Is it ok to stim heavily as a mature adult?

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Since starting to busy myself with the topic of aspergers and since getting my diagnosis I have stopped suppressing stimming when I am alone. So when I am by myself I just do it, while engaging in my special interest. My usual stim is fairly heavy and would look very autistic if someone were to see me, so I make sure they don't. For many years I kept it suppressed but now that I know that I have AS I don't feel like suppressing it any more, at least for the time being, because it feels really good and even helps me to concentrate for long periods. On the other hand I wonder about it not being adult to do this at my age and suppose that at some time in the future I should train myself to suppress it again. I always used to wonder as a child if heavy stimming produced undesirable changes in the brain but I think that at my age I'm not too worried about that any more. Though I don't really know. I certainly count myself as less "normal" now that I have gone back to doing this but I feel it raises noticeably the level of well-being in my brain. It's a bit of a private subject to be writing about but I would be interested to hear if anyone has anything to say from a scientific or medical or personal point of view.

I don't care about what I do when I'm alone. With some of my friends (they know about my AS) I do strange thing all the time. I like to be eccentric, I need less control and it's more easy.

I don't think you should suppress it when you are alone. Everyone deserves to be themselves in private. When I am on my own I rock, hand clap when my favourite TV programmes start and sometimes I dance. If I had to act 'normal' even when I was alone I'd find that very tiring and stressful.

Interesting. I had to look up stimming. I had never heard of that term before.

When alone, no one knows or cares in my opinion. SO, whatever floats your boat.

I would think that it could have one of 2 effects.

1. Satify the need to stim so you are able to more easily suppress it when you want

or

2. Make you like a junky and increase the need to an unhealthy level

I live alone and enjoy living alone because I am able to be unrestricted in my behaviour. To see a man my age dancing around the house or singing might seem wierd but I don't care.

I don't know if I have a good grasp on the concept yet, so I may not be helping.

I tell people I'm 54 going on 15, get over it. lol

But on the surface, I say go for it.

Also, no one on this planet knows if you may be onto something that could bring about an epiphany for you. Even the "authorities" that claim to know like doctors and psychologist are still guessing based on collected data that you may or may not fit.

Trust yourself!!

If you think you're doing it too much, you probably are, if you don't, its nobody's business.

I too have decided to stop suppressing my stim after diagnosis at 50 – mine's fairly minor, and I do it in public now whenever I feel like it. I'd say, go for it! Unless you're in a job interview or something, and you haven't yet got round to disclosing your AS, obviously...

I flap my hands when I see or hear something that makes me happy. Surpressing that and other things, (which I mainly do when with other people, but often I don't really care) when you're alone, may even be bad for your mental health. I believe everyone need to be themselves for a while.

Do what you want when you are alone. If you are with others, then it depends on the type of stim. If it's too weird, it's best to suppress it, or find a non weird alternative stim to use in public. If it's not too weird, there is no need to suppress it.

One of my stims is bouncing a knee rapidly while sitting. This isn't too weird, so it's okay in public. I have occasionally had comments on it, but not often. Rocking or swaying while sitting is sort of in between weird and not weird, so it depends on the situation, but I have occasionally found myself doing it in public. Twirling a utensil or pen/pencil, etc. in your fingers is okay in public. It's kind of like doodling. I have had a few comments about it, but nothing serious. My sister cracked me up by making a comment about my doing it once. At the time she did that, I pointed out to her that she has a habit of shredding tissues and napkins without thinking. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Another stim of mine is tapping a foot up and down slowly, but over and over while sitting. This one is okay in public, too, as this doesn't look too weird.

So, do what you want in private, and do a modified--non weird version in public. And remember, stimming involves physical activity, and physical activity burns calories. If someone does bring it up, just tell them you are burning calories.

I'm still learning. Thanks to all of you for your comments.

Stimming as I first read about it is defined as "self stimulatiing activity that stimulates one or more of the senses"

Initially I took that as a controlled activity.

These comments suggest that often it is an uncontrollable "twitch" or physical movement.

I'm curious how often it requires conscious suppression and which senses it stimulates and what advantage there would be in allowing it to continue uncontrolled. Other than possibly relief from the mental strain required to suppress it.

drooling - maybe a bad example.

If I am prone to drooling, then in public I will constantly monitor.

In private i may just wear a bib and forget about it.

flapping hands however might cause damage to the wrist or you might hit yourself or something so I would think you would always monitor, even in private.

Does it help to think or relax, if you aren't having to worry about the stim?

Does "self-stimulation", or stimming have a positive effect such that you would encourage or start it in certain circumstances?

Singing and dancing, excercise or martial arts training, don't really seem to fit the comments made here in that they represent self stimulation that is theraputic or help to block out the real world for a little while.

I understand if I need to go elsewhere to learn about this

I apologize - I re-read the first post and believe answered my questions.

I'll be quiet now.

Thanks for replying to my post . If you're interested in learning more about the subject of stimming there are articles on the internet about motor stereotypies in autism. There are long, long lists of them for parents of autistic children. They are the repetitive physical movements which you see severely autistic people do in documentaries about autism, like rocking back and forward for hours or playing with water or (I suppose) banging your head against something until the care staff intervene (I have never done that). Because I have classic autism stims I think of that as stimming but I think a lot of people do more harmless, fidgety things which don't need to be hidden to quite the same extent. In public I don't stim, though I have tics as a result of suppressing the stims and then need to suppress the tics, which means that I end up blinking all the time like a demented owl.

Again, behind closed doors is nobody's business. But if I were to see someone stimming in public I would instantly think they were the most interesting person there and want to join them

Since I realized I'm an Aspie, I've been actively exploring stims. I've always been into rocking chairs and porch swings, but I'm rediscovering spinning.

I'm finding that deliberately stimming helps reduce my overall stress level . . . and being newly unemployed, studying to update certifications and likely to be moving to start a new job in a new city, I have plenty of stress to experiment with.

I'm tempted to check out the local parks to see if there's a swing set that has swing seats wide enough for my bottom

In answer to your question, when you're home, stim as needed. I'd even go so far as to say that family/housemates/etc can get a grip. If you have trouble suppressing it when put among others, where you would want to suppress it, find socially-acceptable stims that work for you.

I'm with everyone else.

When you're in public, you have to suppress it or find something socially acceptable to substitute. I think that's stupid, but neurodiversity is a pipedream and your choices are fit in or pay the price.

When in private, do whatever makes your little heart happy. Your stimming harms no one, and it helps you, and there's no one around to judge.

I would say go for it, especially if you enjoy it or it helps you relax.

There's also mental, visual, auditory, and other sensory stims. Mental is where you think about things over and over again and get a little mental "high" off it, like I have a habit of re-reading emails and forum posts over and over again trying to "feel" them in different ways, and a parent posted how her son likes to constantly repeat mathematical calculations out loud. Visual stims are where you are looking at things and finding patterns in things, but more in an obsessive-compulsive way versus consciously trying to focus attention in order to find a pattern. This is why puzzles and games of all sorts are a form of stimming for me. I still remember being on a train with a boyfriend, and this was about 10-11 years ago now, and we were quiet at the moment when I started staring at the ceiling fans and realized that one of them was a different type because it had 4 fan blades instead of 5. (If they weren't different, I would have picked one to focus on and watched the spinning blades.) I commented about it out loud, which my boyfriend didn't care, but the guy one seat up heard me, checked for himself, and then turned around and told me that I was really observant. I thanked him for them compliment, but noticing patterns (or inconsistency in patterns, as the case may be) was something I do all the time, so I didn't think of it as being "really observant," something which actually always confused me growing up that other people didn't notice these kinds of things. I know now that it wasn't a matter of being really observant as much as it was a matter of me visually stimming, because our conversation had died and I was bored and I needed something to stimulate me. At work I tend to chew on paperclips or the ends of pens and pencils or I'll twirl a rubber band around my fingers constantly. I can't twirl a rubber band when I'm typing or writing, so when I'm doing those things (i.e. work-related things), then they keep me and my mind occupied enough that I don't need to stim, but there are times when I need to take a moment, look out the window and just not work, and that's typically when I realize my leg or foot has started up bouncing or I've grabbed a rubber band again without thinking. I just have to watch myself and make sure I get back to work or else I might do that for a couple hours straight and not get any work done.