The View from a Drawbridge

Once I got my autism diagnosis a year or so ago, I had to learn a whole new vocabulary. Neurodivergent. Neurotypical. Emotional Dysregulation. Self-Regulating. Autistic Masking. But one of the most intriguing words for me, by far, was stimming.

Stimming is short for self-stimulating behavior. It comes in many forms, and is used by autistic people to regulate their overwhelming sensory input or to increase their lack thereof. (More evidence that no two of us are alike.) It can help manage emotions, and it can be a form of distraction from unpleasant sensory input. It is a very effective coping mechanism, but it can seem strange to the outside world.

Autistic people can stim when they are stressed out or when they are excited. It can indicate frustration or boredom. It can be brought about by a change of plans or by an injury. Stimming can increase when people find themselves in loud, crowded or unfamiliar places.

Everybody is capable of fidgeting, but neurotypical people tend to stop when they realize their behavior is inappropriate or when someone gives them a funny look. Autistic people, as a general rule, don’t pick up on those signals. And if you punish or humiliate an autistic person for stimming, it may actually make the stimming worse.

Stimming comes in many forms. Here are a few of the more common ones:

Repetitive motions such as hand flapping, rocking back and forth, finger-flicking or tapping, pacing back and forth, finger-snapping, running fingers through hair, hard blinking, opening and closing doors, flicking switches, or covering and uncovering ears.

Personally, what I do most often is jiggle my leg. In high school, my leg practically vibrated any time I was sitting down. I’ve outgrown that, but when I’m particularly stressed out, it will make a brief but highly noticeable reappearance. And I’ve only recently noticed that others don’t run their fingers through their hair nearly as often as I do.

Visual stimulation can seem to the outside world as if you’re lost in thought or mesmerized. It includes things like watching things spin round and round, such as the clothes tumbling in a washer or dryer. It can be watching waves crash on the beach or focusing on the way that light moves in or around a swimming pool. It can be gazing at the fire in the fireplace. I find all of those things extremely calming. It allows my brain to go quiet for brief, shining moments.

Humming is huge for me. I do it all the time. Oddly enough, I never realized this until I went to Dental Laboratory Technology school, and the person sitting next to me in the lab pointed it out. We were sometimes in that lab for 6 hours at a stretch, and I hummed the entire time. Fortunately, she said she didn’t mind. Personally, I’d find it annoying if I were her. (How ironic is that?)

If I don’t have an earworm on a particular day, I tend to repeat one bar of music that is my “fallback hum”. I’ve hummed that same tune my entire life. The weird thing is that I don’t know where it comes from. Is it part of a television theme song? Is it a song from childhood? Is it something I heard emanating from a music box? Is it something my Danish grandmother used to sing to me? Or is it something I made up myself? I don’t know. I’ve tried several apps that were created to identify songs, and they always come up empty. It’s maddening.

Here it is. (Apologies in advance. I never said I was good at humming.) If this sounds even remotely familiar to you, please let me know!

Update: Holy smokes! Drawbridge Nation really came through this time! My father-in-law suggested that it was “Onward Christian Soldiers.” They syllables match perfectly. I’ve warped it over the years, ending each phrase on a low note instead of a high one, but I feel certain he’s correct, because my mother absolutely loved that hymn. Thanks, Roger, for ending decades of frustration for me! Another friend, Mor, concurs with his assessment.

Then, another friend, Jen, told me my hum has “Itsy Bitsy Spider” elements to it. I can see that, too. Maybe it’s an amalgam of the two songs. Maybe it’s “Onward Christian Spiders,” or “Itsy Bitsy Soldiers.” I’ll never know for sure.

Some echolalia (repeating words or phrases) can be considered stimming. But in some cases it can be a form of communication when someone is sub-verbal and can’t come up with the words they need. Sometimes it’s a way of talking oneself through a difficult situation.

For example, I’ve been known to repeat, “Not safe, not safe, not safe!” when I think the sh*t is about to hit the fan and I can’t think of anything else to say. Recently, I said, “Got to get out of here” about 100 times when I was in a situation so awful that I  felt like running and hiding. At times like those, I think of this more as a cry for help or as some necessary self-instruction rather than stimming. So echolalia as a stim is complicated.

Spinning is not uncommon, particularly in childhood. I’m too clumsy to do this, but I suspect it feels like your stress is flying off you with the centrifugal force. Nowadays I’d worry that I’d break a hip or something, so I’ll have to give it a hard no.

I do enjoy those little merry-go-rounds that you see in playgrounds, but I’d be hard-pressed to come up with an excuse or an explanation to get on one. I enjoy swings, too. (See Repetitive Motions, above.) But again, it’s hard to hang around a playground as a childless adult without looking creepy or unhinged. It’s even harder to find a swing that isn’t too low to the ground to accommodate adult legs. Given the chance, though, I’d swing for hours.

Fidgeting with things. It’s not uncommon to see someone rolling something with their fingers, or squeezing something in their hands. There’s a whole fidget toy industry out there, and I bet they make a fortune. I know that I get really nervous when my hands aren’t doing something or other. I can’t watch TV without doing something extra, like playing a game on my phone or doing some kind of craft.

 I recently heard of a really popular item called the Ono Scroller that I think I’d absolutely love, but I can’t bring myself to part with the 30 bucks it would cost to find out. Besides, I’d probably lose it. If you have one, let me know what you think of it.

A lot of autistic people have textures that they love. For me, it’s satin. If I come across ribbon or satin clothing, I can pet it like a cat for hours on end. Even if an autistic person hasn’t thought of textures in the context of stimming, I suspect that if you ask them what their favorite or least favorite texture is, they can tell you without hesitation.

I have been experimenting with making my own fidgets, using ribbons and weaving them into various forms. I really like them. I even have one on my steering wheel that helps me concentrate on driving by blocking out all the distracting stimuli. Sadly, these stims are relatively hard to conceal, and unfortunately, many people view them with the same disdain that they have for emotional support animals. (More about that in another post.)

My therapist gave me an idea for a stim that’s easy to conceal. I was expressing anxiety about an upcoming wedding reception, and he told me that sometimes you can stim without even holding anything in your hand. While you’re seated at the table, simply trace figure eights on your thigh with your index finger. It’s barely perceptible to your table-mates since your legs are concealed, and it’s very satisfying.

Once you start thinking about stimming, you’ll see it happening all around you. While it’s much more common amongst the neurodivergent, I think the world, in general, is throwing entirely too much stimulation at all of us these days. I bet stimming is increasing. I hope that means the stigma attached to it will decrease. Fingers crossed. (And uncrossed. And crossed…)

A few final notes:

1. Just because you stim doesn’t mean you’re necessarily autistic. It’s important to take into consideration the reason you’re doing it, the frequency, and your ability to stop when it’s inappropriate. If your stimming is not causing problems, though, there’s no reason to stop, in my opinion.
2. Unfortunately, self-injury can also be a form of stimming. My mother had a scar on her wrist the size of a mango pit because she constantly scratched, scratched, scratched it in times of stress. It rarely had a chance to heal.

Head banging, or anything that causes you to scar or bleed, is a form of stimming that is dangerous, to put it mildly. In cases like these, you’re well advised to seek the help of a health care provider who is familiar with autism so you can avoid doing more harm than good.

Punishing a child for these behaviors rarely has a positive outcome. It’s important to realize that this behavior is a coping mechanism, albeit a dangerous one. A professional can advise you of ways to replace harmful stimming with other forms of stimming.

It is also beneficial to reduce environmental stressors for people doing self-harm. They may need a quieter place, subdued lighting, or fewer people around, for example. Stress-reducing prescription medication can be very helpful, too.

Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) can help as well. It allows you to determine the function of the behavior. It also helps you figure out what environmental elements trigger it. Knowing these things can help you come up with alternatives.

ABA should not be confused with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT is very controversial among autistics. It is often perceived as an attempt to get us to act like a “normal” person, and therefore it sets us up for failure. We’ve been trying to mask (act like a “normal” person) for our entire lives, and that has caused many of us tremendous psychological damage. The last thing we need is some professional telling us that acting like someone other than ourselves is the only right thing to do.

A rule of thumb for stimming, in my opinion, is that if it helps you and it isn’t doing you physical harm, and if it’s not causing a disruption, then go for it. Aside from that caveat, I look at stimming as a form of self-care. Everyone should prioritize taking care of themselves, shouldn’t they? No one should be judged for that.

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