in deep focus, I constantly rub my left thigh at a point almost exactly three inches above my knee - 98% of my trousers have a hole in them at exactly that point.

If I am very, very stressed or upset, I do what we call on this board 'dino arms' or 'bunny paws' - tucking my elbows in and holding my hands at chest height.

I've found a brilliant new 'stim toy' today which isn't actually a fidget.
It's a tub with 6 different sections that each contain glitter, that you use to sprinkle on your art. Each glitter is a different colour and it tumbles around in the tub so beautifully when you spin it around.
It even sounds nice when you shake it near your ears.
It's from The Works.
I was actually looking to replace my squashy banana that popped, but the didn't have any more of those in stock.

This glitter tub is great though. Fulfils my need for visual stims, my auditory stims and tactile as I pass it from hand to hand.

That actually sounds amazing I love sparkle things!

Is clicking joints stimming? Or scratching skin lightly? Genuinely not sure but I do these a lot.

@2020DigitCombination They definitely are stims, yes.
My eldest son used to click his joints a lot.

I have several of those multi-section tubs of glitter, they're wonderful! I love moving them slowly in a rotating figure of 8 kind of movement. I have a long, rainbow ribbon on a stick that I love to twirl, it's actually a cat toy but they couldn't be less interested 😹 When I'm out and about I do the Dino arms thing, but with added in finger bending- the weirder the angle the more satisfying, I also use a yo-yo quite a lot. I stim more than ever since official diagnosis, it's almost like I have permission to be visually ND. So freeing!

@ofwarren ooooh I want a glitter tub!

I notice I fidget more than ever. I constantly move my feet when sat down and wriggle my toes when standing. Usually to my auditory stim of song of the week. I found myself rocking/swaying to it yesterday and have listened to it 50 times since yesterday 😁

I twitch my nose like a rabbit. I tried to give it up for Lent as a child.

I probably have more that I don't realise I'm doing.

I saw my finger bending on my shadow the other day when I went to pick up my DS from school. I didn't realise I did it that much. It's called hand posturing I think.
I always notice it when other autistic people do it but never realised that I actually do it a lot myself. My arms are stiff at my sides when I do it. I do notice the odd Dino arms when I'm pottering about at home though.

I keep discovering things that might actually be stims (thanks Instagram). I do whack my head when in meltdown, fortunately that's not very often as I usually shutdown. And I crack my joints, fidget constantly, fiddle constantly with earrings and necklaces. Things I did as a child were scratching the inside of my elbow (there's a word for it, I think? Can't think what it is) until it bled, snapping split ends off, and tapping each finger in turn against my thumb (even now if I start doing that I can't stop). But I mainly suppress the childhood ones so hard I got the other stims that I still do, but are less socially noticeable.

I have kept other childhood ones, I think, but am just less aware of them ...

@hoorayandupsherises is it dermatillomania?

Yes, that's what I was thinking of.

Oh! I didn't realise it had a name! I've always thought of it as a version of 'the claw' except with fingers bending at all different angles so would actually be a pretty useless claw 😹 Good job I'm not actually a dinosaur..

I'm wondering if I do this. I tend to hold my thumbs away from the rest of my hand. A bit like a raised pinky on a cup of tea type thing. I hold it stuff and away as though I don't like my thumb to touch things. If something feels unpleasant in anyway I tend to hold my hands at chest level and rapidly shake my hands on the horizontal as though trying to flick something off them. By feels I mean anything that causes an unpleasant feeling be it a physical feeling or something like a phobia type thing. If someone discussed raw eggs or wounds I'd flap. I've just realised when typing this that I hold my little fingers away from the rest of my hand too. The more agitated I feel the more I move. I think I am gradually unmasking after years of trying to be what society expects me to be.

I hold my little fingers and thumb away too. How interesting!
I don't flap but my son does. His is when he's excited about something though.
I'm going to look into this finger positioning a bit more today I think.

Music - repetitive songs
Picking my fingers
Pulling my hair at the back
Picking eyebrows - i have none due to this :(
Rocking
Glittery things
Putty pulling

I only do the obvious ones in private. I worked with sc with autism for a while and I used to try out all their stims to try and understand why they were doing it. Many of them were deeply regulating and soothing. I used to encourage my NT colleagues to try them out and I still don’t understand why they were so resistant. Back then stimming was something we were supposed to discourage - how can you discourage something you won’t even begin to attempt to understand?

Funnily enough, I didn’t recognise some of my own stims even then. One of my favourites is letting my eyes focus and unfocus on something in the mid distance.

If I’m on the phone I shake my fingers to the right of my peripheral vision. It’s so grounding and helps me concentrate.

I picked my eyebrows, hair and occasionally eyelashes when I was younger. And I dug my finger nails into my palms and bit my cheeks.

My favourite public stim is wriggling and tapping my toes.

I do a thing with my little finger too - stretching it away from the rest and sort of flicking it. Feels nice at first, but then it just hurts.

And I tap my fingers off my thumb too. Or rub the pad of my middle finger against my thumb rapidly.