Chapter Thirty-Two: Stimming

Q:		Someone mentioned to me that a lot of people on the Autism spectrum stim. What is stimming, and what are your stims?
A:		Stimming is the action of making repetitive motions such as flapping or rocking to self-sooth and mentally stimulate the brain. And yes, it is extremely common in Autistics and presents in some Aspies too.

For me, stimming isn’t something that I ever thought about much, because I haven’t experienced it noticeably. I always imagined stims as big, obvious, odd-looking movements for those with little self-awareness, which didn’t sound like me at all. However, I’ve learnt during my Aspie journey that not all forms of stimming are obvious.

For example, stims can be subtle things such as pacing or circling one’s fingers repeatedly, and some people are never consciously aware they’re doing them. Yes, even relatively normal people—well, as normal as me anyway! Then there are others who are aware of their stims but have learnt to hide them or disguise them as something else, such as coughing or moving to music. I have a friend who likes to push his glasses up his nose to hide the fact that he has a nose-rubbing type of stim. It takes away the impression of anything being “odd.” So stims are definitely not just something for the severely impaired like I once imagined.

Learning more, it turns out that a few little things I do, like bouncing my leg under the table or singing repeatedly to myself do actually have a stimming purpose. It’s interesting that I never identified these behaviors as stimming before, because I was aware they were odd and not for public viewing. I’ve always made a point to keep them subtle or not to do them in public, and I’ve been doing that as long as I can remember. I guess I just put it down to private habits.

But now that I know that stimming exists, I can see that it can appear in a range of ways, both major and minor. So, for your information, here are some of the most common types of stims:

Flapping Rocking Bouncing Spinning Jumping Pacing Toe walking Lining up objects Singing or humming Grunting Making vocal sounds repeatedly Clapping Opening and closing fists Snapping fingers Twiddling fingers Tapping fingers Nail biting Hair twisting Scratching Feeling objects Rubbing skin Sniffing Chewing the inside of lips or mouth Grinding teeth Running tongue around an object in your mouth Sucking on things Staring at lights Blinking Gazing at fingers

And I have to say, some of those surprised me. Who knew that twirling my hair could be a stim? In fact, that could explain a lot!

I had an interesting experience pointing out a stim to an Aspie friend of mine, John, not too long ago. When sitting with him at a dinner out, I noticed that he tended to bounce up and down slightly in his seat when bored or restless. I suggested to him that it looked like it could be a type of stim.

It’s such a simple thing, but he was fascinated by the realization. I assume he’d never before been consciously aware that he did bounce and/or that other people didn’t in the same manner. I wonder how many other Aspies have little stims they don’t even know about.