Talk about stimming. Do you stim? How? What are your favourite stims? Do you have different stims for when you are happy or agitated?
I’ll preface this answer by noting that, although I originally construed this as a kind of exercise in ’30 days of self acceptance’ as much as anything else, I’ve been quite self-critical or generally negative in a lot of the posts so far. I want to try and avoid that, but am quite uncomfortable at the thought that people might read these posts and think I’m mostly ok with myself. Which is ludicrous, really, but I know this is the shame talking. So I feel the need to add the caveat that when I say things that don’t seem to be pre-emptively self-critical, it’s because I’ve made a conscious effort to restrain that urge in the hope that it’ll become less difficult with time.
OK, whingeing aside, I’ll actually respond now. Though I don’t call it ‘stimming’, yes, this is absolutely something that’s a huge part of my life. Often it’s about interacting with the environment – I’m very often touching or smelling things when I’m out or about – but I do a lot of things that are more self-contained as well, from picking my fingers or biting my nails and the skin around them, to flicking my fingers or rubbing my hands together, to swaying or swinging from side to side, to fiddling with any small object that happens to be in reach, to humming to myself, to pressing on parts of my body. My fiddling drives my family to distraction, and we talked about it a bit when I was being assessed and they commented on quite a few other things I do/used to do as well – staring at the washing machine, getting distracted watching the tap or the washing up liquid bottle when stuff’s coming out of them, playing with rice – they’re a few of the things that come to mind.
I don’t have ‘favourite’ activities as such, because to me that implies that I have choice in the matter. I don’t do any of these things consciously/deliberately, and I have to admit I find it a bit odd when I read about other people ‘trying on stims’ and buying dozens of stim toys, and things like that because it’s not something that it would really occur to me to do. That said, I have tried one or two stim toys. I tried a tangle a few years ago but didn’t really get on with it. I also picked up a fidgi-flip last March, and would absolutely not be without it now – it accompanies me pretty much everywhere, though I’m still a bit embarrassed about having it on me around family and such (no surprises that my fingers and nails are a complete state having spent four weeks at home, though they’re starting to get a bit better now I’m back at uni and can use that rather than picking at my hands until they bleed).
I couldn’t really say for certain whether I act differently when happy or agitated. My parents say I get very bouncy and flappy when enthusiastic about something, and I tend to notice myself humming a lot and fidgeting when I’m agitated or anxious. It’s not always straightforward to establish that though – often I don’t notice what I’m feeling until someone else points out, or I become aware of my actions, which might then inform my interpretation of what I’m actually feeling.
You can't control me, I'm a defector 