Autistic Stims & Stimming Explained (Autism)

"Stims" or "stimming" are words for autism actually more descriptive for the non-autistic observer than the autistic person. For us they are "self-soothes" and have been called that by Prof. Tony Attwood.
Stims are repetitive or unusual movements or sounds someone might make to calm down, regulate emotions or simply keep entertained. Every person effectually stims, even babies.
So stimming feels freeing. It feels energizing, calming and relaxing for us. It feels like whatever you need at the time you need it. It is the solution to coping with everything. It makes all of the unbearable things more bearable. It gives us something to help us live in a wild and unaccepting world.
In situations where someone physically held my hands or legs from moving, or told me to stop, or gave punishments for my stims it felt terrible. It feels like I am trapped. It is such disappointment that this thing that had so much power to make me feel better had been stolen from me.
Stimming is what is done because it helps regulate us and our emotions. So taking stimming away is taking our way to cope. It is making sure that everything that is an awful experience for us continues to be awful. It is taking our autonomy from us.
As we gain experience and age we learn to hide our stimming using things in our pockets ìnconspicuously, or necklaces or whatever.
Stimming is not our biggest problem in life. I know it must be scary and challenging to have a disabled child. I know it was scary and challenging to be a disabled child. No matter how many stims we are taught not to do, we are still going to think differently and do things differently that gets us bullied anyway.
I do know that we are going to learn that this world was not made for us, anyway. Does not accept us. And if you take away our stims, I know we are going to know that you do not accept us either. This is all very sad but also reality.
Life will have many things besides stimming that are going to be very hard for us. And we have to think, act and react "different" which brings those discriminations upon us. We all have our lot in life, help us learn ours.
Love us, we will love you. And when we are young please tell us we are autistic or have whatever disability. Otherwise we think ourselves personally wrong and bad, defective and all alone, guilty and our own personal fault for our problems, deficiencies and inadequacies. That unknowing messes us up for years and will keep us messed up internally years after we finally learn that truth.
That will 🧡 help.

The flashing lights in this video introduction can hurt those autistics who are prone to epilepsy, sorry.

Thank you.

I was diagnosed later in life, around 37 years old. I still have huge imposter syndrome and people I know tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about or don’t see it because I masked it so well growing up at a time when no one new about Autism or thought it meant you were non-verbal.

As a child I would “bang”, as my family called it. While lying down I would bang my head in my pillow, sometimes for hours. If I was sitting up I would rock and hit my back up against what I was sitting on or near. It only stopped when I got married and if I fall asleep without my husband I find myself going back to rocking in bed. My alternative has been shaking my legs or taping my heel rapidly up and down. When I stand I sway. I’m a singer, so I had to learn to hyper focus and stand still holding my folder when in concert. I just stopped last month biting my nails and hope it sticks. The test will be the next time I go to a movie and eat popcorn. I should invest in gloves! I have sounds that I make that I didn’t know about till my husband pointed them out to me. He says he knows exactly what I’m thinking by the noise I make. Luckily, he thinks it’s adorable 🤣.

Thank you for this channel. It’s not just helping realize that my diagnosis is valid, but when I watch what you say clicks and helps me to see how the things I’ve built coping mechanisms for over the years can be worked through in a healthier way. Blessings!

Lmao. When the stimming of another autist is pissing me off to the point of wanting to use violence to make the distracting noises stop.

❤❤❤❤❤❤ great video

As a kindergartner, I was bullied and given a cruel nickname for flapping my hands. In high school, I used finger spelling as a silent stim that spared me the worst of the bullying, but I remained the target of ridicule and hostility for my weirdness. To me, stimming signals a level of trust that I'm in an environment where it's safe to be perceived as different.

Preparing for the diagnosis i mentioned to my wife that I do not think I have stims, or they are not visible. She laughed. Seems I have quite a few obvious ones.

When I was small and in school I used to click my pens all the time without noticing. One day a teacher humiliated me infront of the class calling me out and freaking out at my clicking. I didn't even notice! But since then I never buy clicking pens anymore. It's like I just know I'm not allowed to have one or else I would drive everyone else crazy. I didn't even know im autistic or anything about stims till now.🙈 Keeping or making rhythms in any way with my fingers or feet are my favourite stims.

Weight on the left foot....
1 .... 2 ..... 3 ... 4
Weight on the right foot...
1 .... 2 .... 3 .... 4
Repeat.

One of my absolute favourites when I'm standing in a line full of people, though I'm sure it's painfully obvious, I sway!

Can you do a video on "invisible stims". I'm struggling to understand and I've been told that I don't have autism (based on their assessment of my behavior) but I have many things I might call invisible stims. Like biting the inside of my cheek (constantly whenever I'm trying to listen), or cracking my knuckles, or wringing/rubbing my hands together (usually when I'm uncomfortable somehow). I'm pretty sure that I've gotten very good at masking because I grew up as the youngest of five children, where everyone was mercilessly teased for just about any reason. I'm still trying to research, but I'm not always sure who to listen to (and I sometimes feel like my own emotional rollercoaster is unreliable).

Even in the Autistic community we still have to be considerate of each other. I sometimes find other people's stims incredibly painful and overwhelming because of my extreme sensory sensitivities. But I am always told that I have to just deal with it because people assume I am high functioning. But sometimes I get told to stop rocking or to stop my stims.

OMG Quinn, I had a meltdown from your over stimulating intro. Please post a trigger warning next time you do something like that

I have a lot of nicely snapping joints 😀 Tapping fingers is great but I'm too self - conscious about the noise usually. I couldn't live without twirling my wife's hair. Horribly unergonomic sometimes I'm afraid. Chewing my mouth, lips, and grinding teeth and scratching my head aren't too healthy in afraid. Also general constant fidgeting is a classic.

Thank you for all the advice and ideas greatly appreciate it I do have one question if you could do a video on it in comparison to our disturbing about ABA therapy and stemming I would greatly appreciate that is it bad for streaming and is it bad in general for kids with autism because I have run into parents that have autistic children and they say that ABA therapy has been the best thing that they found and they claim to save their children’s lives I have said that it is abusive and very detrimental to a child mind and can’t have bad consequences overall long-term

Thank you for informing the public 😁 but it is nesessary to have distracting music in the background???

Can you but the first part of the video as a ringtone somehow? I would like to use it as an alarm & ringer for my phone. I really like the sound. It’s like a song 🎧

Rubik's Cube has become my best friend

I've only recently noticed how much I stim. I loved spinning and doing cartwheels as a child, I danced everywhere I went, rubbing my arms, wringing my hands, chewing my cheek, and in bed I rocked, but I got shouted at for that, I fidgeted in class, so always sat on my hands and zoned out, my sensory issues where awful in school, I cried a lot. I am very tactile, many a time I was slapped for putting my grubby hands on folks fur and velvet coats. As an adult I sway, rock, dance, I use various stimming toys, but visual is my favourite, and I wire wrap/weave, which is amazing for stimming fun, I spend a lot of time in my rocking chair listening to music. My happy place.

Stimming is so helpful for me. I don't have a favourite stim toy, I just constantly bounce my legs while working and twirl my hair. These things are very common for many people but I do them with great intensity. Also, when i am overwhelmed I go lie in bed and wiggle my legs untill i am calm (not sure how to explain it). I occasionally flap my hands in various manners. Thank you for another amazing informative and positive video. You are also quite funny. Haha 😅👌🍀

Great video, man, and great info. Well done, thanks.

Awesome content!! I was stimming with my new infinity cube and a rubik's cube throughout the video. You're right, these are loud stims! When I was first diagnosed last year, I bought a fidgetland fidget ring for incognito stimming. I already owned 6 or 7 fidget spinners at that time, I just thought they were so cool! They really came into play after the diagnosis, but stimming with the spinner was openly mocked by my colleagues, equating me to a child =[.
I also tap my feet, rock, and have always had a penchant for tapping pens or clicking. There are also some vocal stims, but those might be classified tics??
Thanks for doing such thorough research and providing quality content on your channel. I like the art style and multimedia elements you employ!! Cheers, Robert.

I vape constantly. ☺️💭 Except in the hospital waiting room, which is when I have to fidget with the phone, but there's no signal and I can't play a game or read a forum, so that's frustrating and I need to be doing something not just listening to music.. That's when the loose thread inside my jacket pocket really shows its worth. 😊